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I’ve always stressed the fact that bloggers always need to proofread and edit their posts at least once or twice before they hit the publish button. You need to proofread your article’s title, its subtitles, headlines, paragraphs, and every word you’ve written. Apart from that, a blogger should make sure that all the links in their posts work and point where they should. The images and formatting should all be checked over and in place before the post even sees the light of day. However, some bloggers don’t understand this concept and think it’s no big deal if their articles contain errors.

But it is a big deal, as you can lose valuable readers and subscribers if the quality of your writing is low. For example, I was just browsing through my Google Reader subscriptions today and started to read three articles I hadn’t checked yet under one new blog I’d subscribed to. In the first article, I noticed several bad English mistakes and even a few misspelled words (and that was only in the first paragraph), which definitely wasn’t giving me a good impression. However, I continued, and noticed that all three of the posts were this way. After that, I made a mental note to unsubscribe from this blog when I got the chance.

I’m not saying that each article should be completely perfect, and I understand that everyone makes mistakes - I do all the time. But by having a professional blog, you’re putting yourself in the business of writing, so you should at least take the five to ten minutes required to reread, proofread, and correct your post of all typos before you hit that publish button. Even better, read over it yourself and then get a friend to read over it for you. A second opinion can make a huge difference, and that person can point out errors that you might not have noticed or even known were wrong. You could also get opinions on the post itself, and make sure you’re getting the point across clearly enough.

Part of being a professional and authoritative blogger is making an impact with the articles you create and with your writing, but you won’t ever be able to do that if your work is constantly full of mistakes. Instead of making a good impression and leaving people in awe, or making them think that they need to subscribe because they can’t miss anymore of your articles, you’ll be giving them the opposite reaction.

So the next time you write something, make a promise to yourself and to your readers that you’ll look over and edit it before releasing it. Write, reread, proofread, edit, get a second opinion from someone you trust, and then rinse and repeat. If you really want to make a bang with your articles, consider trying other helpful tips to improve your writing. Set a schedule, create outlines and rough drafts, and more. Don’t waste a good idea on a poor quality post, especially when that idea could be a big winner. Steal the spotlight and make an impact with your writing. With your new post, take the quality up a notch and leave your readers pleasantly surprised.

To read how you can fully write that killer post, check out an article I wrote in the past, 8 Ways to Write a High Quality Post, which contains ideas for preparing, researching, writing, and more.

Good luck with writing that excellent post, let us know how it goes, and if you need any help feel free to ask. The comments are open, so go ahead and share your experiences with proofreading and writing well, and if you’ve ever unsubscribed or stopped visiting a blog because of the writer’s poor English and spelling mistakes, let us know how you felt.

photo credit: *madalena-pestana*

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Links posts or roundup posts are ones in which a blogger links to different articles on other sites. These articles should be ones the blogger finds funny, interesting, helpful, etc. and that will provide value to the blogger’s readers. Some bloggers only do occasional link posts whenever they see fit, and other bloggers will have them on a regular basis, such as weekly or monthly.

I’m composing this article because link roundup posts are extremely common in the blogosphere, but they don’t get much attention. Link love posts here at Super Blogging used to be a weekly occurrence every Friday - and now they’re bi-weekly, every other Friday. You can view the archives of link roundup posts here.

There are a few different reasons why I began doing the roundup posts less often. Firstly, it’s because the weekly quantity of content here has decreased to about two or three posts a week, which I feel is currently a good amount. Continuing to have a link post a week would really drown out the other content. Apart from that, it felt that the roundups were just a way to add some filler content, and they were something no one took seriously. Link posts can add some great value to a blog, but only if they’re done right and not as a way to just add more content.

So how do link posts add value to a blog? Let’s take a look.

How Link Posts Add Value

Show your readers what YOU’RE reading. By linking out to others on your blog, you’re giving your own readers an insight to the blogs you love and learn from. This way, if they’re not readers of the same blogs you are, you could introduce them to new resources. But if you’re constantly linking out to the same blogs each week, your readers could already be reading them and it would get old.

Link out to your blogging friends. The blogosphere is a very active and social community, as if you didn’t already know. Networking and building relationships with fellow bloggers is very important, and what’s an easier way to do that by exchanging links and helping each other out in terms of getting new readers and improving SEO? However, again, make sure to offer diversity in your roundups and don’t link to someone solely because they’re your friend - provide value.

Generate traffic from your roundups. Linking out to others doesn’t always have to be a totally selfless act. By doing this, bloggers are going to check their trackbacks and see who’s linked to them - thus visiting your blog and bringing you some more traffic. Also, if you can make your link roundups look more like a resource list, they could generate some success in social media as well.

Help the beginners. With Super Blogging growing more and more everyday, I occasionally get emails from people asking me if I’ll link to certain articles they’ve written on their own blogs. I honestly don’t mind helping out at all and if it’s a relevant, well-crafted article that can benefit my own readers, I’ll be glad to share the link love.

Provide plenty of information in one place. If you manage to compose your link roundup post successfully, it can be an excellent resource for anyone who views it, helping both you and your readers. Hours of reading and learning can sometimes be generated from one simple roundup, making it an excellent place to gather and share information.

As you can see, roundups offer plenty of benefits to both the author of the blog they’re on and the readers. However, there’s a difference between a good link roundup post and a great one, one that provides the most knowledge and entertainment possible.

How To Compose A Good Roundup

Organize your link roundup posts. Make sure all of the links and articles featured are on one topic, and that that topic pertains to your readers and will be once that they’re interested in. Make sure the links are arranged in some kind of order - whether it be by sub-topics or order of importance or quality. If you want, you can merely link to the posts, or include an icon, excerpt, or description to go with them - it’ll be a little more work but your readers will appreciate it.

Make sure everything works and looks good. Make sure all the links work and point to the right places, and double check that you’ve got the names of the articles and sites right. While you can always go back and edit the post later, it’s so much better to proofread and not make the mistake in the first place, so check for broken links and spelling mistakes, as you should with any other article you publish.

Make the roundup post eye-catching. Create your own special image or header if you plan on doing regular link love posts, or come up with a catchy name. For the link roundup posts here at Super Blogging I nicknamed them ‘The Best of the Blogosphere‘ and made a logo to go with it, at the top of the post. This draws your readers’ attention and even generates more traffic to the roundup.

Now that you know how to create an excellent roundup for your own readers, the rest is up to you. Are they going to be a regular thing on a certain day of the week, or just whenever you’ve gathered up enough good content to create such a post? How often do you publish new content? Make sure your link posts don’t overrule the other content, and make sure they haven’t just become filler - a post that you create just to have more content, and one that no one reads anyway.

Let us know how you feel about link love posts. Do you have them on your own blog, and if so, how do you organize them and how often do you publish them? As a reader, do you tend to skip over roundups on your favorite blogs or do you delve deep into them and spend quite a bit of time reading? Share your thoughts!

photo credit: monkey123

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I recently received a comment from Wayne Liew on this post stating that Super Blogging seriously needs to offer a full RSS feed. I will explain all about Super Blogging’s feed and subscription options later in this post, but what Wayne Liew said really got me to thinking - what do readers like more, and which is more sensible - full or partial RSS feeds?

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Writing a high quality article is certainly not an easy task. You already know how to write a successful post, but now you’re going to learn how to write a high quality post effectively and understand how to be productive when creating your articles. Combine productivity and an amazing post each day and you’ll have a goldmine of valuable content on your hands.

1. Close everything else you have open.

While it might be hard to completely distance yourself from everything you do online during the day, all of those distractions can not only make writing a post take a lot longer, but they can also ruin the quality of your post as well. When you open up Wordpress or your writing program, close everything else - the internet, any instant messaging systems, and make sure you log out of your email - you don’t want to be tempted! If you need to, leave an online page open for research or reference, but make sure you don’t stray off to any other sites that’ll just prevent you from doing your work.
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photo credit: Davichi

There are so many different kinds of ranking systems, numbers, and graphs out there to determine how successful your blog or website is. There is Google PageRank, Alexa, Compete, Technorati, IZEA RealRank, and plenty more. And apart from those there are top lists and ranking systems created for niche sites, like the Top 100 Make Money Online Blogs. All bloggers that are working for growth, improvement, and money will know and check these rankings - some even obsess over them. But do they really matter?
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