Top Three Begginner Steps to Optimize Your Blog: Wow You Got a Blog! Now What?

Blogging is the new face of promotion and advertising.  There are a lot of free sites offerring free blogging service. The most prominent ones are Blogger and Wordpress.

You wanted to start your own blog maybe out of purely personal or business reasons, or a hybrid of both. And now you have one, but what do you do from now on?

Here some simple steps for newbies to optimize your blog and gaining the readership that you want over time:

1. Try to change your blog's template.

By this, I mean personalize your blog page. The free blogging sites have default templates which you can choose from, but, these default templates can sometimes turn off readers. And yes they can get really boring. Remember, your blog will tell something about you or your business, and how its looks may make or break your blogging career. Think of a template as your outfit when you go out of your house. Other prople can already form an idea about who you are with the clothes that you are have and how you wear them. The same goes with blogs. As the saying goes, first impression lasts.

Here are some sites that you can check if you are interested for other templates besides the defaults ones offered by your host:

For Blogger Users

Btemplates
Blogger Template Blog
Deluxe Templates

For Word Press Users

Top WP Themes
WordPress Themes Base
Templates Browser

2. Update your blog regularly.

Most bloggers just rode the hype of blogging, and after the first post, they just disappeared into oblivion never to come back again. Of course in order for the web spiders to index your blog fast, you need to update it five times a week at the most preferable rate. Spiders love updates. Also, nobody wants to read your post that was last dated 2003. Hello, dude. It's 2010 already! Keep your readers on their toes by providing them news on your recent activities. Remember, content also matters. Write original content to avoid having a bad reputation around the blogging community as the big blogging copycat. After all, there are people who do get interested if they notice that your post is something they have never seen before. Or something that they know of, but has been given your personal twist. Be creative.

3. Comment on other people's blog.

The Blogosphere is a community of other people from different places in the world. That means there is a plethora of other individuals out there who may have the same or different idea - and also infinite opportunities to get to know some of them as you delve your way into the blogging world. Drop by a blog, and most importantly, don't forget to likewise drop a comment. Giving out comments is the main method of bloggers to interact with each other. If you put a really useful or interesting comment on a other people's blog, chances are, other users would click on your link, see your profile and, additionally, your blog too.

These are just simple tips that you can undertake when starting out as a blogger. Happy blogging!

New-Bee Guide to Cookies: Are They Good for Your PC's Health? Distinguishing Between First Party and Third Party Cookies

Now we all know that there are a lot of misconceptions and myths about cookies and that the internet cookie is generally as harmless as its edible counterpart. But are all cookies good? Or are there other cookies that we might need to be concerned about?

Now there are two types of cookies - the one we call first party cookies and the third party cookies.

First party cookies are cookies which are sent by the main site that you are visiting. Like for example, if you log in to blogger, the blogger server will place a cookie text file to your computer that serves as your identification, so that the next time you will visit the site, the server will recognize you and provide for automatic log in. First party cookies are usually more of a help than a harm, because they come from the trusted sites that we habitually go to.

Third party cookies on the other hand, are cookies coming from any domain that can track your browsing activity. Advertisement banners or pop up ads usually lodge  cookies into your computer even though you do not want them or you do have any interest in visiting the said domains. This is the kind of cookie that we may want to avoid because they just basically sort of barge into the connection between the browser and the main site server and can sometimes get really annoying (You know how those pop ups are.)

Oh No You Don't!: Blocking Third Party Cookies

If you do not want advertisers to go on sneaking on your cookies whenever you visit a site which has sponsored advertisements, you might want to block them from accessing your computer cookies or placing tracking cookies. If you are using a Firefox browser, you can disable third party cookies by following these steps:

1. Click the Tools tab at the top of the Firefox browser. A drop down box will show up.
2. Click Options, that is usually found at the lowermost portion of the drop down box.

3. Go to the Privacy section of the Options panel box.
4. Uncheck the Accept Third-Party Cookies option box.

5. Click OK. You have now prompted Firefox to block third party cookies.

Now these cookies are, again, generally harmless. If you are, however, a person who wants his internet activity de-cluttered of most internet pop up ads, you better disable those third party cookies or install pop up ad blockers. There are some websites though, that use third party cookies like Microsoft Hotmail, MSN, and Windows Live Mail Webmail, and blocking third party cookies can pose a complication when you are users of these sites.

So you decide. Cookies aren't the scariest thing on the internet after all.

New-Bee Guide to Cookies: Crumbling the Cookie Myths

World-renowned author Wayne Dyer once said that the highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about. That is why you do not have to join the ranks of those people who readily shun things they do not understand - like those who reject cookies for example.

Maybe it is from too much intake of wrong assumptions or from overly irrational fear, that a harmless text file of computer identification became a sensational thing to avoid in the internet world. So let us pull out the weeds from the garden of your knwledge and clear up what a cookie really is and what it is not.

Here are three of the most common misconceptions about cookies:

Myth no. 1:  Cookies are a form of virus or worm.

A virus is a computer program that has the ability to replicate itself and invade a computer. A worm is also a program that has self-replicating capability which uses computer networks to spread. A cookie on the other hand, is a mere text file. It is not a program. And it cannot, in any way, duplicate itself. A cookie, therefore, cannot logically be considered a virus or a worm.


Myth no. 2: Cookies are spyware that give out your personal information

To see what details do an internet cookie hold, you could view my post about what a cookie is all about. As you can see with the image of a sample cookie from problogger, a cookie may contain details about the type of browser you use, IP address, or information you yourself have willingly given to a site, such as your username. This is to help you log in automatically if ever you return again to that site. Remember, under normal circumstances this exchange of information is only between you and your trusted site. You usually exchange first party cookies. What advertisers use, on the other hand, to infiltrate you with pop ups and other ads are third party cookies, which can appropriately be blocked by changing your browser settings. Spywares are computer malwares that can collect more information and can redirect your web browser activity or cause installation of additional software to your computer. A cookie absolutely does not and cannot do that!

Myth no. 3: The best way to get rid of cookies is to delete or disable them.

Yes, you do have options to delete all cookies or do it manually, and even disable them altogether depending on your internet browser - but these steps are not really that advisable.

On deletion of cookies: Cookies are there to make internet browsing easier for users. Instead of repeatedly entering your username or password repeatedly on textboxes, cookies can help users automatically log in to sites. They can also help an online shopper remember what they would want to place on their shopping cart. If you are using a personal computer, do not delete your cookies at all as they are of more help than harm. If you are, however, accessing in an public cafes or internet shops, it is recommended to delete your cookies after surfing.

On disabling of cookies: It is a very bad idea if you disable all cookies and it could cause major problems for you when you are surfing the web. Almost all of the websites in the online world, especially those you use frequently (like blogger or facebook for example) use cookies when establishing a connection with your browser. If you disable your cookies, you might not as well use the net at all. You can, however, block the kind of cookie that is called a third party cookie to minimize other servers from peeping into the cookie text file that you share with your main server. This is a better alternative than disabling all cookies you would encounter on the web.


It is better to be well-informed about the things that we fear than jump into conclusions. Cookies are more helpful than harmful. Separate the facts from the myths and have a better, smoother, surfing experience.

New-Bee Guide to Cookies: No, You Don't Put Them in the Oven

That's right. In fact you can't put a cookie inside an oven. The http cookie I mean.

An http cookie, or the browser cookie, or simply a cookie, is a term that computer specialists have coined to refer to a text file that is widely used during internet browsing. The name cookie, according to the wikepedia, originated from an intact, unbroken fortune cookie, because of the unseen information contained within.

Now how does a cookie basically work? The same way as how your dry cleaning ticket is used.

You  walk inside your dry cleaning shop requesting a laundry service. You will be requested to give your name and some other details. And then, the laundry shop will give you a receipt or ticket so that next time you'll return to them, they will know exactly what to give to you.

Similarly, the cookie functions as the dry cleaning ticket or receipt.

You use your browser like Firefox or Internet Explorer, to go to diffrent pages in the net. Because the world wide web processes in a series of connections, everytime you ask for a page access, file, or picture from a certain site, a connection must first be established. After the file has been downloaded or the page successfully loaded, the browser-server connection is then stopped. During the time that the browser and the server makes a connection you send some details to the server. The server then remembers these details in the form of text file or a cookie, so that next time you go, log in, or request anything form their site, they could cater to your preference or you could just enter enter more easily since you are now "remembered" by the server.

In general, cookies are really harmless. But are there cookies that we need to avoid? Know more about first party cookies and third party cookies.

New-Bee Guide to No-Follow Links: Stopping the Spiders

Now we have discussed what a spider is all about and how it habitually crawls every nook and corner of the web. This time, we will discover how to stop these bot crawlers from going through a link.

But why do that? If you would block those web crawlers, aren't you spurning your chance to be included in the Page Ranks?

Yes, that is correct. A nofollow link does prevent Page Rank "juice" leakage that can be attributed within the link or the site that it points to. But it will not harm YOU. In fact it could even be beneficial for your site's Search Engine Optimization.

How? By using the nofollow tag only for outbound links, that does not direct to your page or site. Because it does not point to YOUR own site, you can't be hurting your own chance at ranking well in search engines.

How can a nofollow link attribute be beneficial to you?

Use nofollow if you are creating a link to a site that is not relevant to your own like that of a sponsored or advertiser link. Remember, you also need to protect your content, and keeping off unrelated sites from being browsed by spiders is a way to maintain SEO. In blogs for example, you could put nofollow attributes on comments because that's one  section that could breed completely unrelated outbound links.

How to make a nofollow link attribute?

A normal link would look like this:

Insert rel=”nofollow” within the link as shown below:

And - Voila! - you have stopped the spiders from accessing that link and have protected your site from irrelevant content! It's that easy.

New-Bee Guide to Spiders: Know What's Crawling Your Internet Page

 Have you seen real life baby spiders burst out and crawl about after they break out of their mother's egg all at once? Because myriads of these little creatures try to get out of the egg, the scene would look as if grains of sand are rolling off a pane.

But hey, this post is not really about that air breathing arthropod with eight legs that could be found in your dusty unused rooms or neglected corners. And it's not about a man calle Peter Parker either. I'll introduce you to the other kind of spider, one that's been crawling the pages of the net eversince the world wide web began.

Medabots. Autobots. Spiderbots?

This kind of spider that I'm talking about is actually a simple but clever computer program. It's a software that has the ability to automatically browse the web to update pertinent data stored as  a form of tracking. Spiders, spiderbots, or web crawlers are the lifeblood of search engines for data collection. Google has Googlebot. Yahoo has Yahoo! Slurp. MSN has MSNbot. All of these are man-made crawlers that are harvesters of information around the net.

Crawling the Web

Still wondering how these spiderbots work?

This type of software continually delves into the web for any update ofpages and newly created pages. It follows links from the main page and  accumulates data for every page that it comes across. It stores those site information in the index or databank of the search engines.

Generally, spiders automatically search the web for pages, but there is also a way to stop spiders from crawling your site.

How do spiders work during a search engine query?

Imagine again, the scenario that I mentioned earlier about the rupturing of the spider egg and the breaking free of the little spiders all at once like pouring grains of sand. The same movement applies to spiderbots, but in this case, the egg that holds those crawlers is the search engine itself.

Everything starts with you, the user. Everytime you visit a search engine site like Google, Yahoo, or MSN, you type in a query, keywords, or phrase inside the search engine box. The release of the spiderbots is triggered when you hit he search button or symbol. This is essentially the start of the crawling process. By clicking the search button, the spiderbots burst out all at once and crawl and scan the saved data from the index of the search engines.

The spiders then sort out the pages that are relevant to your search through a special algorithm process unique to each of the search engines.

This "crawling" or "spidering" takes only a fraction of a second to happen and after that, you now have your search results ranked on the results page of the search engine. ^_^

New-Bee Guide: How to Embed a Youtube Video to Blogger

We all get our noob moments and it's one thing that we should not be embarrassed of. I had my fair share of bitter sweet greenhorn glory when I first met blogger. I had this video from youtube that I really wanted to share in my blog, but can't, because, well, I have no idea how in the first place. So for all those new-bee bloggers out there who are using this service, or for those who have been blogging eversince but are just honestly oblivious to uploading a certain video to your blog page, here are some tweaking tips on how to embed a youtube video to blogger:

Getting the Video

Go to the Youtube site at www.youtube.com and search for a video that you are interested to place in your blog page.

Look for the Embed  box underneath the video that you are  viewing. Click it. You'll then see a drop down box containing the embed code. Copy the code.


Posting to Blogger
 
Log in to your blogger account. Create a new post or edit the post where you intend to place your video. Click the edit Edit html tab on top of the post editor. Paste the video directly in the editing field. To make sure that your video is in the right place, preview your post. Edit if if there are still some tweaking to be done.

Publish your post, and that's it. You have already embedded a youtube video into your blog page. ^_^

You can also refer to the video below on how to embed youtube videos on blogger.