Ten Blogger Tips and Tricks, Vote For Wizard101, and KI Free Games Rewards
I'm back again with another blog post with all sort of information that a blogger might want to know, beginning with the latest change to my blog: if you haven't noticed, the header image now changes each time you refresh the page or visit a different page on the site. At the moment, it's mostly experimenting, but you can see the latest about what I've learned above. Don't worry, you won't have to post one of those rare things called comments on Swordroll's Blog, I'll explain how it's done in this post.
Ok, so blogging tips and tricks, easy enough, right? There's nothing any decent blogger would need to know here, is there? Well, I think differently. There are plenty of things that can really play a part in a blogger's success and number of readers. I'll go over a few things you might need/want to know.
1. Oh yeah, that's Swordroll's Blog... Have a symbol. I'm particularly lacking in this area, besides my banner. Have something recognizable that people can easily tell belongs to your blog. One way to add to this is to create a "favicon." This is a small icon that appears next to the website address in the URL box. It is a 16x16 image that is in ".ico" format.
2. Make your blog special. Give your blog something that stands out. For me, it's the background and banners and graphic elements that make my page more memorable than some. You see impressive Wizard101 content that is recognizable and distinct, which ties together with the first tip. Another good example is http://wizard101club.com/. Although not all of the elements are my favorite, the site is easily memorable. I've been to a lot of blogs, and I remember this one because of the artwork. One of my headers even has a piece of gear that gives a -6% damage bonus, so it works as a conversation starter as well.
3. Tweet, Tweet. No, It's not a bird. Get a Twitter account, at least. Facebook works, too. These allow for easy communication and mass messages. It can reel in more viewers, too. If you follow others, they might follow you, so follow many people.
4. Join the club! Find places with major traffic that have opportunities to advertise your blog. A couple of places I've used include http://diaryofawizard.com/, where you can place a small advertisement that is oftentimes free. Wizard101 Central has a link directory where you can place your blog, too. Being one of the latest links, most viewed links, or best rated links, allows your blog to be one of the one at the top. The Friendly Necromancer also has a blog club that you can join. I joined, and that is actually the second best referring website, second only to Google. A lot of my traffic comes from here, despite his list being so large. Ask other popular bloggers to add you to their blog list.
5. Post often and with purpose. Each post should contain valuable information; tips perhaps, or stories from your own adventures. Give updates directly from Kingsisle when they post them. This will place you at the top of "blogrolls" and keep your blog current and updates. With specials like unknown pet files and housing tips, people will want to read your blog and tell their friends about these amazing things that they learned.
6. A picture is worth a thousand words. This saying might not always be true, but other types of media such as pictures, videos, etc. are something different for people to see rather than just text. Be careful about how your text wraps around the object and always preview your post before publishing.
7. Let's there be comments! Did you know that, by default, anonymous users cannot post comments, even if they identify themselves? They'll have to register in one form or another. Perhaps this is how you want it, but I wanted anyone to be able to comment. Go to Settings and click Comments. Under "Who can comment?" choose anyone.
8. See the statistics. Ever wonder where everyone is coming from, if anyone is visiting at all? Go to Stats and change the overview to All time. You can now move between Posts, Traffic Sources, and Audience tabs to see some interesting and possibly surprising information. It's fun to look at and not only see what websites people are finding yours from, but also what keywords searched on Google have lead others to your website.
9. You want followers? Make the options obvious. If you want people to follow your blog, make your followers on your sidebar easy to find. Allow users to follow by email if they wish, and to share the post with their friends in various ways. You can even ask your readers to subscribe at the end of each blog post.
10. Always be thinking of your readers. How will they be interested or drawn to the site? Why will they want to read my post? Usually, in addition to my own adventures, I give some sort of tips or other information so that there is a variety.
So you want to create an alternating header image like mine, hmm? Well it wasn't easy to figure out how to do, but I did do it. Below are the instructions on how to create this header.
First, you need to create your headers. There is no limit whatsoever on the number of headers you want to rotate through, you just need to create each one in a uniform fashion and save them all. Once you've done that, you'll need this html code:
<!-- Start Modification. -->
<script type='text/javascript'>
var header= new Array()
header[0]="http://enc.edu/
header[1]="http://enc.edu/
header[2]="http://enc.edu/
header[3]="http://enc.edu/
header[4]="http://enc.edu/
header[5]="http://enc.edu/
header[6]="http://enc.edu/
header[7]="http://enc.edu/
var random=Math.round((header.
document.write("<img src='"+header[random]+"' style='display: block'/>");
</script>
<noscript>
<img expr:alt='data:title' expr:height='data:height'
expr:id='data:widget.
"_headerimg"' expr:src='data:sourceUrl'
expr:width='data:width' style='display: block'/>
</noscript>
<!-- End Modification. -->
The bold words are URLs that will be replaced with your picture URLs. If you want more, copy on of the lines and paste in, changing the number [here in the code]. Now unless you know how to create a folder on your site's server, go to http://tinypic.com/ and upload each of your headers, then choose the last option - the direct link for layouts. Paste that in the bold area.
[You can click on any of the example images to enlarge them] Don't stop reading now, because it isn't so simple now. You can't insert your completed html into the header because it has a limit of 500 characters. However, you've probably incorporated your title into your header, or aren't planning on displaying a title at all, so you won't easily be able to remove your title, either.
Create a blank 1x1 image that is transparent. Upload this in your header area and under placement choose "Instead of title and description." Now your title has disappeared and you have what is seemingly nothing in this space. Below that, you should have the option for a widget stretching across the length of the page. If you don't, you'll have to change the layout. In this spot, choose the html option and paste your html here. You aren't done yet, though.
Your new widget will have an odd background. You need to go to the Design tab and click on Template Designer. Go to Advanced then click on Tabs Background and change all of the values to transparent. Congratulations! You've finished your header!
In a previous post, players were encouraged to vote for Wizard101 in their latest competition. If they do this, they will now receive a Wyvern's Hoard Pack for free after voting closes! And, if Wizard101 wins, players will receive an exclusive mystery pet that will be permanently retired after this event! The details are below!
Ok, so blogging tips and tricks, easy enough, right? There's nothing any decent blogger would need to know here, is there? Well, I think differently. There are plenty of things that can really play a part in a blogger's success and number of readers. I'll go over a few things you might need/want to know.
1. Oh yeah, that's Swordroll's Blog... Have a symbol. I'm particularly lacking in this area, besides my banner. Have something recognizable that people can easily tell belongs to your blog. One way to add to this is to create a "favicon." This is a small icon that appears next to the website address in the URL box. It is a 16x16 image that is in ".ico" format.
2. Make your blog special. Give your blog something that stands out. For me, it's the background and banners and graphic elements that make my page more memorable than some. You see impressive Wizard101 content that is recognizable and distinct, which ties together with the first tip. Another good example is http://wizard101club.com/. Although not all of the elements are my favorite, the site is easily memorable. I've been to a lot of blogs, and I remember this one because of the artwork. One of my headers even has a piece of gear that gives a -6% damage bonus, so it works as a conversation starter as well.3. Tweet, Tweet. No, It's not a bird. Get a Twitter account, at least. Facebook works, too. These allow for easy communication and mass messages. It can reel in more viewers, too. If you follow others, they might follow you, so follow many people.
4. Join the club! Find places with major traffic that have opportunities to advertise your blog. A couple of places I've used include http://diaryofawizard.com/, where you can place a small advertisement that is oftentimes free. Wizard101 Central has a link directory where you can place your blog, too. Being one of the latest links, most viewed links, or best rated links, allows your blog to be one of the one at the top. The Friendly Necromancer also has a blog club that you can join. I joined, and that is actually the second best referring website, second only to Google. A lot of my traffic comes from here, despite his list being so large. Ask other popular bloggers to add you to their blog list.
5. Post often and with purpose. Each post should contain valuable information; tips perhaps, or stories from your own adventures. Give updates directly from Kingsisle when they post them. This will place you at the top of "blogrolls" and keep your blog current and updates. With specials like unknown pet files and housing tips, people will want to read your blog and tell their friends about these amazing things that they learned.
6. A picture is worth a thousand words. This saying might not always be true, but other types of media such as pictures, videos, etc. are something different for people to see rather than just text. Be careful about how your text wraps around the object and always preview your post before publishing.
7. Let's there be comments! Did you know that, by default, anonymous users cannot post comments, even if they identify themselves? They'll have to register in one form or another. Perhaps this is how you want it, but I wanted anyone to be able to comment. Go to Settings and click Comments. Under "Who can comment?" choose anyone.
8. See the statistics. Ever wonder where everyone is coming from, if anyone is visiting at all? Go to Stats and change the overview to All time. You can now move between Posts, Traffic Sources, and Audience tabs to see some interesting and possibly surprising information. It's fun to look at and not only see what websites people are finding yours from, but also what keywords searched on Google have lead others to your website.
9. You want followers? Make the options obvious. If you want people to follow your blog, make your followers on your sidebar easy to find. Allow users to follow by email if they wish, and to share the post with their friends in various ways. You can even ask your readers to subscribe at the end of each blog post.
10. Always be thinking of your readers. How will they be interested or drawn to the site? Why will they want to read my post? Usually, in addition to my own adventures, I give some sort of tips or other information so that there is a variety.
So you want to create an alternating header image like mine, hmm? Well it wasn't easy to figure out how to do, but I did do it. Below are the instructions on how to create this header.
First, you need to create your headers. There is no limit whatsoever on the number of headers you want to rotate through, you just need to create each one in a uniform fashion and save them all. Once you've done that, you'll need this html code:
<!-- Start Modification. -->
<script type='text/javascript'>
var header= new Array()
header[0]="http://enc.edu/
header[1]="http://enc.edu/
header[2]="http://enc.edu/
header[3]="http://enc.edu/
header[4]="http://enc.edu/
header[5]="http://enc.edu/
header[6]="http://enc.edu/
header[7]="http://enc.edu/
var random=Math.round((header.
document.write("<img src='"+header[random]+"' style='display: block'/>");
</script>
<noscript>
<img expr:alt='data:title' expr:height='data:height'
expr:id='data:widget.
"_headerimg"' expr:src='data:sourceUrl'
expr:width='data:width' style='display: block'/>
</noscript>
<!-- End Modification. -->
The bold words are URLs that will be replaced with your picture URLs. If you want more, copy on of the lines and paste in, changing the number [here in the code]. Now unless you know how to create a folder on your site's server, go to http://tinypic.com/ and upload each of your headers, then choose the last option - the direct link for layouts. Paste that in the bold area.[You can click on any of the example images to enlarge them] Don't stop reading now, because it isn't so simple now. You can't insert your completed html into the header because it has a limit of 500 characters. However, you've probably incorporated your title into your header, or aren't planning on displaying a title at all, so you won't easily be able to remove your title, either.
In a previous post, players were encouraged to vote for Wizard101 in their latest competition. If they do this, they will now receive a Wyvern's Hoard Pack for free after voting closes! And, if Wizard101 wins, players will receive an exclusive mystery pet that will be permanently retired after this event! The details are below!
- Vote HERE
- Type in "Wizard101" exactly and enter a valid email address
- Check your email and click on the link to confirm your vote
- Forward this confirmation email to community@kingsisle.com
- Wait until voting closes and expect your code for a pack sometime this month
To conclude, I thought I'd mention some of the September rewards for playing games at kifreegames.com and getting certain scores. They're actually quite interesting. You can get the following rewards on the following tiers:
Tier / Rewards
- You will win 50 gold, PLUS one bonus item
- You will win 100 gold, PLUS one bonus item
- You will win 150 gold, PLUS one bonus item
- You will win 200 gold, PLUS two bonus items
- You will win 300 gold, PLUS two bonus items
- You will win 450 gold, PLUS three bonus items
- You will win 650 gold, PLUS three bonus items
They had previously listed the swords offered on the various tears. I DO remember that tiers 3 and 4 are a Galvanic Hammer and a Blue Raptor, but I'm not sure which is which. Tier 6 is a Viridian Scepter and tier 7 is the Umbra Blade. You can get permanent mounts, games for your house, and a variety of other items, so these games are definitely worth playing.
A quick update on the Evil Sandman - only about 17 more hours to buy yours before they disappear from the crown shop! Get it while you can. For a complete list of talents, click HERE.
Before you go, leave a comment and follow us on twitter and the blog, and don't forget to tell your friends! See you soon!
I love how you put helpful suggestions to all the wizards :)
ReplyDeleteThat's because I love to see wizards interact and post comments on my work. :)
ReplyDeleteThis is a very helpful/ very nice blog. Keep up the great work! :)
ReplyDeleteWow! Thanks! I was just thinking about changing to be more, me! Thanks for all these great tips! Time to start changing!
ReplyDeleteOh also, what type of photo editing software did you use for your header an background?
ReplyDeleteHey, Vanessa, glad to see you here and posting! I use GIMP, it's a free software download that I personally prefer for most of my editing to Photoshop.
ReplyDelete