8/27/2011

TOP 300 Freeware software!

10:06 PM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) 2 comments

Office

OpenOffice - office suite
PC Suite 602 - office suite
AbiWord - text editor
Atlantis Nova - text editor
Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer - power point files viewer
Adobe Reader - pdf reader
Foxit PDF Reader - pdf reader
PDFCreator - create pdf documents
Doc Convertor - document convertor
Convert - unit convertor
Converber - unit convertor
Sunbird - calendar/organizer
EssentialPIM Free - calendar/organizer
PhraseExpress - speed up your writing
ATnotes - create notes on the desktop

Archive managers

7-Zip - compression program
IZArc - compression program
TugZIP - compression program
CabPack - compression program
Universal Extractor - extract files from any type of archive

Internet

Firefox - web browser
Internet Explorer- web browser
Maxthon - web browser
Opera - web browser
Avant Browser - web browser
Thunderbird - email client
PopTray - check for emails
Free Download Manager - download manager
FlashGet - download manager
WellGet - download manager
Download Master - download manager
WGET - commandline download manager
HTTrack - offline browser
WebReaper - offline browser
Yeah Reader - RSS reader
GreatNews - RSS reader
RSSOwl - RSS reader

P2P

µTorrent - torrent client
Azureus - torrent client
BitComet - torrent client
ABC - torrent client
BitTornado - torrent client
eMule - p2p client
SoulSeek - p2p client
Shareaza - p2p client
DC++ - Direct Connect network client
PeerGuardian - IP blocker

Chat

Miranda - chat client
MSN Messenger - chat client
Yahoo Messenger - chat client
QIP - chat client
Gaim - chat client
JAJC - chat client
HydraIRC - IRC client
Talkative IRC - IRC client
IceChat - IRC client
Skype - VOIP client
Google Talk - VOIP client
VoipStunt - VOIP client
Gizmo - VOIP client
Wengo - VOIP client

Security

AVG Free - antivirus
Avast Home Free - antivirus
AntiVir PersonalEdition - antivirus
BitDefender Free - antivirus
ClamWin - antivirus
CyberDifender - Internet Security Suite
Ad-aware - anti-spyware
Spybot: Search & Destroy - anti-spyware
Windows Defender - anti-spyware
SpywareBlaster - anti-spyware
Spyware Terminator - anti-spyware
Tootkit Reveaker - rootkit detection utility
Winpooch - system protection
HiJack Free - system protection
HighJackThis - hijackers detector and remover
Kerio Personal Firewall - firewall
Sygate Personal Firewall - firewall
ZoneAlarm - firewall
AxCrypt - file encryption
Simple File Shredder - securely delete files
PuTTy - SSH client
KeePass - password manager
LockNote - password manager
nPassword - password manager
Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer - identify security misconfigurations

Servers

FileZilla - FTP client
FileZilla Server - FTP server
EFTP - FTP client/server
XAMPP - integrated server package of Apache, mySQL, PHP and Perl
WAMP - Apache, PHP5 and MySQL server

Audio

Foobar2000 - audio player
WinAmp - audio player
1by1 - audio player
JetAudio - audio player
XMPlay - audio player
Xion - audio player
Apollo - audio player
MediaMonkey - music organizer
The GodFather - music organizer
dBpowerAMP - audio converter
Audacity - audio converter
WavePad - audio converter
Kristal Audio Engine - audio editor
Exact Audio Copy - CD ripper
Audiograbber - CD ripper
CDex - CD ripper
Mp3 Tag Tools - tag editor
Mp3tag - tag editor
Taggin’ MP3 - tag editor
Monkey’s Audio - APE compressor/decompressor
mpTrim - mp3 editor
WavTrim - wave editor
EncSpot Basic - analyse mp3 files

Video

Windows Media Player - audio/video player
VLC - video player
Media Player Classic - video player
MV2Player - video player
CrystalPlayer 1.95 - video player
Zoom Player - video player
GOM Player - video player
viPlay - video player
DSPlayer - video player
VirtualDub - video editor
CamStudio - video screen recording
AviSplit - Avi splitter
Video mp3 Extractor - rip audio from video files
Free iPod Converter - convert all popular video formats to iPod video
MediaPortal - turning your PCinto a Media Center
The FilmMachine

Image

Gimp - image editor
PhotoFiltre - image editor
Paint.net - image editor
ArtRage - image editor
Artweaver - image editor
IrfanView - image viewer
Picasa - image viewer
XnView - image viewer
FastStone Image Viewer - image viewer
FuturixImager - image viewer
Easy Thumbnails - create thumbnails from images
JoJoThumb - create thumbnails from images
iWebAlbum - create web photo albums
JAlbum - create web photo albums
3D Box Shot Maker - design quality box shot
FastStone Capture - screen capture
WinSnap - screen capture

3D

Blender3D - 3D renderer
3Delight Free - 3D renderer
SketchUp - 3D modeling
Maya Learning Edition - 3D modeling

Developers

AutoIt - task automation
SciTE4AutoIt3 - text editor for AutoIt
AutoHotkey - task automation
PHP Designer - PHP editor
Notepad++ - text editor
ConTEXT Editor - text editor
PSPad - text editor
FoxEditor - text editor
Crimson Editor - source code editor
Elfima Notepad - text editor
Notepad2 - text editor
Nvu - HTML editor
Alleycode - HTML editor
BlockNote - web page editor
Weaverslave - web page editor

CD/DVD

DeepBurner - CD/DVD burner
CDBurner XP Pro - CD/DVD burner
BurnAtOnce - CD/DVD burner
Express Burn - CD/DVD burner
Zilla CD-DVD Rip’n’Burn - CD/DVD burner
ImgBurn - ISO, BIN burner
Daemon tools - virtual CD/DVD
DVD Decrypter - DVD ripper
DVD Shrink - DVD ripper
Nero CD-DVD Speed - CD/DVD info and quality test

Codecs

GSpot - codec information
AC3Filter - audio codec
Xvid - video codec
QuickTime Alternative - video codec
Real Alternative - video codec
K-Lite Codec Pack - all codecs

System Ulilities

CCleaner - system cleaner
xp-AntiSpy - OS setup
jv16 Powertools - system utilities
XP SysPad - system monitoring utility
What’s Running - process guard
Registrar Lite - registry editor
WinIPConfig - replacement for “ipconfig.exe” and “route.exe”
Unlocker - file eraser
Eraser - secure file eraser
Undelete Plus - file recovery
freeCommander - file manager
ExplorerXP - file manager
Duplicate File Finder - find all duplicate files
Ant Renamer - file renaming
ReNamer - file renaming
Icons From File - icos extractor
Chaos MD5 - MD5 generator
HashTab - MD5, SHA1 and CRC-32 file hashes
Rainlendar Lite - desktop calendar
Weather Watcher - weather firecast
Subtitle Workshop - subtitles editor
Ant Movie Catalog - movie organizer
Disclib - CD organizer
Dexpot - virtual desktops
DriveImage XML - create partition images
MozBackup - backup and restore bookmarks, etc.
SyncBack - system backup
Atomic Cock Sync - syncronize your clock
Citrus Alarm Clock - alarm clock
TaskSwitchXP - Alt-Tab replacement
Launchy - application launcher
allSnap - make all windows snap
Sysinternals Tools - various system tools
StrokeIt - mouse gestures
Net Profiles - create profiles of your network settings
ResourceHacker - view, modify, rename, add, delete
Java Runtime Environment - java for Windows

UI Enhancements

RocketDock - application launcher
AveDesk - desktop enhancer
IconPhile - customize windows’s system icons
CursorXP Free - change mouse cursors
MacSound - volume control
LClock - Windows Longhorn clock
Y’z Dock - application launcher
Y’z Shadow - shadow effect to the windows
Y’z Toolbar - change the toolbar icons in Explorer and Internet Explorer
Taskbar Shuffle - rearrange the programs on the taskbar by dragging
Visual Task Tips - thumbnail preview image for each task in the taskbar
Badges - put badges on any folder or file
Folderico - change icons of the folders
Folder Marker - mark your folders
Folder2MyPC - add favourite locations to My Computer
Microsoft TweakUI - system settings
BricoPacks - shell packs
ShellPacks - shell packs
Tango Shell Patcher - shell patcher
XPize - GUI enhancer
Vista Transformation Pack - complete visual style
Vista Sound Scheme - Windows Vista sound scheme
Royale Theme - visual style

Hardware monitoring/Benchmarking

CPU-Z - cpu information
CrystalCPUID - cpu information
Central Brain Identifier - cpu information
Everest - system information
SiSoft Sandra - system information
SpeedFan - hardware monitor
Memtest86 - memory test
PowerMax - HDD test
3Dmark 06 - 3D game performance benchmark
Aquamark - performance benchmark
rthdribl - 3D benchmark
Fraps - 3D benchmark, fps viewer and screen recorder
Prime 95 - cpu benchmarking
SuperPI - cpu benchmarking
CPU Rightmark - cpu overclock
Core Temp - cpu temperature
ATiTool - video overclock
ATI Tray Tools - Radeon tweaker
aTuner - GeForce and Radeontweaker
RivaTuner - video overclock
Nokia Monitor Test - monitor adjustmets
UDPixel - fix dead pixels

Games

123 Free Solitaire - solitaire games collection
Arcade Pack - classic arcade games
Live For Speed - online racing simulator
Enigma - puzzle game
Freeciv - multiplayer strategy game
Tux Racer - race down steep, snow-covered mountains

Education

SpeQ Mathematics - mathematics program
Dia - diagram creation program
Google Earth - explore the world
NASA World Wind - 3D virtual globe
Celestia - explore the space
Stellarium - planetarium

Miscellaneous

nLite - Build your own custom Windows disk.
VirtualPC - create virtual machines
grabMotion - webcam capture
iDailyDiary - simple page-for-a-day diary
Pivot Stickfigure Animator - create stick-figure animations
Wink - create presentations
Scribus - professional page layout
FreeMind - midn mapping software
Windows Live Writer - WYSIWYG blog authoring

All Office Software {FREE}

9:26 PM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) No comments

Download All Office Software With Serial Key.............
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OpenOffice - office suite

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[Full Version--size-150mb]

Kingsoft Office - office suite

DOWNLOAD
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[Trial Version--size-57mb]

AbiWord 2.8.6--text editor

DOWNLOAD
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[Full Version--size-8mb]

Atlantis ----WordProcessor.com

Download
Click Here
[Full Version--size-3mb]

PowerPoint Viewer 2007

DOWNLOAD
CLICK HERE
[Full Version--size-25mb]

Adobe Reader - pdf reader

Download
Click Here
[Full Version--size-50mb]

PDF Convertor

DOWNLOAD
CLICK HERE
[Full Version--size-5mb]

Convert for Windows

DOWNLOAD
CLICK HERE
[Full Version--size-2mb]

PhraseExpress -- Auto text

DOWNlOAD
CLICK HERE
[Full Version--size-5mb]

Game---Halloween Pumpkins

10:33 AM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) No comments

Welcome to my New Game---Halloween Pumpkins

GAme-- Marble Line

10:13 AM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) No comments

If You Want to Play This Game . Just click over...................

READ English QURAN

10:00 AM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) No comments

42 Practical Ways To Improve Yourself

6:03 AM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) No comments

Are you someone who likes to grow? Do you constantly seek to improve yourself and become better?
If you do, then we have something in common. I’m very passionate about personal growth. It was just 4 years ago when I discovered my passion for growing and helping others grow. At that time, I was 22 and in my final year of university. As I thought about the meaning of life, I realized there was nothing more meaningful than to pursue a life of development and betterment. It is through improving ourselves that we get the most out of life.
After 1.5 years of actively pursuing growth and helping others to grow through my personal development blog, I realize there is never an end to the journey of self improvement. The more I grow, the more I realize there is so much out there I don’t know, so much that I have to learn. For sure, there is always something about ourselves we can improve on. The human potential is limitless, so it’s impossible to reach a point of no growth. Whenever we think we are good, we can be even better.

As a passionate advocate of growth, I’m continuously looking for ways to self-improve. I’ve compiled 42 of my best tips which might be helpful in your personal growth journey. Some of them are simple steps which you can engage in immediately. Some are bigger steps which takes conscious effort to act on. Here they are:

Read a book every day. Books are concentrated sources of wisdom. The more books you read, the more wisdom you expose yourself to. What are some books you can start reading to enrich yourself? Some books I’ve read and found useful are Think and Grow Rich, Who Moved My Cheese, 7 Habits, The Science of Getting Rich and Living the 80/20 Way. I’ve heard positive reviews for The Tipping Point, Outliers and The Difference Maker, so I’ll be checking them out soon.
Learn a new language. As a Singaporean Chinese, my main languages are English, Mandarin and Hokkien (a Chinese dialect). Out of interest, I took up language courses in the past few years such as Japanese and Bahasa Indonesian. I realized learning a language is a whole new skill altogether and the process of acquainting with a new language and culture is a totally a mind-opening experience.
Pick up a new hobby. Beyond just your usual favorite hobbies, is there something new you can pick up? Any new sport you can learn? Examples are fencing, golf, rock climbing, football, canoeing, or ice skating. Your new hobby can also be a recreational hobby. For example, pottery, Italian cooking, dancing, wine appreciation, web design, etc. Learning something new requires you to stretch yourself in different aspects, whether physically, mentally or emotionally.
Take up a new course. Is there any new course you can join? Courses are a great way to gain new knowledge and skills. It doesn’t have to be a long-term course – seminars or workshops serve their purpose too. I’ve been to a few workshops and they have helped me gain new insights which I had not considered before.
Create an inspirational room. Your environment sets the mood and tone for you. If you are living in an inspirational environment, you are going to be inspired every day. In the past, I didn’t like my room at all because I thought it was messy and dull. A few years ago, I decided this was the end of it – I started on a “Mega Room Revamp” project and overhauled my room. The end result? A room I totally relish being in and inspires me to be at my peak every day.
Overcome your fears. All of us have fears. Fear of uncertainty, fear of public speaking, fear of risk… All our fears keep us in the same position and prevent us from growing. Recognize that your fears reflect areas where you can grow. I always think of fears as the compass for growth. If I have a fear about something, it represents something I’ve yet to address, and addressing it helps me to grow.
Level up your skills. If you have played video games before especially RPGs, you’ll know the concept of leveling up – gaining experience so you can be better and stronger. As a blogger, I’m constantly leveling up my writing skills. As a speaker, I’m constantly leveling up my public engagement abilities. What skills can you level up?
Wake up early. Waking up early (say, 5-6am) has been acknowledged by many (Anthony Robbins, Robin Sharma, among other self-help gurus) to improve your productivity and your quality of life. I feel it’s because when you wake up early, your mindset is already set to continue the momentum and proactively live out the day. Seth recently wrote a waking up early series which you should check out to help cultivate this habit.
Have a weekly exercise routine. A better you starts with being in better physical shape. I personally make it a point to jog at least 3 times a week, at least 30 minutes each time. You may want to mix it up with jogging, gym lessons and swimming for variation.
Start your life handbook. A life handbook is an idea I started 3 years ago. Basically, it’s a book which contains the essentials on how you can live your life to the fullest, such as your purpose, your values and goals. Sort of like your manual for your life. I started my life handbook since 2007 and it’s been a crucial enabler in my progress.
Write a letter to your future self. What do you see yourself as 5 years from now? Will you be the same? Different? What kind of person will you be? Write a letter to your future self – 1 year from now will be a good start – and seal it. Make a date in your calendar to open it 1 year from now. Then start working to become the person you want to open that letter.
Get out of your comfort zone. Real growth comes with hard work and sweat. Being too comfortable doesn’t help us grow – it makes us stagnate. What is your comfort zone? Do you stay in most of the time? Do you keep to your own space when out with other people? Shake your routine up. Do something different. By exposing yourself to a new context, you’re literally growing as you learn to act in new circumstances.
Put someone up to a challenge. Competition is one of the best ways to grow. Set a challenge (weight loss, exercise, financial challenge, etc) and compete with an interested friend to see who achieves the target first. Through the process, both of you will gain more than if you were to set off on the target alone.
Identify your blind spots. Scientifically, blind spots refer to areas our eyes are not capable of seeing. In personal development terms, blind spots are things about ourselves we are unaware of. Discovering our blind spots help us discover our areas of improvement. One exercise I use to discover my blind spots is to identify all the things/events/people that trigger me in a day – trigger meaning making me feel annoyed/weird/affected. These represent my blind spots. It’s always fun to do the exercise because I discover new things about myself, even if I may already think I know my own blind spots (but then they wouldn’t be blind spots would they?). After that, I work on steps to address them.
Ask for feedback. As much as we try to improve, we will always have blind spots. Asking for feedback gives us an additional perspective. Some people to approach will be friends, family, colleagues, boss, or even acquaintances, since they will have no preset bias and can give their feedback objectively.
Stay focused with to-do lists. I start my day with a list of tasks I want to complete and this helps make me stay focused. In comparison, the days when I don’t do this end up being extremely unproductive. For example, part of my to-do list for today is to write a guest post at LifeHack.Org, and this is why I’m writing this now! Since my work requires me to use my computer all the time, I use Free Sticky Notes to manage my to-do lists. It’s really simple to use and it’s a freeware, so I recommend you check it out.
Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs). I’m a big fan of setting BHAGs. BHAGs stretch you beyond your normal capacity since they are big and audacious – you wouldn’t think of attempting them normally. What are BHAGs you can embark on, which you’ll feel absolutely on top of the world once you complete them? Set them and start working on them.
Acknowledge your flaws. Everyone has flaws. What’s most important is to understand them, acknowledge them, and address them. What do you think are your flaws? What are the flaws you can work on now? How do you want to address them?
Get into action. The best way to learn and improve is to take action. What is something you have been meaning to do? How can you take action on it immediately? Waiting doesn’t get anything done. Taking action gives you immediate results to learn from.
Learn from people who inspire you. Think about people you admire. People who inspire you. These people reflect certain qualities you want to have for yourself too. What are the qualities in them you want to have for yourself? How can you acquire these qualities?
Quit a bad habit. Are there any bad habits you can lose? Oversleeping? Not exercising? Being late? Slouching? Nail biting? Smoking? Here’s some help on how you can quit a bad habit.
Cultivate a new habit. Some good new habits to cultivate include reading books (#1), waking up early (#8), exercising (#9), reading a new personal development article a day (#40) and meditating. Is there any other new habit you can cultivate to improve yourself?
Avoid negative people. As Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. Wherever we go, there are bound to be negative people. Don’t spend too much of your time around them if you feel they drag you down.
Learn to deal with difficult people. There are times when there are difficult people you can’t avoid, such as at your workplace, or when the person is part of your inner circle of contacts. Learn how to deal with them. These people management skills will go a long way in working with people in the future.
Learn from your friends. Everyone has amazing qualities in them. It’s up to how we want to tap into them. With all the friends who surround you, they are going to have things you can learn from. Try thinking of a good friend right now. Think about just one quality they have which you want to adopt. How can you learn from them and adopt this skill for yourself? Speak to them if you need to – for sure, they will be more than happy to help!
Start a journal. Journaling is a great way to gain better self-awareness. It’s a self-reflection process. As you write, clarify your thought process and read what you wrote from a third person’s perspective, you gain more insights about yourself. Your journal can be private or an online blog. I use my personal development blog as a personal journal too and I’ve learned a lot about myself through the past year of blogging.
Start a blog about personal development. To help others grow, you need to first be walking the talk. There are expectations of you, both from yourself and from others, which you have to uphold. I run The Personal Excellence Blog, where I share my personal journey and insights on how to live a better life. Readers look toward my articles to improve themselves, which enforces to me that I need to keep improving, for myself and for the people I’m reaching out to.
Get a mentor or coach. There’s no faster way to improve than to have someone work with you on your goals. Many of my clients approach me to coach them in their goals and they achieve significantly more results than if they had worked alone.
Reduce the time you spend on chat programs. I realized having chat programs open at default result in a lot of wasted time. This time can be much better spent on other activities. The days when I don’t get on chat, I get a lot more done. I usually disable the auto start-up option in the chat programs and launch them when I do want to chat and really have the time for it.
Learn chess (or any strategy game). I found chess is a terrific game to learn strategy and hone your brainpower. Not only do you have fun, you also get to exercise your analytical skills. You can also learn strategy from other board games or computer games, such as Othello, Chinese Chess, WarCraft, and so on.
Stop watching TV. I’ve not been watching TV for pretty much 4 years and it’s been a very liberating experience. I realized most of the programs and advertisements on mainstream TV are usually of a lower consciousness and not very empowering. In return, the time I’ve freed up from not watching TV is now constructively used for other purposes, such as connecting with close friends, doing work I enjoy, exercising, etc.
Start a 30-day challenge. Set a goal and give yourself 30 days to achieve this. Your goal can be to stick with a new habit or something you’ve always wanted to do but have not. 30 days is just enough time to strategize, plan, get into action, review and nail the goal.
Meditate. Meditation helps to calm you and be more conscious. I also realized that during the nights when I meditate (before I sleep), I need lesser sleep. The clutter clearing process is very liberating.
Join Toastmasters (Learn public speaking). Interestingly, public speaking is the #1 fear in the world, with #2 being death. After I started public speaking as a personal development speaker/trainer, I’ve learned a lot about how to communicate better, present myself and engage people. Toastmasters is an international organization that trains people in public speaking. Check out the Toastmaster clubs nearest to you here.
Befriend top people in their fields. These people have achieved their results because they have the right attitudes, skill sets and know-how. How better to learn than from the people who have been there and done that? Gain new insights from them on how you can improve and achieve the same results for yourself.
Let go of the past. Is there any grievance or unhappiness from the past which you have been holding on? If so, it’s time to let it go. Holding on to them prevents you from moving on and becoming a better person. Break away from the past, forgive yourself, and move on. Just recently, I finally moved on from a past heartbreak of 5 years ago. The effect was liberating and very empowering, and I have never been happier.
Start a business venture. Is there anything you have an interest in? Why not turn it into a venture and make money while learning at the same time? Starting a new venture requires you to be learn business management skills, develop business acumen and have a competitive edge. The process of starting and developing my personal development business has equipped me with many skills, such as self-discipline, leadership, organization and management.
Show kindness to people around you. You can never be too kind to someone. In fact, most of us don’t show enough kindness to people around us. Being kind helps us to cultivate other qualities such as compassion, patience, and love. As you get back to your day after reading this article later on, start exuding more kindness to the people around you, and see how they react. Not only that, notice how you feel as you behave kindly to others. Chances are, you will feel even better than yourself.
Reach out to the people who hate you. If you ever stand for something, you are going to get haters. It’s easy to hate the people who hate us. It’s much more challenging to love them back. Being able to forgive, let go and show love to these people requires magnanimity and an open heart. Is there anyone who dislikes or hates you in your life? If so, reach out to them. Show them love. Seek a resolution and get closure on past grievances. Even if they refuses to reciprocate, love them all the same. It’s much more liberating than to hate them back.
Take a break. Have you been working too hard? Self-improvement is also about recognizing our need to take a break to walk the longer mile ahead. You can’t be driving a car if it has no petrol. Take some time off for yourself every week. Relax, rejuvenate and charge yourself up for what’s up ahead.
Read at least 1 personal development article a day. Some of my readers make it a point to read at least one personal development article every day, which I think is a great habit. There are many terrific personal development blogs out there, some of which you can check here.
Commit to your personal growth. I can be writing list articles with 10 ways, 25 ways, 42 ways or even 1,000 ways to improve yourself, but if you’ve no intention to commit to your personal growth, it doesn’t matter what I write. Nothing is going to get through. We are responsible for our personal growth – not anyone else. Not your mom, your dad, your friend, me or LifeHack. Make the decision to commit to your personal growth and embrace yourself to a life-long journey of growth and change. Kick off your growth by picking a few of the steps above and working on them. The results may not be immediate, but I promise you that as long as you keep to it, you’ll start seeing positive changes in yourself and your life.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this article or anything about personal growth. Feel free to share your thoughts in a comment below and I’ll get back to you! If you have any other suggestions to add to the list, please share with us too!

How I Gained 3,323 Subscribers in 3 Months

5:58 AM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) No comments

How I Got Started
Even though I started The Personal Excellence Blog in Dec ’08, I did not concentrate on its growth up until April this year. Before April ’10, my subscriber count (via RSS/email) was 1,790. For a blog that was less than 1.5 years old, it was a decent subscriber base, but it wasn’t big.
So in April, I got serious about growing the blog. I set specific goals, created clear plans and got down to work. Today, it’s the start of July 2010 and 3 months have passed. Below are the results:
Feedburner Stats (Dec ’08 – Jul ’10)

Feedburner count for The Personal Excellence Blog since it started in Dec ’08. The growth in ’09 was gradual as I did not do anything specific in traffic building. I was writing my best content but did not market much. As you can see, the subscriber base grew rapidly in the past few months (the spike started from April ’10 onwards).
Subscriber Breakdown Week by Week (Apr ’10 – Jul ’10)
stats2

A week by week breakdown of my subscriber count from 1st week of April. From Apr ’10 to start of Jul ’10, my subscribers has grown from 1,790 to 5,113 subscribers, a difference of 3,323 subscribers. The average increase is 277 subscribers per week. While it may seem small for big blogs like Problogger and Daily Blog Tips, this is very sizable growth from a blog with an original base of 1,790 subscribers only.

6 Biggest Steps That Helped Me Achieve The Results

I’m sure some of you are curious on what I did to achieve this result and I’m more than happy to share with you here. There are no gimmicky tricks here – these are all real strategies which all of us can apply right now.

1. Set clear goals and plans

You got to have clear goals. It’s good that you want to grow your blog, but by how much and by when? After all, getting just 1 more subscriber can also be seen as growing your blog. Is that all what you want or do you want more?
I had very clear goals when I started. I used subscriber count (via RSS or email) as the key performance metric (You can use other metrics if you want. I feel subscriber count is the most ubiquitous and robust measurement for blogs). I laid month-by-month subscriber goals, then broke them into weekly goals. Before the start of each week, I would design an action plan with clear steps on what to do (guest posting, free ebooks, etc – refer to steps #2-#6) to achieve the target of the week. Then at the end of the week, I would review to see what worked and what didn’t work as I design my plan for next week.
Goal setting and planning are critically important – Unfortunately, many bloggers grow their blog through a very random approach and it gives them random results. It was proper goal-setting and planning that served as the backbone for the results. If you’re interested in the goal setting framework I use, I wrote about it in detail in ESPER: 5-Step Successful Goal Achievement Framework (7-part series). This is an extremely robust goal achievement framework I use to achieve my personal goals as well as in my 1-1 coaching with my clients.

2. Do Massive Guest Posting

Guest posting was easily the largest contributor to my increased traffic in the past 3 months. Besides writing at The Personal Excellence Blog, I was doing massive guest posting on other personal development blogs – large ones like LifeHack.org and DumbLittleMan, to the smaller blogs. Here is my guest post count in the past 3 months:

April 2010 – 7 published guest posts
May 2010 – 8 published guest posts
June 2010 – 5 published guest posts (some sites I submitted to in June have a longer publishing lead time, so some of them will be posted in July instead)

Note that the guest posts weren’t random short posts – each post took a considerable amount of time and was on average 2,000 words/long (the longest ones were over 3,000 words). This guest post you are reading is about 2,300 words.
There were important lessons I learned on how to maximize your traffic through guest posting:

Guest post at larger blogs. In general (assuming all other factors remain the same), the larger the host site, the more traffic it’ll bring you. If you’re going to take the effort to write a guest article, you want to get the maximum exposure possible. Generally host sites with >10k subscribers would be a good, though writing at a blog with 5k subscribers will definitely be helpful if your reader base is small at the moment.
Choose sites similar in theme with yours. If you have a blog for pet lovers and you guest post at LifeHack.org (a personal development site), it’s not going to bring you many readers. Be targeted in your approach. Look for sites in your niche to guest post at. Since The Personal Excellence Blog is about personal development and peak performance, I chose similar sites to guest post at. Currently, the 2 key sites I guest post at are Lifehack.org (85k subscribers) and Dumb Little Man (65k subscribers).
Put your top value in your guest post. Just because it’s a guest post doesn’t mean you should put lesser effort into it. Writing your best content and ensuring it does well in your host’s site is both beneficial for your host as well as for you. If it gets high traffic, it’ll also lead to higher clickthroughs to your site. For example, my guest post 42 Practical Ways To Improve Yourself at LifeHack.org did very well – it had over 1,300 retweets and facebook shares (average post on LifeHack gets is 150+) and is the #1 pick on Lifehack.org out of the hundreds of articles posted this year. Subsequently, it brought the most traffic to my blog out of other guest posts. The time and effort you put into your (guest) posts show – put in the due diligence and readers will visit your blog for more (and possibly subscribe) if they like what they read.
Cover a topic that matches both the host’s blog and your blog. On one hand, you’ll cater to the maximum number of readers at the host site. At the same time, it’ll attract readers who will be potentially interested in what you have to say in your blog.

Use linkbacks in the guest post. If the host allows linkbacks to your blog, use them wisely. Be sure to check if the host has any limit on number of links and keep within the limit.
Put a subscription link in your author bio. Make it easy for readers to subscribe by putting your RSS and email subscription link in your bio. Some blogs have limitations on the author write-up and may request you only have 1-2 lines. If so, prioritize what you want to put. If you look at my author bio in this guest post, you’ll see I included both my RSS link and free subscription for my newsletter.

3. Offer an incentive for subscribing

If you want to grow your subscription count, you have to give readers an incentive to subscribe, preferably via email/newsletter. If you are a regular reader of Problogger, you would know about the importance of having your own email list, which is crucial for your product/service marketing/launches. I recommend using free ebooks / information products as incentive as it’s convenient and highly relevant for blog readers.
Up until April this year, I never had any sign-up incentive for readers. After seeing my article 101 Things To Do Before You Die is the 2nd most popular article on my blog (it also landed me an interview with CNN regarding the topic of bucket lists), I turned it into a pdf ebook with the same title and gave it away as a sign-up gift for those who subscribe to the free newsletter (feel free to sign up for my free newsletter via my author bio below to get the ebook) . I also prominently displayed this ebook incentive in my sidebar (see image below):
ebook cover

In the week I launched the free ebook (Apr Week 3), I had over 600 new subscribers (much higher than the average weekly growth of 200 subscribers), a large part driven by the free ebook. I believe many of these new subscribers were readers who bookmarked my site, consistently read my articles but just didn’t subscribe as there wasn’t a reason. Today, the 101 Things To Do Before You Die ebook remains important in generating sign-ups for my newsletter.
Some notes about your sign-up incentive:

It should be related to what your blog has to offer. Otherwise your readers just going to sign-up and unsubscribe later on when they realize your blog is about other stuff. In my example, people who are interested in creating bucket lists are generally also interested in personal growth/development and hence will appreciate what I write about (daily reflections/tips on living our best life)
It should be elevant to your readers’ needs. ”101 Things To Do Before You Die” is a catchy topic and very relevant since everyone will have a list of things they want to accomplish in his/her life before he/she die. A good way is to see what are the top articles on your blog and use them to spark ideas for your sign-up incentive.

4. Offer free ebooks with top content

In April ’10, I created a Free Ebooks section and converted my most popular series and articles into free pdf ebooks. While it took time to put together the articles, format them nicely and design the ebook covers, it definitely paid off. My ebooks section became wildly popular – to date, I have 8 free personal development ebooks covering key personal growth topics (how to discover your purpose, successful goal achievement, book of 300+ inspiring quotes, how to overcome procrastination, dealing with disappointment, etc) and over 15,000 downloads in total. The ebooks section itself has nearly 20k views on Stumble Upon.
It seems that even though the same articles are available on the blog, having them in ebook format has its own value as readers can access them easily on their computer and read when they’re offline. Not only that, new readers can easily scan and see your top content there, rather than weed through all the articles. It’s also a great way for them to distribute to their friends/family, which serves as positive WOM.
My ebook tips for you:

Look at the most popular articles / series at your blog and turn them into ebooks
You can use My Ecover Maker to make your covers for free. I scoured the whole internet for an ebook cover maker and this was hands down the best.
Include a personal foreword in the ebook, as it’s possible someone new ends up reading it. It should introduce them to your blog and interest them enough to surf over and read more.

5. Place your subscription link in a prominent spot

Your RSS /newsletter sign-up link should be prominent and easily accessible. It always puzzles me why some bloggers put their RSS link in hard to find places. In a highly cluttered internet environment where people have low attention span, you want to make it very easy for readers to subscribe.
blog screenshot

I checked out numerous blogs and found out the top right hand corner is the most common spot to place subscription icons. If you look at the screenshot above of The Personal Excellence Blog, I place my RSS / Email links in the top right hand corner.

6. Practice the 8 habits of highly excellent bloggers

Last, but definitely not the least. There are 8 habits common across highly excellent bloggers which I’ve identified. They are:

Deliver their best value in every article
Work harder than anyone else
Practice what they preach
Don’t write to please
Keep things real
Not afraid to be vulnerable
Keep upgrading themselves
Transform lives with their writing

Each habit has been equally important for me in gaining readership and will bring you blogging results if you practice them duly. I’ve written them in detail in 8 Habits of Highly Excellent Bloggers (my guestpost at Problogger) with specific examples of each habit and how to apply them as a blogger, so be sure to check them out.

Moving Forward

I’m definitely not stopping here of course – I’m working even harder now to increase my readership base in the next few months (and years) and look forward to the growth ahead. If you have been enjoying my articles, be sure to subscribe to my feed and newsletter (links in my author bio) for more great high value content.
Are there any traffic building / subscriber building tips which work great for you? Feel free to share in the comments area so we can all learn together

10 Lessons I Learned from Gaining my First 1000 Subscribers

4:15 AM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) No comments

My blog, YoungPrePro, recently surpassed its first 1000 subscribers, and there are a lot of lessons I learned along the way. Below you’ll find ten that come to my mind right away.

1. Your Subscribers are Your Most Important Readers

I learned this lesson the hard way, and if I had knew this I would be having far more subscribers than I have now.
I didn’t focus on gaining blog subscribers when I started blogging. All I wanted was to be getting a lot of daily visitors. Later I started seeing the importance of having blog subscribers as opposed to having daily visitors. Your daily visitors can stop visiting your blog after a sign of inactivity from you for some time, but your subscribers will always receive blog posts from you as long as they’re subscribed. On top of that subscribers also have a deeper relationship with you.

2. Content is King

I have disputed this statement once or twice, but after seeing the effect of writing great content I realized how important content is.
I have discovered I get more subscribers anytime I write a great post that can impact the lives of my readers. Sure they take a lot of time to prepare, but the results are worth it.
I get triple my usual traffic anytime I write a great post and I also end up being featured and interviewed in so many places, and this eventually boosts my traffic, reputation and brings in more subscribers.

3. Your Design Matters

I am a a guy who didn’t want to spend any money building my blog, except for my hosting fees, I used a lot of free themes for my blog and I later become unsatisfied which led me to changing my theme several times.
I went on with this for some time and I decided to give a premium theme a try. After I started using a premium theme on my blog I noticed a significant increase in my traffic and in my subscriber count. So yeah the investment was worth it.

4. Marketing is a Must

I blogged for the first few months with less than 50 subscribers, I didn’t do much to promote my blog and this had a great impact on the success I had. After that I realized that content can’t do the trick alone, and that you have to invest in marketing your blog too.
I started guest posting as much as I could, and this had a very positive impact on my subscriber count. The good thing is that the increased traffic I get from promotional activities tends to stick around month after month.

5. Networking is a Must

You will have heard people talking about you networking with other bloggers or having blogging buddies. I also had some blogging buddies who I connect with on a regular basis and as a result of this I am included when they write a new list. This alone has helped me gain some subscribers and it also helped me gain thousands of dollars in affiliate sales.
It might feel weird to try to connect with other people online, but believe me, having strong relationships with people inside your niche can go a long way to improve your subscriber count and your blog overall.

6. Having Goals is Important

I might be a little bit ashamed to say this, but my goal was to have a minimum of 20,000 subscribers before the end of 2010. Even though this goal is unrealistic (now I know!), it still had a great influence on getting my first 1000 subscribers – first, it made me work harder to improve my subscriber count and second, it kept me motivated not to quit.

7. Traffic is not Everything

My subscriber count is only a fraction of the traffic I get and I have realized with time that getting traffic is not everything. Conversion is what matters.
Getting more subscribers to your blog is not all about you focusing on how to get more traffic but how to convert that traffic to subscribers. There are a lot of blogs with less traffic than I have yet they have more subscribers than I do. Why? Because they’re good at converting traffic to subscribers.

8. Social Proof Works

When I got over 800 subscribers I started displaying my subscriber count and I have since noticed a boost in the rate I am getting new subscribers.
People love to be involved and they don’t love threading a path alone, they want to be assured that what you preach works and there is no better way to convince them than to let them know that there are tons of other people already subscribed.

9. Making Subscribing Easy is Very Important

One thing that amazes me is that over 700 of my subscribers are email subscribers. It is a major mistake to think that enabling RSS feed subscription alone is the way to go. Many of your readers don’t know what RSS is but there is hardly any one of them who doesn’t have an email. Don’t let people begin to know what RSS is before they can subscribe to your blog. Rather, make subscription available in any format you think they will like.

10. Feedback Matters

Many of us only care about getting subscribers, but we hardly care about retaining them. Another lesson I learnt from gaining my first 1000 subscribers is that what you think about your blog is not what matters but what your readers think.
I once got an email from one of my subscribers who told me that he was about to unsubscribe and that particular email would be his last communication. He told me I have been writing a particular type of post lately (which is true) and that he was tired of receiving that same type of post. He also told me that it is important to be alternating the type of posts I write. I took this reader’s suggestion and I saw a boost in my subscriber count.
Conclusion
Your subscribers are the lifeline of your blog because if every other thing collapses, they will still be there. The above are 10 lessons I learned from gaining my first 1000 subscribers. I hope you can use them to increase your own subscriber count.
About the Author: Onibalusi Bamidele is a 16-year-old entrepreneur living the Internet lifestyle and the founder of the young entrepreneur blog, YoungPrePro.com. Make sure to subscribe to his blog to get all his updates.

5 Lessons I learned from Writing Almost 300 Guest Posts in One Year

3:54 AM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) No comments

I started blogging in January of 2010, and I’ve decided to give what it takes to make my blog successful. This great desire and determination of mine has led me to do a lot of things, some quite surprising, which includes writing almost 300 guest posts in one year. After writing tons of guest posts I’ve learned a lot of lessons, and I wanted to share them with you.

1. Having Goals Matter

You probably have heard many bloggers say that having goals is critical to succeeding as a blogger; this same principle applies to guest blogging.
When I started guest blogging, I used the work hard approach instead of the work smart approach, I didn’t have a specific goal in mind and this led me to writing so many guest posts without tracking the results, it was after I have written so many guest posts that I discovered I’m not getting results.
Right from the onset, make sure you know what your purpose for guest blogging is because it will determine your approach. If your purpose for guest posting is to improve your search engine rankings your approach will be different from that of someone who wants to increase his/her blog subscribers.

2. Quality Beats Quantity

I wouldn’t have agreed with the above statement when I was still new to guest blogging, no wonder they say “experience is the best teacher”.
There were days I wrote as much as 6 guest posts and I write guest posts almost every day of the week, my main aim was to get my guest posts published on many blogs, which led to the quality of my guest posts suffering. I submitted most of these guest posts to small blogs and they ended up sending me very little traffic, some blogs didn’t even send me any traffic.
I didn’t discover the truth until one day, my guest post was published on an A-list blog which sent me thousands of visitors; it was then that I realized that quality beats quantity.
The bitter guest blogging truth many people might not want to hear is this, “submitting 5 guest posts to 5 “big” A-list blogs is better than submitting 100 guest posts to smaller blogs”. Most A-list blogs will send you thousands of visitors depending on the quality of your guest post while the majority of the small blogs will send you very little traffic, if at all.

3. Your Guest Post Will Determine How Much Traffic You Will Get

From my experience with telling people the benefits of guest blogging I’ve seen a lot of people who believe that writing valuable posts for other people’s blogs is a waste of time. They believe it’s better to have all their best posts on their blogs only.
The truth is, if you write an exceptional post on your blog it can go viral, but as far as blogs with little traffic are concerned, luck plays a very large role,
In order to get good results from your posts you must have a big audience, and one great way to do this is by writing for other, larger blogs. A guest post on a big blog can send you far more traffic than you’ll ever get in a week, no matter how great you think your blog posts are.
Another thing is that many people make a mistake of writing low quality guest posts for other blogs, as this ends up affecting them because it is either rejected or it underperforms on the blog they submit it to.
The better your guest post, the more traffic you get – and this factor might be even more important than the size of the blog you as publishing your post on.

4. It is Very Important to Work on Sustaining Your Traffic

When I wrote a guest post for an A-list blog that sent me thousands of visitors, I was so happy and I began to think I would be getting so many visitors from that period onward. How mistaken I was. A lot of factors will determine the percentage of visitors you’ll be able to sustain from your guest posts, some of these factors include the quality of your own content, your domain name and your design/user experience.
It is very important to work on getting as many visitors from your guest posts to subscribe to your blog because that is the best way to keep them returning over and over again.

5. Rejection Is Inevitable

One thing many people are afraid when they consider guest blogging is rejection. They wonder what will happen if the other person doesn’t like their posts. That is a pretty good question, but you should also know that being rejected is not the end of the world – as long as you will be guest posting you should always be prepared for rejection. What matters most is not the rejection but how you deal with it.
If a blogger rejects your guest post, try to face the reality and find out what can be responsible for your guest post being rejected. It can be because of your guest post’s quality, it can be because of too much grammar errors and it can be because your guest post is not in line with the style of that blog. If you can’t figure out what is responsible for your guest post being rejected try to get in touch with the blogger and ask him/her politely to tell you why your guest post was rejected so that you can improve on it in the future.

Share Your Thoughts

What do you think about guest blogging? If you were to start guest posting again what would you do differently? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

How I Gained 3,500 Subscribers in 12 Months

3:50 AM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) No comments

started in December 2009 and by December 2010 I had 3,500 subscribers. And that includes a 6 month period where I lived in Spain and spent most of my time learning Spanish.
Today I have over 4,500 subscribers and growing fast. I use a very simple strategy to grow my blog. It’s very common, but I take massive action, and I get big results.
You see, building a successful blog with thousands of subscribers is not hard if you focus on the right strategies and take massive action.
In order for results to come, you have to have a clear mind, be motivated and know exactly how to turn visitors into subscribers.
And that is exactly what I will show you how to do in this article.

Step #1: Clarity

Before you start your blog, you have to have a clear goal of what you want to accomplish.
Do you want to make a part time living online?
Or do you just want to build a popular blog with thousands of subscribers?
One of the biggest reasons blogger’s fail is because they do not know where they are going. When you set a target, you can track your progress and make adjustments along the way.
For example, if you want to build a popular blog, the first target you might want to have is 1,000 subscribers.
Now, if you aren’t seeing steady growth in the amount of subscribers you have, you have to adjust your strategy, and the more you do this, the more likely you are to be successful.
Successful blogger’s are persistent and patient. They know that there are no quick-fixes or magic bullets. It takes hard work to build a blog, but once you gain momentum, you become unstoppable.
When I started my blog, I knew I wanted to write about personal development, but I also wanted to mix in business.
I’ll be honest and say that I wasn’t as clear as I should have been when I started, which in turn led to losing motivation six months in.
Luckily, I kept writing until I became clear about what I wanted to achieve. Sometimes the only thing you can do is take action, even if you have no idea where you want to go.

Step #2: Sign-Up Bonus (i.e. Bribe)

One of the first things I did when I started my blog was to create a sign-up bonus that subscribers get when they sign-up to my e-mail list.
One of the best ways to turn new visitors into loyal subscribers is to make your sign-up bonus easy to digest, but valuable.
It can be a short report on the common mistakes people make in your particular niche, or it could be a few tips on how to become a raging success.
The main point is to make it something irresistible. The more you can do that, the more likely someone is to sign-up to your e-mail list.
You also should make a sign-up bonus relevant to your content. This is a no-brainer, but it is something I see new bloggers do over and over again. They completely fail in the area of relevancy.
If you have a blog about cooking, you should probably have a report on one aspect of cooking. I even made this mistake myself and changed my sign-up bonus back to my original one not too long ago.
Since changing back, my email sign-ups have again increased dramatically and all is well on the Cloud.

Step #3: The Single Most Powerful Traffic Strategy

I grew my blog from 0 to 1,012 subscribers in 101 days and then to 3,500 subscribers in 365 days. And I did it with one strategy: guest posting.
You do not have to use any other strategy to grow your blog other than guest posting. Guest posting gives you links, connections, exposure, and traffic.
I made the decision early on to become excellent at guest posting. I wrote close to 50 guest posts during the first few months of my blog, and the payoff was sweet.
Guest posting was one of the main reasons that I was able to grow so fast. The only mistake I made was to let my fears take over and avoid guest posting on bigger blogs.
I mostly stuck to smaller blogs, because it was much easier. Even though I focused almost exclusively on small to middling blogs, I did very well, my blog grew fast, and you can do the same.
You don’t have to learn countless traffic generation strategies. You only have to learn guest posting. Get good at writing guest posts and you will never have to worry about anything again.

Step #4: Bold Action

When I started my blog, I was determined to succeed. I knew I was going to face obstacles, problems, and challenges on my way to building a popular blog, but I knew I was going to get through them.
I was prepared to fail and make mistakes, but I was not ready to give up.
When you start anything new, you have to be willing to pay the price for success. If you want to build a successful blog or a profitable online business, you will have to learn new things, make mistakes, get out of your comfort zone, and put in a lot of work.
That’s just the truth of how things work. Most people start blogs because they think it’s a quick way to make money.
The truth is that there are no quick ways to become a success, or make a lot of money. Sure, there are exceptions, but long-term success always comes from hard work.
One of the main reasons I’ve come this far and not quit, even though my motivation tanked at one point, is because I’m doing something I love, which brings me to the last step: passion.

Step #5: Passion

If you want to create a popular blog, make sure it’s something you love doing.
By going after your passion, you will be happy to blog even if you aren’t making money right away, and even if you don’t have thousands of subscribers tomorrow.
When you do something you love, you naturally attract people into your life that also like the topic you’re talking about.
On the other hand, if you’re just doing something to make money, it will destroy your soul and the likelihood that you will give up at the first sign of trouble is much, much higher.
Whatever you do, make sure you’re doing something you enjoy doing. You don’t have to know exactly how you’re going to build a successful blog, because when you’re fired up with passion, you will get there sooner or later if you do not give up.

Action Steps

With all that said, I want to leave you with a summary of what we’ve gone through in this article.
If you want to build a wildly successful blog, follow these action steps:

Become clear about your goal. What do you really want
Find a topic you’re interested and/or passionate about.
Create a mouth-watering sign-up offer that gets people to subscribe.
Get really, really good at guest posting and do it often.
Take massive action, even if you’re scared or don’t know what to do.

That’s as simple as I can make it. We tend to over-complicate, but in reality, every success is built one step at a time, one day at a time.
If you want a popular blog, you can do it, but only if you’re determined to make it happen.
Are you?

10 Simple Tips To Get 250,000 Page Views Per Month

3:49 AM MD. RAKIBUL ISLAM OLY(R.I.O) No comments

When we started our business 16 months ago we decided to use a blog as the central marketing tool for our business. We did it because we didn’t really have any money for advertising and we never really believed that attending networking events would work for us. We placed the blog at the center of our website and only had one commodity on our hands to make it a success….time.
It’s been a long journey but 16 months later we now get 250,000 pageviews to our site per month, in the last year we have brought in over $500,000 in business as a direct result of the blog and the business operates in 2 countries and our content has been picked up all over the world. We’ve largely used social media to promote the blog and grow that audience and today I wanted to share some of those tips with you and even though you might not have a business attached to your blog you’ll hopefully gain some good insights in to what works for business blogging….

1.Get some professional help at the start
We paid a small amount of money to get our blog designed by a professional at the start as well as getting somebody to add in the proper SEO plugins. Since then we haven’t really touched it design wise and have instead focused on the content. If you are serious about blogging or creating a business around your blog then you should invest a small amount of money at the start making it look professional.

2.Integrate Facebook wherever you can
Facebook is the most important social media tool we use in terms of bringing traffic to our site. It accounts for just over 18% of the traffic on our site and the 11,000 odd Facebook likes we have are people who come back to our site on a repeat basis to consume our content. Make it easy to share your content through Facebook and if the content is good enough it will spread like wildfire.

3.Forget about getting traffic from Twitter
Many people get obsessed with Twitter as a social media tool that drives traffic but let me save you lots of time and energy now because it simply does not. Less than 1% of our traffic comes from Twitter on a monthly basis despite some of our stories getting 100s of Retweets. You can certainly share the odd link through Twitter to gain some new readers but it is not the magic formula that you have been looking for.

4.The old blogging tricks still work best
Read many of the great posts on there or on any of the other great blogging advice sites and they’ll give you great advice like to make sure you add catchy titles (probably why you are reading this post in the first place), to write often and to guest post on other blogs. These are old pieces of advice but in a world where people are obsessed with social media and the new tools those are the tools that by far and away work the best. They are the easy wins.

5.Give everything away for free
As a business we sell advice on social media. We also do a very strange thing in that we give that advice away for free on the blog all the time. There is nothing in our heads that we keep for ourselves but instead focus on sharing as much of that knowledge as possible. By giving valuable advice away you make sure that people keep coming back to your blog for more advice and that’s how you build and audience. People are selfish, if they are coming to your blog they want something for free and that is what you will have to offer.

6.Be Social In The Real World
A huge amount of people who read our blog are people that we have met in the real world. Being social online is one thing but forging a social relationship with somebody in the real world is still far more powerful than anything. Try and attend conferences within your niche, meet people with similar interests and if relevant share your blog with them. If you are lucky enough to be able to speak at any events then work your blog in to the presentation and pitch yourself as the person of authority on your given subject.

7.Use rich media content if at all possible
Text is great and it’s an important part of blogging but not everybody is a good writer and even people who can write should try and support their content with rich media content if possible. I think it helps you stand out form the crowd. What do I mean by rich media content? Photos, videos, podcasts, diagrams, slidehows or presentations. The technology is there now for you to post most of these things for free and they’ll push your content out even further to new platforms.

8.RSS is still the dream subscriber
These days you’ll see plenty of ways to subscribe to blogs including email, Twitter and Facebook to name but a few but one stands head and shoulders above all the others for me and it’s the oldest one in the list…RSS. Getting an RSS subscriber is getting somebody who is totally committed to receiving your content every single day. I cherish RSS readers in a way that I would never think about Twitter followers or Facebook likes. The social subscribers are doing it as an impulse but an RSS reader is somebody who wants to get your content every single time you publish it instantly. You should take RSS subscribers over everything else in my opinion.

9.Build A passionate community around your blog
This is by far the hardest point on the whole list and there isn’t really any written rule on how to achieve it. The one thing I think you have to do most is be nice to everybody and reply to as many comments as you physically can. Comments on your blog, comments on Twitter, comments on Facebook or Youtube or wherever the person has left a comment. People fly through the web these days pausing for a second at a time on sites these days so if they are taking time to leave a comment oon your blog then the very least you can do is stop and answer them. Building community take a lot of time but you should never underestimate the power of word of mouth when it comes to your blog or business and a passionate community is just about the most powerful thing around today.

10.Never give people the hard sell through social media
Once you build a community or a large audience for your site the temptation is always there to try and sell to them or to push your products. We never ever write blog posts asking people to use our services. Make no mistake that they can find our services within one click if they are looking for them but we’ll never push them because people can smell the hard sell a mile away and they’ll never go for it and you’ll end up pushing them away instead. The idea with social media is to engage people and have a meaningful conversation with them. That is what works best in the long run.