How To Post Blog Posts Automatically To Facebook Using Hootsuite

This is a guest post compiled by Akpene Jacob  for OgbongeBlog

My fellow bloggers always send me mails and messages on how I use hootsuite to drive traffic to my blog, I always explain it to them but some will still be confused on how to use it effectively so i decided to write a tutorial on it so that they can fully understand it and those that have not heard of it too can use it.



So lets get started. You can use Hootsuite to drive traffic to your website or blog by connecting it with your   Facebook, Twitter or GooglePlus accounts so that you can schedule posts which will be posted automatically on this social media platforms.

Now you are ready use to Hootsuite, go to : www.hootsuite.com on your browser and sign up if you are a new user or log in if you already have an hootsuite account. After you finish setting up your Hootsuite account and you logged in you will see the screen below.

Click on ''Add Social Networks'', a new window will pop up as seen below :

You can connect only one social network if you're still using the free account but if you upgrade to Hootsuite Pro, you can connect as many as you want. See the screen below after I connected my Facebook account.

In the screen above you can see the Facebook groups I belong to but you I can only add 2 groups because I am still using free account, you should now add the two groups you want to be posting in.



Now we are done with the connecting ish, lets now link our Feeds to Hootsuite to so that it can do the work for us automatically.



 Go to Publisher and click on ''RSS Feeds''\

 A new window will pop up click on ''RSS/Atom'' so that you can connect your Feed to Hootsuite so that anytime you post it will automatically posted in your groups.

Now click on that Plus icon below ''RSS/Atom''

That's the screen you will see above.



Fill the form as explained below:  



Feed Url: Type in your blog address



Network to send feed items to: Select your Facebook profile or one of your groups.



Check this feed for new posts every: You can select every one hour, two hours and so on.



When new posts are found, send up to: You choose 1, 2 3 and so on.



Save your feed when you are done.



After you save the above, anytime you publish on your website/blog, Hootsuite will always be updating your Facebook for you with your latest blog posts.



In next tutorial, I will share with you, how to schedule your blog posts to be published on Facebook, Twitter etc using Hootsuite.



Are you also using hootsuite? Kindly share your experience.

This post was written by Akpene Jacob. He is a young Nigerian blogger and an internet Entrepreneur. He blogs at www.jaybossng.com. You can follow him on twitter @iamjayboss .

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5 Places Where Newbie Bloggers Tend to Go Wrong (If Not Always)

This is a guest post compiled by Alan Wilson  for OgbongeBlog

Becoming a blogger seems like something every other person is either doing, has tried (and given up), or is planning on. To be honest, it’s not as easy as it seems. Or let’s say becoming a successful blogger is not as easy as it may seem.





Simply putting together a website doesn’t suffice. Okay, I’m not saying that, that is easy either! However, in order to be a successful blogger, you need to pay attention to a lot of things that really matter.



So, all of you bloggers, out there,who are planning on (or have already tried and failed at) becoming a successful blogger, you need to know these critical mistakes that newbie bloggers make and go downhill with their blog.  Understanding these mistakes will allow you to avoid them in future, or at least know exactly where you went wrong.

Throw in the water before it goes up in smoke!


1)    The Domain-Less Blog:



Have a professional domain that serves as an identity for your blog. Owning your domain means it is a serious business and it’s not any random blog that you (the blogger) decided to create just because it’s free. You can also do this by buying a premium domain name for your free WordPress or Blogger blog.



2)     The Overly-Complex:



Try not use sentences like, “the protector about this time gave a commendable earnest of his resolution to assertrigorous justice against offenders” (or other similar sentences you’ll find on www.yourdictionary.com. Blah!).



The blog audience is usually a sizeable one and using such complex vocabulary will only reduce the audience. The best bloggers try to make complex concepts sound as easy as possible. Sounding complex is not parallel to “intelligent” or “sophisticated” unlike what many people mistakenly assume.



3)    The Daily Diary:



Your blog should be all about you. It can be, but only if the “you” in your posts somehow benefit your audience. It may be tempting to create a new, free blog and pour in all about your thoughts, feelings, stories, and personal experiences.



However, your blog won’t be a hit if it doesn’t assist your audience in some way. In short: your blog is not your personal diary.  Bloggers should learn to ask themselves: What’s in it for my readers?



Talking about yourself and your personal experiences is acceptable if it adds some spice and personality to your posts. Keep in mind though, that it must be useful and helpful to your audience as well.



4)    Overly-Optimized SEO:



Nobody likes reading a paragraph similar to this one,



“We will sell the best kitchen appliances you can find inNew Hampshire. For all you who live in New Hampshire and need kitchen appliances, contact the NH Kitchen Appliances, LLC. You are sure to find a great variety in kitchen appliances here”.



Great, but try not to sound like a tape stuck in one place. Over optimization never works, but always end up in a penalty. So, basically you stuff the same keyword again and again and again (okay, I’ll stop).



If the purpose of your blog is to focus on SEO and not “helping your readers” you might make it to the top of Google results; however it won’t be very popular among the audience and it won’t stuck on the first page of the SERP for very long. Eventually, it is likely to get penalized and get thrown into the bin.



5)    The Generous All-Embracer:



This one shouldn’t come to you as a surprise. Your blog should have a specific purpose to it. You might be feeling a little “big-hearted” and trying to come up with something that is for anybody and everybody. However, that tactic won’t work for long. Your blog will end up becoming meaningless, and infact, shrink the audience. 



First try to understand your audience once you have decided on a purpose (a niche). What are the problems they will be facing? What are their needs and wants? What kind of information will they be looking for? Direct your information and language to them. A blog that ends up being generic will certainly be a wasted effort.



All in all, it is best to make your blog as helpful and useful as possible. Don’t forget the tidbits (length, quality, search ability, structure, etc). If you win your audience, you’ll also win it with Google. You win both, you’ll have traffic rolling in and making your blog a big hit.



What's your take on this?

This post was written by Alan Wilson. He is an experienced and passionate writer currently working for Essay Avenue that provides Online Essay Writing Help to students for better academic grades. 

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Blogging Myths You Need To Do Away With In 2015

This is a guest post compiled by Adegboye Adeniyi  for OgbongeBlog

If you grew as an African child, you would have heard your own part of some of the myths we were told as children and which some of us believed in.

One of such myth was the fact that if you hit your left leg against a stone as you were going out, you either won’t meet the person at home or you won’t get a positive result in case you were going to ask for a favour.

Either way, it was considered a bad sign to hit your left leg against a stone when on an outing.

It was only as we grew up that we got to know better.

Whether you are a die-hard blogger or just beginning your career as a blogger, there are lots of myths that you need to do away with to succeed in 2015.

5 Blogging Myths to Avoid in 2015

Myth #1: Build it, traffic will come:

On the average over 2.9million post are published every second. This means for every niche you can think of, there are already blog competiting for the same space as yours. This means it is not just okay to have a blog. You need to do the extra work to promote your blog and drive traffic to it.

Heard of the 20-80% principle? The success of a blog is 20% content creation (writing posts) and 80% content promotion (marketing, building relationships with others in the niche and building links etc). This means you need to let your target audience know that your blog exist.

If you do not tell them you exist, they won’t know how to find you. When they can’t find your website, they will settle for the available website they see.

There are numerous channels you can use to show the pathway to your blog. Channels like social media, email marketing and even paid advertisement are worth exploring.



Myth #2: You need to publish more content:

Another blogging myth that you need to throw away is the fact that you have to write more content and publish often. Experience bloggers have already learnt these the hard way but for newbie, it can be tempting to think that the more you write, the higher your traffic or ranking.

Publishing as often as you can might help you but if you are in an industry where things and news do not change that often, then publishing when you don’t have something interesting to tell your audience might not be a bonus.

Depending on your niche, you might have to take a step backward and consider some of the following factors to help you determine how often you should publish.

·         How often can you write?

·         What other component do you need eg graphics, etc?

·         How often do things change in your niche?

·         Who are your audience and what do they want?

 

Myth #3:  There is a particular type of content that does so well:

Do you think a particular type of content will do so well than others? Do you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and all you can publish there are videos.

There is no right or wrong content to publish. It is all about understanding your audience, knowing your style and finding a meeting point.

If you find out that videos does well among your audience, put more time into producing more of it. If images does well and receives a lot of sharing, likes and re-tweet then put more effort into it.

Find the sweet spot and exploit it to your advantage.



Myth #4: You do not need SEO

Search Engine Optimization is a method of making web content discoverable by search engines. Search engine optimization involves much more than keyword research and link building. With search engines getting more intelligent, it has become a whole new way of promoting a website online. From audience persona, keyword research, copywriting and link building, a whole new method of promoting a blog was opened. But ignore the search engines and you lose out on a chance to sometimes increase your website traffic by as much as 75%.



Myth #5: Blogging can make you a millionaire over night:

Want to earn a passive income, you need a blog. Right?

Wrong. Actually being a blogger might not make you rich overnight. This is because blogging is such a hard job that most people will give up on it even before they see the reward of their effort. And depending on your niche, the competitions can become so crazy you feel like quitting blogging altogether.

While blogging may not make you an instant millionaire, it holds such a great potential for anyone ready to put in the work required.

Conclusion:

As bloggers, we live in a time where trends changes so fast and technology has come to stay. Go with the trends or be swallowed up by it. Blogging myths will continue to exist but what you can do is to learn from others you have succeeded as a blogger.

Have your own myth? Share with us.

This post was written by Adegboye Adeniyi. He is the Head of Search at VTNS Solutions, a Search Engine Marketing Firm dedicated to helping businesses build a better online presence. You can follow him on twitter @legendcrest

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7 Secret Ingredients To Make You A Successful Blogger

This is a guest post compiled by Adegboye Adeniyi  for OgbongeBlog

Do you want to become a successful blogger?



If the answer is yes, then read on. If your answer is no,  you may wish to still read on if only to convince yourself that becoming a great blogger is much harder than we say and that you are justified in your wanting to quit blogging.



If you count the number of blogs that exists currently, they exceed over 300million according to Wikipedia and almost 61.8 million new posts are published every single day.



This means the amount of competition in any niche is high.



Yet blogging has been known to help brand people and businesses.  When you blog consistently, it can quickly position you as a go-to-expert in your niche.



But the million dollar question remains



How do you become a successful blogger?





While passion is an important ingredient, there are some other spices that you need to help you become a great blogger.

These secret ingredients are:



1. You have to keep working at it



You just can't give up. Not now and not ever. When you give up, you are giving someone else one less spot to compete for. Successful bloggers have learnt to keep pushing until they achieve their goal. Life would happen. Anything that can go wrong will possibly go wrong but it is only when you are persistent that you can truly be successful.



2. Learn to promote others but promote yourself more



As a buddy blogger, you may think the secret to success is to talk about other people but you are wrong. When starting out, you need to get word out about your blog. This means focusing greatly on promoting your blog because you need to establish yourself as someone to reckon with. Granted you need once in a while to promote others in order to build relationships with them but do not make it an obsession or focus more on it. You are building your own reputation so talk about your stuff more.



3. Do not ignore all other marketing channels 



One grave mistake most bloggers make is not leveraging other marketing channels to grow their blog. Once they push the publish button, they run off to start writing the next post but you cannot grow your blog that way. You need to drive traffic to and through your blog using various other means. Paid advert eg Facebook ads, can quickly give your blog post traction. Social media presence is a necessary evil and SEO is a must.  For SEO, we do not mean all the advanced stuffs like link building etc but the most basic stuffs like including your keyword in your title and naming your images with the alt tag.You can download the Google SEO ebook to master the basics.



4.  Be yourself



You must understand who you are and learn how to turn it into an advantage. What do you know best? Are you better at creating graphics? When and how do you write best? What kind of articles comes easily to you to write about? For examples, blog topics hit me at any time so immediately this happens, the first thing I do is to write down my first draft using my smart phone. When I think I have the skeleton of the post written only then do I transfer it to my desktop to complete. This has worked so well for me that I rarely ever sit down at my desktop to try to write a new post.



5.  Identify your niche



Another grave mistake bloggers make is trying to be everything to everyone. Just because entertainment news is hot cake does not mean you should join the bandwagon. When you do that you can get lost in the crowd. To truly make a name for yourself, you need to identify which niche makes the most sense for you. It could be because of your passion. It could be that you are knowledgeable about the niche but you must pick a particular niche and stay with it.  If you are writing about technology, write technology. If you want to focus on food, focus on it. Don't be a jack of all trade and master of none.



6.  Start Collecting emails as soon as you can



Okay, these may sound a little advanced but from the very first day you start your blog, start thinking of how you intend to collect emails from your readers. Eventually these emails are going to remain the only medium by which you can build a lasting relationship with your readers. Not everyone will visit your blog every day and yet they would not mind hearing from you. So get into the lead generation game early. For starters, you can add Feedburner email subscription form to your blog.



7. Find a mentor or steal one



 If you are lucky you may find someone to mentor you but that may not be the case especially if you are a newbie. What can you do? Steal one. Identify two bloggers in your niche that are successful then make it a point of duty to study them. Visit their blog every day. Follow them on social media. Understand how to write, what they write about and who their audience is. Then go replicate them only do it better.



To wrap it up the only difference between a successful blogger and the average blogger is the persistence, dedication, amount of time you put into your blog and the ability to keep going when everyone else gives up.

This post was written by Adegboye Adeniyi. He is the Head of Search at VTNS Solutions, a Search Engine Marketing Firm dedicated to helping businesses build a better online presence. You can follow him on twitter @legendcrest

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How Desmond Sold His Blog For Few Millions In Nigeria Without PayPal Account

+Desmond Nwosu was the owner of Netmediablog for some years. He built the blog from scratch and tried to do everything right from day 1. The blog was his baby. He invested countless number of nights on that blog and ensured to maintain a certain standard and quality. He never really knew he could sell it for some millions of Naira now.





As a graduate of Industrial chemistry without a job, that blog was fetching him some monthly income especially via sponsored posts and Google Adsense. Along came this job offer he couldn’t turn down, then he decided to sell the blog because he was finding it hard juggling the two since his new job is time demanding.



After sending me the link to confirm the sale of the blog, with the price on Flippa, I requested he share his experience with us. So, below are what he said he learnt building Netmediablog and how you can also build a blog you could sell for some good money someday.

Content:



Content they say remains the king on the internet. If you ever have in mind to sell your blog someday for some good money then you have to take your content quality seriously. No one will want to buy a blog with poor quality contents. Always ensure to publish only quality contents that adds value to your blog, the type of content people will be glad to return to. Avoid copy and paste, learn to churn out original quality content on a regular basis and someday you could make some good money out of it even if your site earning is not that much today.

SEO:



No one wants to buy a site he will spend huge amount of money to advertise for traffic. Getting your SEO right can make a big difference in the amount you can sell that blog someday. Obey the SEO rules and avoid all black hat or short cut methods. Build the right backlink profile for your blog via blog commenting and guest posting on other quality blogs. Naturally you will also be able to earn good backlink from other reputable sites if your content quality is good. Optimize your content to rank for the right keywords and your blog will get good search engine ranking and traffic and this could be the selling point of your blog someday.

Analytics:



Always measure your site analytics using the best analytics tool out there. Flippa and other site selling websites trust Google Analytics, so ensure to add analytics code to your blog today and track your analytics especially bounce rate and traffic sources. No one will want to buy a site with high bounce rate as such traffic could be from bots or paid sources. Any site buyer will want to see how your visitors interact with your site, where they go to from your site, how long they stay on your site, what they do when they come to your site etc. and all these can be tracked with Google Analytics. So ensure to add analytics code to your site and track your site behavior, use the data to improve your site where it is lacking so you don’t find it hard to sell your site someday.

Earnings:



Another thing a potential site buyer will consider before placing bid to buy your site is earnings. If your site makes good earnings you are bound to sell it very high but if it is not, then you may have a little problem there. But don’t worry there is a solution. Even if your site earnings is not that super, you can still sell that site for some good money. Simply highlight the potentials of the site and admit you couldn’t push it to its full potentials. Because you are not earnings well with your site doesn’t mean someone else can’t. Maybe there is something you are not doing so well.And the only way to show your site has good potential is to keep its quality high on content and traffic. Before someone decides to buy a site for some huge money, they have also seen the potential in it, so highlighting such potentials can encourage them to go on and pay you some good money for the efforts you have put into building the site over time.

Challenges most people face selling their blogs



Some of the challenges most people face selling their blogs is how to collect their money after selling it. I know some of you have foreign PayPal accounts with some fake details such as names and addresses. It will be risky to use your PayPal for huge transactions because PayPal may freeze your account and ask you to verify the ownership of your account.



But don’t worry, Flippa.com now uses a new escrow service called PromisePay that works for Nigeria and other countries in the world. I didn’t have to Risk using Paypal as some fake buyers could demand for their money back. Escrow is the best method to get your money after selling your site provided you have a dorm account here in Nigeria. I will always recommend GTB dorm accounts though.

Advice to bloggers:

You may not have seen the future of your blogging career yet but along the line things may change and you may want to bow out of blogging, wouldn’t it be great you retire with some good money from all your blogging efforts?I hope you can follow my guide here and build yourself a blog that can sell for some millions someday. 

Some day you may have to bow out of active blogging just like Desmond have done, it could be as a result of a job or any other thing. The big question you have to ask yourself now should be “what then happens to my blog?”



What will happen to all the energies you invested on the blog, all the countless sleepless nights, all the internet subscription money and the rest? Will you just let it all die away or would your blog worth something you can sell for some good money?





I hope to hear from you...



NB: You can connect with Desmond on Facebook here.

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