Hosting tips

How to start a book blog Start by thinking up a name for your blog. ... Decide which blogging platform to use. ... Have a look at some existing blogs for inspiration. ... Start your blog! ... Add some posts. ... Join in with memes. ... Join in or start some reading challenges. ... Write some 'list' posts.

Let's take a look at the most popular types of blogs that exist: Fashion Blogs. Fashion blogs are one of the most popular types of blogs on the internet. ... Food Blogs. Food blogs are another popular blog type. ... Travel Blogs. ... Music Blogs. ... Lifestyle Blogs. ... Fitness Blogs. ... DIY Blogs. ... Sports Blogs.

If you want to rank a website on Google in 2020, you can’t ignore the importance of link building and the need to put together a solid strategy that will help you earn high-quality links. In fact, links remain one of the top three most important ranking factors out there. That said, whether you are a total SEO beginner and are learning how to build links for the first time or have been doing it for years and just want to find new tactics that still work, there are literally dozens of approaches you can take. In this guide, you will learn how to build links with strategies and tactics that are still effective and that will help you to earn those top-ranking positions, as well as knowing those that will see you wasting time and resources and that could potentially have a negative impact on your organic visibility.  We will share quick win tactics alongside those that need a little more time and planning, but that can truly help you to get those 'can't buy’ links. What is Link Building? Why is Link Building Important For SEO? What Are the Key Elements of a Successful Link Building Strategy? White Hat vs. Black Hat vs. Grey Hat Link Building  Toxic Links and the Potential Negative Impact of the Wrong Strategy Link Building Strategies You Need to Know in 2020 Quick-Win Link Building Tactics Traditional Link Building Tactics Link Earning Tactics Paid Link Building Tactics How to Use Outreach for Link Building Easy Ways to Discover Link Building Opportunities Metrics to Measure the Success of Link Building If you want to learn how to build better links than your competitors, then read on... What is Link Building? Link building is a key part of any successful SEO strategy that involves getting other websites to link to yours — a simple hyperlink from one site to another. It is also agreed by many that it is one of the hardest parts of ranking a website, whilst one of the most rewarding when you get it right.  Not familiar with how links work? When website A links to website B, it s a strong hint to Google’s algorithm that it deserves to rank higher for relevant keywords, and you might hear these referred to as inbound links, backlinks, external links, or, quite simply, just links.  You can think of links from other websites like votes. The more high quality links that point to your website (and form part of your backlink profile), the higher you should rank on Google, and, therefore, the higher level of organic traffic you should receive.  However, links aren’t all created equal, and some can even cause your website to decrease in visibility, something that we will cover shortly.  There are many different tactics that you can use to build links, some easier to execute than others, and knowing where to get started can sometimes be difficult, especially when you are aware that some can do more harm than good. Why is Link Building Important For SEO? Link building takes time and effort. There is no hiding from that fact. It is also hard to get right, meaning that those who can successfully execute tactics to build better links than their competitors typically see significant growth in organic traffic and revenue. And that is why you need to understand why links are so important and should account for a considerable portion of your SEO campaigns’ resources. We delved deep into the importance of link building for SEO in our guide to backlinks, which you should check out for a detailed introduction to the what and the why behind this key pillar of any successful campaign. However, the main reasons why you need to make sure you are placing a strong focus on link building as an SEO are: You will rank higher on Google and other search engines. Google will find new pages on your site faster. You’ll enjoy increased credibility and trustworthiness as a business. You could benefit from targeted referral traffic. You can’t ignore link building, and you need to make sure you are rolling out tactics that give you a competitive advantage, something that we will show you how to do in this guide.  

Easy Steps to Creating a Sitemap For a Website EVERYTHING YOU NEED FOR CREATING AND SUBMITTING A SITEMAP FOR YOUR WEBSITE When it comes to getting your website ranked, you need to take advantage of as many SEO hacks as possible. Creating a sitemap is one technique that will definitely help improve your SEO strategy. What is a sitemap? Some of you may be more familiar with this than others. I’ll give you a quick crash course on the basics of sitemaps before I show you how to build a website sitemap on your own. Simply put, a sitemap, or XML sitemap, is a list of different pages on a website. XML is short for “extensible markup language,” which is a way to display information on a site. I’ve consulted with so many website owners who are intimidated by this concept because sitemaps are considered a technical component of SEO. But in all reality, you don’t need to be a tech wizard or have a tech background to create a sitemap. As you’ll learn shortly, it’s really not that difficult. Why do you need a sitemap? Search engines like Google are committed to displaying the most relevant results to people for any given search query. In order do this effectively, they use site crawlers to read, organize, and index information on the Internet. XML sitemaps make it easier for search engine crawlers to read the content on your site and index the pages accordingly. As a result, this increases your chances of boosting the SEO ranking of your website. Your sitemap will tell search engines the location of a page on your website, when it was updated, the updating frequency, and the importance of the page as it’s related to other pages on your site. Without a proper sitemap, Google bots might think that your site has duplicate content, which will actually hurt your SEO ranking. If you’re ready for your website to get indexed faster by search engines, just follow these five easy steps to create a sitemap. Step 1: Review the structure of your pages The first thing you need to do is look at the existing content on your website and see how everything is structured. Look at a sitemap template and figure out how your pages would be displayed on the table.   This is a very basic example that’s easy to follow. It all starts from the homepage. Then you have to ask yourself where your homepage links to. You likely already have this figured out based on the menu options on your site. But when it comes to SEO, not all pages are created equal. You have to keep the depth of your website in mind when you’re doing this. Recognize that the pages further away from your site’s homepage will be harder to rank for. According to Search Engine Journal, you should aim to create a sitemap that has a shallow depth, meaning it only takes three clicks to navigate to any page on your website. That’s much better for SEO purposes. So you need to create a hierarchy of pages based on importance and how you want them to be indexed. Prioritize your content into tiers that follow a logical hierarchy.    As you can see, the About page links to Our Team as well as Mission & Values. Then the Our Team page links to Management and Contact Us. The About Us page is the most important, which is why it’s part of the top-level navigation. It wouldn’t make sense to have the management page be prioritized at the same level as Products, Pricing, and Blogs, which is why it falls under third-level content. Similarly, if the Basic pricing package was positioned above the Compare Packages page, it would throw the logical structure out of whack. So use these visual sitemap templates to determine the organization of your pages. Some of you may already have a structure that makes sense but just needs some slight tweaking. Remember, you want to try to set it up so every page can be reached in three clicks.   Step 2: Code your URLs   Now that you’ve gone through and identified the importance of each page and matched that importance in your site structure, it’s time to code those URLs. The way to do this is by formatting each URL with XML tags. If you have any experience with HTML coding, this will be a breeze for you. As I said earlier, the “ML” in XML stands for markup language, which is the same for HTML. Even if this is new to you, it’s not that tough to figure it out. Start by getting a text editor where you can create an XML file.   Step 3: Validate the code Any time you code manually, human error is possible. But, for your sitemap to function properly, you can’t have any mistakes in the coding. Fortunately, there are tools that will help validate your code to ensure the syntax is correct. There’s software available online that can help you do this. Just run a quick Google search for sitemap validation, and you’ll find something. I like to use the XML Sitemap Validator tool. This will point out any errors in your code. For example, if you forget to add an end tag or something like that, it can quickly be identified and fixed. Step 4: Add your sitemap to the root and robots.txt Locate the root folder of your website and add the sitemap file to this folder. Doing this will actually add the page to your site as well. This is not a problem at all. As a matter of fact, lots of websites have this. Just type in a website and add “/sitemap/” to the URL and see what pops up. Notice the structure and logical hierarchy of each section. This relates back to what we discussed in the first step. Now, this can be taken one step further. You can even look at the code on different websites by adding “/sitemap.xml” to the URL. Sublime Text is a great option for you to consider. Then add the corresponding code for each URL. location last changed changed frequency priority of page Here are some examples of how the code will look for each one. examplesite.com/page1 2019-1-10 weekly 2 Take your time and make sure you go through this properly. The text editor makes your life much easier when it comes to adding this code, but it still requires you to be sharp. In addition to adding the sitemap file to your root folder, you’ll also want to add it to the robots.txt file. You’ll find this in the roots folder as well. Basically, this to give instructions for any crawlers indexing your website. There are a couple of different uses for the robots.txt folder. You can set this up to show search engines URLs that you don’t want them to index when they’re crawling on your site. Step 5: Submit your sitemap Now that your sitemap has been created and added to your site files, it’s time to submit them to search engines. In order to do this, you need to go through Google Search Console. Some of you may already have this set up. If not, you can get started very easily. Once you’re on the search console dashboard, navigate to Crawl Sitemaps. Conclusion If you’re ready to take your SEO strategy to the next level, you need to create a sitemap for your website. There is no reason to be intimidated by this anymore. As you can see from this guide, it’s easy to create a sitemap in just five steps. Review your pages Code the URLs Validate your code Add the sitemap to the root and robots.txt Submit the sitemap  

5 Ways to Make Video Files Smaller without Losing Quality Videos files can be very large—and that can be a problem for uploading and hosting. Unless you need the highest resolution possible, making video files smaller is better for everyone. They reduce bandwidth usage and upload time, and there’s less buffering on your viewer’s end. But how do you easily reduce the size of a video? We’ll take a look at five ways to make your video file smaller, both from your computer and online. There are two reliable ways to reduce video size without losing quality. The first is to make your video shorter. If you can trim footage off of the beginning or end, that will reduce the size of the file. The second method is by removing the audio from your video. Most videos will probably benefit from having audio included, but if it’s unnecessary, you can remove it. That will decrease the file size without any loss of quality. With that out of the way , let’s look at how to make a video file smaller. If you’d like to jump to a specific platform or app, just use the links below: Desktop software VLC (Windows, Mac, Linux) Shotcut (Windows, Mac, Linux) QuickTime Player (Mac) Web based services   VideoSmaller   Clipchamp Or, to compare options and see which is best for you, read on! Understanding Video File Size Before we get started, it’s important to understand what makes a video file larger or smaller. There are three main factors: resolution, bitrate, and encoding. Resolution is the number of pixels presented in your video, and it is usually represented by a horizontal x vertical measurement (for example, native HD, also referred to as 1080p, is 1920 x 1080.) That provides high-definition quality. The 16:9 aspect ratio is very common, and includes a number of other resolutions. Here are the resolutions that YouTube recommends for various measures of quality: So which resolution should you use? It largely depends on where your audience is likely to watch. For example, 1080p is probably plenty for users streaming on YouTube, as many monitors still don’t go above 1080p (and the bitrate, as you’ll see in a moment, may become prohibitive for streaming). For what it’s worth, every one of the top 10 best-selling monitors on Amazon at the time of this writing have a resolution of 1920 x 1080. If your audience is likely to watch on their TVs, though, higher resolutions are better (though less than 20% of Americans have a 4K TV, so streaming in 1440p or 1080p is almost certainly fine for larger screens). An audience that primarily uses their smartphone to watch your videos is a bit more difficult to plan for, as phones have different resolutions, screen sizes, and pixel densities. The difference between 720p and 1080p is noticeable on a phone, but it may require the user to be within 6” or 8” to tell the difference. With so many phones now coming with extremely high-definition screens, it’s probably better to err on the side of high resolutions when you have the bandwidth to do so. The iPhone X, for example, packs a 2436 x 1125 screen, and has a pixel density that’s far greater than the human eye can even appreciate. Possibly the most important factor in determining video size is the bitrate. This is a measure of how much information is transmitted every second, and is usually measured in Mpbs (and sometimes kbps). Here are YouTube’s recommended bitrates for different sizes and framerates: If you change the bitrate of your video, try not to go below these figures. It’s a good idea to use a variable bitrate, which allows your video to go above or dip below your target bitrate. While this gives you a little less control over your video size, it will result in greater quality, as you video will transmit more information during scenes where it’s necessary. Finally, we come to encoding. Video encoding uses two different parts: the codec and the container. A full discussion of both is very technical, but we recommend using H.264 encoding with an MP4 encoder. This is an efficient method of compressing your video, and will result in only a slight loss of quality. It’s important to remember that making a video smaller will almost always result in a loss of quality. You compress a video by removing information, and that means anyone viewing it on a large screen will probably be able to tell. And, as we’ll discuss a bit later, you can always experiment with different settings to see what works best for your video. Different resolutions, bitrates, and encoding settings will give you distinct results—and some may be better for you than others. How to Reduce Video Size without Losing Quality 1. VLC (Windows, Mac, Linux) As one of the most popular media-viewing and -editing apps around, it’s no surprise that VLC is a great choice for making video files smaller. First, download VLC (Windows, Mac, and Linux versions are available). After it’s done installing, click Media > Convert/Save. Then click Add and select your video file (you can also select multiple files to convert them as a batch). Click Convert/Save to bring up conversion options. In the Profile dropdown, you’ll need to select the type of conversion that you want. Because VLC doesn’t display estimated file sizes, you’ll need to guess at which level of conversion to apply. Fortunately, VLC has recommendations for different types of videos. For example, if you’re uploading to YouTube, you probably want to retain high quality. Just select Video for YouTube HD. Think people will be watching your video on a TV? Use Video for MPEG4 1080p TV/device. Want something smaller? Try Video for MPEG4 720p TV/device. Optimizing for Android, iPod, or iPhone will also get you smaller files. To further reduce your video file size, you can change the resolution of the video. Click the Settings button (it looks like a wrench and a screwdriver) to the right of the Profile dropdown, then select the Resolution tab. From there, you can adjust the scale to retain your current proportion, or manually adjust the size of the video. When you’re done, click Save. You’ll need to enter a destination location and filename—click Browse to specify them. Once you’ve done that, just hit Start. If you’re compressing a large video, it might take some time. But when it’s done, you’ll have a new video file that should take up a lot less space. 2. Shotcut (Windows, Mac, Linux) While not as popular as VLC, Shotcut is another common choice for people looking to make videos smaller without spending a dime. Intended more as an editor than a viewer, Shotcut gives you a lot of advanced functionality for editing your videos. It’s not immediately clear how to make a video file smaller with Shotcut, so we’ll walk you through it. Download Shotcut, then open it and use the Open File button to open your video. To export it in a new format, click Export in the top-right corner of the window. You’ll be presented with a huge list of options. In general, using H.264 Baseline Profile is a good choice. This format will likely reduce the size of your video without sacrificing too much quality. As you’ll see, there are plenty of other options for compression. Feel free to try some of them out to see how small they get your file. In general, the H.264 baseline will be your best bet. You can also adjust the size of the video by changing either the Resolution or Aspect ratio fields. However, it’s important to know that Shotcut won’t automatically adjust the corresponding option for you. If you change the horizontal resolution, you’ll need to calculate the proper vertical resolution to make sure you don’t end up with a pinched video. Choosing a lower-quality output will automatically adjust the resolution for you. So if you select HDV (hdv_720_25p), the resolution will decrease if your video was originally in 1080p. But if you want to go smaller than the preset resolution, you’ll need to calculate the correct dimensions yourself. You can also use the export window to customize exporting options to get exactly the type of file you want. This is best left to expert users, though you can certainly play around with it to see what happens. 3. QuickTime Player (Mac) Apple’s default media player actually includes a number of great options for making your videos smaller. The only drawback to it is that you can’t use it on any other operating systems. To make a video smaller with QuickTime, open the app from your Applications folder and click File > Open File to load your video. To begin making your video smaller, click File > Export As. Unfortunately, QuickTime doesn’t give you as many options as some other apps. You’ll see 4k (if applicable), 1080p, 720p, and 480p options. Select 720p or 480p (assuming you recorded in 1080) and export your file. It should be smaller than when you started. Unfortunately, QuickTime doesn’t support resizing, so if you need to reduce the dimensions of your video, you’ll need to use another tool (you might try Kapwing, at Kapwing.com). 4. VideoSmaller (Web) If you don’t want to download or use an app on your own computer, there are numerous websites that will let you upload a video file and compress it for you. Some of these services require an account, some require a monthly fee (or a watermark on your video), and others are completely free and don’t require anything but a video file. The first service we’ll look at—called, fittingly, VideoSmaller—is the easiest way to reduce video file size online. And it’s completely free. Head to VideoSmaller.com, upload your video, tweak a couple options, and you’re good to go. The first option you have is to use a low compression level. This gives you better- resulting quality in your video, but won’t reduce the file size as much as using standard compression. The second option is to scale your video. Of course, scaling down also results in lower quality, but it might be worth the tradeoff in size. So you’ll need to balance the needs of your audience (mostly concentrating on the devices they’ll be using to watch your videos) with size considerations. Finally, you can check a box to remove all of the audio from your video. Again, this could save you a notable amount of space. But it leaves you without any sound. 5. Clipchamp (Web) If you need to reduce the file size of videos on a regular basis, you may want to consider using a paid service like Clipchamp. Clipchamp gives you more options, including the ability to edit your videos, upload videos of any size, and process videos in batches.       Clipchamp does have a free tier, but it watermarks your videos. So if you’re going to be sharing videos, you should probably step up to the Business plan, which is $7.50 per month when billed as $99 per year. You can also pay $9 month-to-month if you’re not going to need it very long. Whether or not it’s worth paying for depends on how often you’ll use it. But if you want to make the process as easy as possible without downloading software to your computer, Clipchamp is a good bet. Experiment to Find the Best Video Size No matter what you’re using your video for, there’s a good balance that you can strike between low file size and high video quality. It’s difficult to find the point where they’re balanced, but with a little experimentation, you should be able to do it. Especially if you’re hosting your own videos, finding the right size and quality is crucial. You need to provide your viewers with the best quality without using so much bandwidth that you have to pay a fortune. Test different resolutions and bitrates to see how they affect quality. Then check out different encoding settings to see how they change the size of your video. After some experimentation, you’ll find the perfect settings to make your videos smaller. And that will save you both space and money, no matter which platform you’re on. How do you make video files smaller? Do you use one of the apps above, or something else? Share your recommendations in the comments below!

Like many SEO practices, you have a choice on how to pursue GOV backlinks. You can take the short-term approach and buy GOV backlinks of questionable quality. Alternatively, you can play the long game with patience and earn quality links that last. I favor the high-quality approach, but we should explore why the short-term approach is problematic. 1. Avoid This: The Short-term Approach to .Gov Backlinks On some corners of the web, you can find companies that offer .gov backlinks for sale. These providers market these backlinks like commodities: 10 .gov backlinks for $5 If anything, this approach reminds me of the SEO approach based on cheap, quick “wins” like article spinning, automated content creation and the like. While the price of these shady services is attractive, there are significant drawbacks to keep in mind. Your .gov backlink will be in bad company. If someone placed this backlink for you for less than $5, then it’s a cheap service and too easy to get that backlink. How many other times do you think that person’s taken money for a .gov backlink? If dozens or hundreds of other paid links surround your .gov backlink, you won’t stand out. Furthermore, you’re likely to be next to at least a few broken backlinks. It’s not a good browsing experience for your potential customers. Minimal relationship development opportunity. When you treat .gov backlinks as a commodity to be bought at bargain basement prices, you won’t have a chance to build relationships. That’s a problem! The .gov webmaster will probably not feel any particular connection to you. They’re unlikely to check your website and give you additional .gov backlinks over time. It’s just one more bad SEO practice to avoid because it limits your long-term potential. Even worse, Google may directly penalize you for “link manipulation.” What does that hit look like? To put it gently, it’s one of the SEO mistakes you should be striving to avoid. You might gain a brief boost in traffic, but you’re likely to lose those benefits in the long term. 2. Do This: The Long-term Approach to .Gov Backlinks There’s one guiding question that will help you build long-term, high-quality GOV backlinks. How does this backlink help the website visitor and website manager? Remember that incentives for government workers are different. A civil servant isn’t seeking to maximize profit or revenue. Instead, they measure themselves on how many people they help. Alternatively, they may be concerned with other performance indicators like reducing wait times to deliver service. With this outlook in mind, think about the specific backlinks you’re requesting and how that helps the government achieve its goals. When you go this route, you’re bound to score some great contacts and backlinks.