Whenever you start a blog , the main concern is how to make visitors come to your blog or how should you promote your blog to attract visitors and build a good network . I have been blogging for more than a year now and here are a few tips which i feel will definitely help a blogger in promoting there blog .

• Choose your own domain name . It gives your site the professional edge and builds your credibility around the blogosphere.
• Submit your blog URL to various search engines and prominent Blog Directories like Yahoo , Google , MSN , Technorati etc.
• Content is the king . Write about the topics that readers would love to read about and respond too.
• Link to other blogs while writing posts about similar topics.
• Leave relevant comments on other blogs.
• Mention your blog in places such as your email signature , your forum/social network profile or your visiting cards.
• Build a good online network through sites such as Facebook , Twitter , MyBlogLog etc and use them to promote your content.
• Always respond to comment on your blog , if some other blogger mentions your post in there blog , thank them cordially.
• Try to promote your blog in various forums by connecting with fellow bloggers.
• Keep in touch with fellow bloggers through IM or offline if possible
• Optimize your blog for Search Engine. Use relevant keywords and title . This will help you get a good amount of traffic from Search Engines.
• Participate in Link building campaign or Group Writing Project . These are a great place to get your blog noticed .

All the tips mentioned are not in any particular order . I wrote them as they came to mind . Feel free to tell me your suggestions .

This post is a part of Blog Writing Project : Tips and Tricks by Daily Blog Tips . Participate in it if you havent . There are 500$ to be won.

Here are some of my favourite articles from the last two weeks . I also discovered some new blogs which have been added to my feeds .

• Chris talks about a cool wordpress plugin - Wordpress Drop Down Menu
• Blogging Fingers gives a great review of BlogRush - a new traffic source
• Sarah gives us Tips on gaining pageviews and returning visitors using Post Series
• Brown Baron mentions an interactive 3d diorama for Halo 3
• Bush talks about his cool Entertainment Center
• Kyle tells about a new money making service - DealdotCom
• Shankar tells us about Airtalkr - air based messenger
• Shaun Low gives us tips on preparing for the perfect first date
• Sizzled Core gives 8 tips for new bloggers
• Techie buzz tells us how to make Yahoo Messenger XP look like Yahoo Messenger Vista
• Rhys tells us how to track new RSS subscribers with Google Analytics
• Techies Den gives us tips on speeding up Adobe Reader
• CristianR gives us tips on incresing our traffic conversion rate
• Sizlopedia does a great review of Yahoo Mash Beta
• Nirmal’s Blog is now 6 months old , lets wish him all the best
• AshwinR tells us how to increse our adsense CTR by 51%
• Blog Trench mentions some great tools for screencasting
• Susan Suarez tells us how to re-energize the blogging spirit
• Ken tells us 8 tips for writing powerful headlines
• Do read some Chuck Norris Jokes

We sure are getting a lot of choice recently when it comes to media players . Yesterday i came to know about Winamp 5.5 which was recently released , My friends Brown Baron and Sizlopedia has done a nice review of it . Then i came to know that even a new version of Real Player ,i.e. Real Player 11 is also out and it is being touted as the best real player till date. (more…)

Today i received an email from Gmail administrator . The email arrived from the address “[email protected]” .The contents of the email were

Dear Gmail Member,

During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification procedure, we have detected a slight error in your information.

This might be due to either of the following reasons:

1. A recent change in your personal information (i.e. change of address).

2. Submitting invalid information during the initial sign up process.

3. An inability to accurately verify your selected option of subscription due to an internal error within our processors.

Please update and verify your information by clicking the link below:

http://googleaccountverify.110mb.com/verifymyaccount/

If your account information is not updated within 72 hours then your ability to use your Gmail account will become restricted.

Sincerely,

Google Mail Administrator

Please do not reply to this e-mail. If you have general questions regarding your account, please click Help in the upper right corner for the GMail comprehensive online help.

© 2007 Google Mail Corporation. All rights reserved

Now when i clicked on the link given in the email , a page similar to gmail.com appeared and asked for my email and password . The page is shown below .

I think the page appears to be fake as the link contains 110mb.com and you can also see an advertisment below . So what do you guys think , real or fake ?

Generally when we wish to lock a folder , we use softwares such as Folder Lock . However you can achieve almost the same thing without the use of any software . The trick which i am going to tell you will make your folder change into control panel , so if anyone tries to open it , the control panel will open and your data will remain hidden . Here’s what you need to do .

1. You have a directory F:\games which you want to lock
2. Open the notepad and type the following ren games games.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
3. Save the following with the “.bat” extension , this file should be kept in the same drive in which the folder exists and will be used for locking the folder so give a suitable name such as lock.bat
4. Now open a new file in notepad and type the following ren games.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D} games
5. This file will be used to unlock the folder , name it as “unlock.bat” . You can use any other name but use the .bat extension.
6. Both the files should be in the directory in which the folder exists . Double click the “lock.bat” to lock the folder . the folder will change its icon to that of control panel and anyone who opens the folder will see the control panel contents.
7. Double Click ”unlock.bat” and you will get your original folder .
8. For further security you can save both the files anywhere else and copy them only when you need to lock or unlock.

Hope you like it . This post was written as a part of BlueJar’s Group Writing Project .

Blog About Your blog , a multi author blog containing loads of Blogging Tips is giving you a chance to win a 512MB mp3 player , a blog review or an advertising banner on there site. To participate , you just have to write a post linking to them and also mentioning the contest . I hope i am lucky this time.

BAYB is a quality blog containing a lot of useful articles written by different authors from all around the world on a variety of topics including Blogging Tips , making money online , blog promotion etc . So if you people are looking for some wonderful information , just make it a point to read it daily.