I really had no intention of doing any big year end posts to wrap up what went on here during 2009, then I started to think about the tremendous success that my Weekly Link Dumps and Sunday Smash series brought during the year, I would be an idiot if I didn’t do a blog recap for 2009. In order to avoid being a blatant idiot I will be doing a few quick list posts to share what I felt were the best posts here on Extreme John during the course of the year, I will feature my best Twitter posts, best business tips, and best picture posts. To kick things off I have put together a list of my Best Blogging Tips of 2009, keep in mind that you might find a few social media and social networking posts mixed in, that’s because it’s important for bloggers to be involved in social media and networking sites.
If you find any of the blogging tips below helpful please consider taking a moment to subscribe to my rss feed.
Best Blogging Tips of 2009
1. 16 Reasons Commenting on Your Blog Sucks
If you plan on increasing your blog comments the first thing your going to have to do is make sure that commenting on your blog doesn’t suck, if it sucks people probably won’t take the time to comment on your blog.
2. 10 Must Have WordPress Plugins for Newbie Bloggers
Your brand spankin’ new to blogging which earns you the exciting title of “newbie blogger”, these are the Worspress plugins I recommend for all newbie bloggers or as we use to call them “noobs” back in the day.
3. 5 Ways to Increase Blog Comments Without Plugins
Even though I consider myself a WordPress plugin addict it’s still good to avoid using plugins that you don’t really need, it’s even better if you can pull off certain thinsg without even thinking about using a plugin. When it comes to increasing blog comments on your blog there are plenty of things you can do to increase comments without WordPress plugins or plugins at all.
4. Fix Your TweetMeme Retweet Button Settings
The Tweetmeme WordPress plugin is probably one of the most widely used plugins used by bloggers to make it easy for their blog posts to be retweeted and shared on Twitter. If you set this plugin up the right way it will make it easy for you to know when someone retweets your post on Twitter, this offers any blogger the chance to connect and personally thank the tweep that retweeted their post. Great tool for building your Twitter network.
5. 12 Search Engine Optimization Tips
I would hardly consider myself some sort of SEO genius or SEO guru as so many search engine optimization maniacs like to call themselves, for some reason I decided to put together a list of SEO tips that I thought would be great for newbie bloggers or anyone with a new blog.
6. 10 Tips for Removing Your Blogging Blinders
It’s so easy for you to get your head stuck in the blogging cloud and before you know it your missing out on seeing your blog from the readers point of view, you need to remove those blogging blinders if you want to move your blog to the next level.
7. 10 Reasons You Should Do a Weekly Recap on Your Blog
As I mentioned when I first started this post, I have had tremendous success with doing weekly and monthly blog recaps here on my blog. There are at least 10 reasons I think every blogger should consider doing a weekly recap, I think it’s even more important for business blogs to do it.
8. 3 Ways to Increase Your Alexa Ranking
Oh that crazy Alexa rank, some bloggers will tell you it means nothing and a large percentage of those bloggers that will tell you it means nothing will still dive in to check their Alexa ranking on a daily basis. There are other bloggers and internet gurus that put a lot into Alexa ranking and what it means for any website, I personally like checking Alexa rankings and trying to find creative ways to increase Alexa rank. Check out my Alexa review chain to see what I mean. Just for the record I think this blog has an Alexa ranking of over 200,000 when 2009 kicked off, over the last week my Alexa rank has been around 16,000.
9. No Do Follow Blogs vs Do Follow Blogs
This is another one of those hot topics in the blogging community, it’s the battle between No Follow and Do Follow blogs. This is a quick tutorial on the difference between dofollow and no dofollow blogs and how I use both scenarios based on my different blogs, of course Extreme John.com is a DO FOLLOW BLOG.
10. 5 Ways Blogging Can Kill You
Believe it or not sitting behind a computer and following terrible eating habits along with so many other terrible habits can actually kill you, here is a list of 5 ways that blogging can kill you.
11. 3 Applications to Sync Twitter with Facebook
If you plan on having a successful blog your going to need to be involved in some form of social networking and social media, or at least that’s my two cents on it. Hook your Twitter and Facebook account with these Twitter to Facebook sync applications.
12. 10 Dirty Little SEO Tips and Tricks
Back at it with the search engine optimization tips or at least some of the SEO tips that I think you might find useful for implementing on your own personal blog or business blog.
13. 43 Do Follow Blog Images
I am constantly talking about Do Follow blogs and how I think being a do follow blogger is important for bloggers looking to increase comments and sharing link juice with other blogs, here’s your choice of 43 do follow badges to display on your blog.
14. 10 Tips for Better Blog Engage Results
I have been writing about the Blog Engage community and WordPress plugin for probably close to eight months now, there are huge benefits to using the Blog Engage community to your advantage. Here are a few tips to better Blog Engage results.
15. 25 WordPress Plugins You Might Dig
I told you that I’m a WordPress plugin addict. I usually run anywhere from 40 to 50 active plugins at a time here on my blog, either for testing purposes or because I need plugins to perform certain functions on the blog. Take a peek at these 25 WordPress Plugins I think you might find something useful.
16. How to Get Free Products to Review on Your Blog
This was actually the first official Guest Post here on Extreme John.com, the post was written by Mike from Daily Shot of Coffee and I can attest to the fact that this guy gets plenty of free products to review on his blog. A must read for bloggers looking to do more with their blog than just be a hobby blogger or a make money online blogger.
17. 14 Ways to Get More Blog Engage Votes
What good is a voting system if you take the time to submit your blog posts and never get any votes? Here are a few goodies to help you increase your votes on Blog Engage, all very simple to implement and see results from.
18. 3 Ways to Customize Thesis with Images
After making the official change over to Thesis I went through a huge fad of finding easy ways to customize Thesis with images and without, I found some excellent Thesis resources along the way and decided to dive into trying to help others make custom changes to Thesis easily.
19. Bing Webmaster Toolbox
Most bloggers and webmasters focus on working SEO for Google, or at least most beginner bloggers do. Take a peek at my Bing webmaster tools post, you might find something useful that will help you increase your Bing search engine results. There’s no promise on that last statement btw.
20. Twitter Safety Tips
If your going to jump in and be the newbie blogger that is looking to take the interwebs by storm chances are you will find yourself adding all kinds of private information to all kinds of social media and social networking sites, here are a few Twitter safety tips to keep in mind.
I hope that you were able to find something useful in this list of my Best Blogging Tips of 2009, if you found something decent take the time to leave a comment. I always interact with my daily blog readers as well as those of you that follow me on twitter or connect with me on my Facebook Fan Page.
Cole Stan (2)
KyAus @ Those.Tips (2)
SafariDave (2)
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey there John, you have been busy I’ve just got back from my Christmas break and find you have posted loads
Great round up of Blogging Tips and all of which I’m proud to say I have read and enjoyed 
Karen @ BlazingMinds´s last blog ..Monday Moan – Celebrity Big Brother
@Karen @ BlazingMinds, Karen, I wouldn’t be surprised if John would release a post even at 12:00 midnight of December 31, 2009, probably about his goals for 2010 and beyond.
Where does this guy get the energy and the ideas? 
James Moralde´s last blog ..Smooth Link Scrolling
@James Moralde, it’s not all the time and trust me plenty of others do the same thing. I do have something like 8 posts oing live today though. Sorry for the feed reader explosion, hopefully someone finds something useful.
@Extreme John, no worriesJohn, they were all worth reading
Karen @ BlazingMinds´s last blog ..Poetry – Become One With Me
Some really great posts there. I really wish people would read “16 reasons why commenting on your blog sucks.” There are still a lot of blogs that make it difficult to comment on them. Overall, a great year of blogging tips, don’t think you’ll be able to top it in 2010.
Mike @DailyShotOfCoffee´s last blog ..Uncommon Coffee Products at Uncommon Goods
@Mike @DailyShotOfCoffee, I would have to agree. The reality is that I will probably have a worse traffic and idea year for this blog than any previous year, but let’s see how it goes.
Everyone should read that post btw.
Awesome tips! Pretty sure this will help newbies like me and none newbie bloggers alike.
MichaelR´s last blog ..OneSuite Has Canada Covered! Up to 50% Cheaper
@MichaelR, I hope so Michael, thank you.
Great list John, since I wasn’t around for most of those articles, it gives me a good list of reading material!
Keith´s last blog ..Do you Use Disqus Or Other Comment Sign In App?
@Keith, I doubt your going to learn anything from those posts, you seem to have things lit up on your end as far as the blogging goes.
This is perfect for a newbie to stop read and understand wtf all this means, I mean there is no doubt that in the beginning it’s like total info overload, I love the way you broke this down into small chewable parts.
16 Reasons Commenting on Your Blog Sucks was one of my favorites as well as the one about Alexa. (Review my blog please)
You have put a lot of time into your year end list, looks like I know what I’ll be doing Saturday.
Ms. Freeman@Baby Steps of an Internet Entreprenuer´s last blog ..5 Entrepreneurial Goals for 2010
@Ms. Freeman@Baby Steps of an Internet Entreprenuer, I will get you reviewed now that I have your blog in my reader, that entire Alexa chain exploded quickly, very easy to lose control of. I ended up going back to do Sire’s, Ill head over and get yours done once I go through these 8 pages of comments and 600 spam posts…
shoot me.
Thanks for the tips john they will keep me busy.
David Hobson´s last blog ..IM Report Card New Way To Make Money Online
Those are really the best tips you can find anywhere in the net. Real tips from real people with real experience.
Your Alexa rank has an average of 26k in 3 months now. I still remember when I first saw it at around 50k. Go for top 10k in 2010 John.
ZXT´s last blog ..Best of 2009 from Nothing But Random
Hey John, thanks for all the great tips, much appreciated. I registered with your site to guest post, if I have an idea that fits your criteria for a guest post what is my next step?
Hi john thank you for sharing this tips its great. this tips can really help to newbie bloggers. thanks
Thanks for making this known
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