My attention was grabbed by an article at copyblogger entitled Catablogging: Blog-Based Ecommerce and Affiliate Marketing. The term catablogging certainly caught my attention and enticed me to learn more about what it is.

Catablogging is blogging by mixing content and commerce deliberately. It is not just a blog that will attract people to buy stuffs from the site but also a blog that will attract people who are interested with the lifestyle surround the products.

For instance, if you are selling fashion products, write an article about the upcoming spring fashion and relate it with your fashion products!

This is catablogging.

If you are an enthusiast blogger that has one or more blogs with many posts, it is very important for you to protect your blogs! Imagine if all of the posts that you have made were gone because of hard disk crash. Or, someone spams your site with indefinite number of comments or even offensive comments that are not true. This is especially important if you use your blogs to generate some $$$! This can damage your blog!

So, protect your blog.

Many ways you can do that:

1. Back it up
Many blog softwares (WordPress, TypePad, etc) comes with export functionalities where you can use to back up your blogs. If you are backing up your blogs frequently (at least once a week), it’s great - keep doing it! If you have not started and as long as your blog posts are still there, you are not too late. Make this a habit! :)
Or, if you would like to have 3rd party back up softwares the following are some recommendations:

1. Back Up My Blog - http://www.backupmyblog.com/
2. Blog Collector - http://asprise.com/product/blogcollector/

2. Use reliable and dependable web hosting providers
It is good to upgrade the ‘place’ where your blog stays. Having reliable, dependable hosting providers is one of the keys. If you have more money and it seems that more and more traffics are going into your blogs, it is good to upgrade your blog server to a better one to accomodate this. Having a fast loading time and almost 0% down-time will certainly make your readers happier :).

Some people have asked me: Where can I find good web hosting providers? Where can I find good deals on web hosting with reliable customer service?

You can visit webhostingtalk. It is a forum where you can find which web hosting providers that provide reliable services with great deals! Or, you can contact us and we can refer you to one of web hosting partners!

3. Monitor it!
Monitor your blog frequently. Check if there are any spamming or unreliable comments. If you do find, clear them out and devise a way to prevent this in the future. Find what your readers like to read and what entices them. Write your blogs on these.

These three steps do not really take a lot of time. But, certainly, they will bring a great return for you in the future. :)

Writing an article headline catches users’ attention and entices them into reading the rest of the article.

Thus, headline is truly the entrance to grab your users’ attention. Copyblogger.com lists 5 common headlines mistakes to avoid (more details found in copyblogger.com but following are my summary and my opinions):

1. No reader benefit.

Will the reader get benefit from simply reading the headline? If not, then modify your headline by asking the question “what good is it for them?”. Think about it and paraphrase your headline to convey this message.

2. Lack of curiosity

Integrate curiosity in your headline. Pairing benefit and curiosity will increase the chance of your reader to keep on reading. Use questions or challenges or intriguing facts to capture your reader’s curiosity.

3. Lack of specificity

Simply be specific. Use hard numbers or exact percentages if necessary. Having specific headlines increase the trustworthiness of the article.

4. Lack of simplicity

Make headlines as simple as possible. Headlines should tease and not tell the whole story. It should be like an appetizer, it is simple not heavy but entices or prepares the ‘readers’ for the main entree.

Eliminate unnecessary words. Stick to just one idea / concept to convey. Use down-to-earth words (eliminate all those ‘alien’ terms if possible).

5. Lack of urgency

Have you ever come across a headline that looks interesting but you decide to skip it first and return to it for a later read? The chance that you would return to it is very unlikely. Thus, creating an urgency in your headline will make (or ‘force’) your readers to read the article.

However, please be careful not to over-emphasize the urgency to all of your headlines as this will dilute the importance of the articles. Evaluate your articles, considering if it is indeed a must-read or not. Assign the proper ‘urgency’ to your headlines.

Having these 5 elements are important in creating a headline that effectively capture your readers’ attention and ‘forces’ them to read on.

Complete article can be found at: http://www.copyblogger.com/five-common-headline-mistakes-and-how-to-avoid-them/