Big Blog Academy

Twitter is a buzz word. Every one seems to be twittering. But to those who are still new to internet and just heard the buzz Twitter, here is a handful of information about Twitter.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a free social networking or micro-blogging service available on net. It is also used as SMS or short message service with a character limitation to 140. It allows to send quick message to friends – family about any updates or your status.

How to use Twitter efficiently?

Like everything, twitter also has its etiquettes to use. Unfortunately like any other new service available on net Twitter is being exploited much than proper use. Here are few tips to use it efficiently to get the max out put from it.

1. Don’t get in hurry for posting something no sooner you have completed registration. Complete your profile page entry. Upload a proper theme / template picture that not only suits your personality but should attract twitter users to stop at your profile page.
2. Be selective while you are about to follow some one. Following some one having same interest as you will help you much to get most out of twitter. Just following any one will help you nothing but meshing up your tweets.
3. Be patient to update something. High frequency of updating your status or links from you will let your profile at the risk of being removed by your followers thinking as if you are spamming.
4. Be regular to tweet something but in limited frequency in a day to show that you are an active twitter user, otherwise you will be removed by your follower thinking as if your profile is dead one.
5. Don’t use twitter only to post links frequently which proves you as spammer there.
6. Do follow others and their tweets to attract them to follow you and your tweets.
7. If you have some updates, check out first whether that already has been tweeted by someone else or not. Sending same tweets to your followers which has been updated earlier will create a bad image about your updates and your followers will gradually start ignoring you.

A new better Twitter (Geo Chrip twitter) is also available which allows you to join people use twitter from specific geo target area based on your area of interest.

What is Xml Sitemap? How sitemap helps the site?

Sitemap are of same importance to all the blogs or websites whether it is old or new. Sitemap helps the search engines to get inform about the new or undiscovered content present in your blog or website. Hence sitemap creation for WordPress and blogger has same importance.

Sitemap are specially importance for the new contents to inform search engines about the new URL and the meta data about it available for crawling. Thus it helps the search bots to crawl over the new updated pages, old modified pages without any problem and getting indexed quickly.

Sitemap is generally kept or uploaded in the root directory of the blog / site.

Is sitemap compulsory for crawling?

No, sitemap is not compulsory and your site can be easily crawled by search bots even if your site does not have search engines. Generally search engines like to crawl any site using external links. If your site is linked with already indexed or crawled external sites or any new updated page being linked with already indexed external or internal pages, then search engines will easily access your site from those sites or pages while crawling those sites. But if your site is completely new or have lots of pages yet not crawled by search engines or not having well linked internal pages, then it is advisible to submit sitemap to search engines to get indexed soon.

Create xml sitemap for WordPress blogs.

Creating .xml sitemap for your WordPress blog has got quite simpler with the Google Sitemap generator plugin. You can download this plugin by clicking on the link Google sitemap generator plugin download. Simply upload it in your WordPress plugins directory. Now go your WordPress dashboard, go to plugins, click on activate link to activate this sitemap generator plugin.
With the activation of this plugin, a new xml sitemap file gets created in the root directory of your blog. You can go to settings to change the priority of crawling by search engines.

You can also download the plugin from Google Sitemap generator site.

Create xml sitemal for blogger blogs.

Creating xml sitemap for blogger blogs is even more easy than WordPress blogs. The all you need to do is to login in to Google webmaster tools with your gmail username and password. Then you will be prompted to add your site URL and verify it. Follow the instructions there to verify your site. Now after verification, go to dashboard of your site in webmaster tools.

Now click on sitemap link under site configuration navigation link present on left hand column. After clicking the link, click on submit a sitemap button. Now you will be provided a box to write the file name. The Atom feed of your blog is your sitemap. Paste the link of the atom feed.

Just write down “atom.xml?orderby=updated” . Within few hours, your feed will be accepted.

You may also use “rss.xml?orderby=updated“