Posts Tagged ‘Blogging’

Alright so finally i have gotten around to producing my first video blog post. I was a bit nervous on this one but i finally got it done no matter how long it took me. Anyways i wanted to do this post specifically for that reason and make it my first one. I wanted to set a precedence of how my videos will be and hopefully make them better with suggestions from my visitors. So if you have anything to add to the video or just want to criticize me go ahead, i am ready ! I know this is not perfect and is a bit shaky but please register your opinions!

Over the past year or so i have achieved quite a few different degrees of success. Most in the area of domaining but more recently blogging and affiliate marketing. I am no expert by no means at affiliate marketing but i have come full circle about how it works and to make a little bit of money. Then on the other hand I would consider myself a good blogger and i can offer quite a bit of advice on that as well. I wanted to focus on 3 blogs that have brought me in to those 2 worlds are turned it all upside down.

problogger.net

ProBlogger.net
Specialty: Blogging

I know quite a few people in the domain development biz read ProBlogger.net but i wanted to bring it to light here. The reason that i have gotten value from this blog is because of the simple fact that Darren at ProBlogger is no idiot. He tells you how it is and then gives advice on how to fix it, make it better, or do it. Even if you have been blogging for years i highly recommend this blog for your daily reads. I especially want everyone wanting to get in to blogging or have just started blogging to head on over and read ASAP. You can also see another side of the web business from the eyes of a blogger and from time to time brings up domain names.

shoemoney.com

ShoeMoney.com
Specialty: Affiliate Marketing

Jeremy from Shoemoney.com has got to be one of the most transparent bloggers out there to day. Over the past couple months that i have read his blog i have picked up information from single posts that have made me money. Just recently he did a great post on Twitter Traffic Arbitridge, that set a new light for anyone trying to make a quick couple hundred a day. Not only has he done that yesterday he posted a coupon for MySpace ads and then referred to a post he made about 8 months ago that is practically a business in a box. Highly recommend this blog to anyone that has a bit of money saved up for online investing, i can almost guarantee you that you can double that money in little time with the advice and techniques Jeremy shares with everyone.

johnchow.com

JohnChow.com
Specialty: Blogging/Make Money Online

Now i am just want to start by saying that this just an occasional read for me. I probably visit his site every couple of days. I have only been reading his blog the past couple of months but there has been extremely helpful information on there. There have been some great videos recently that have expressed some transparency about his blog. I enjoyed them and brought a couple of new lights in to my head. Only problem is that i tend to see some off topic and paid posts frequently, not bad since the deals or whatever is being promoted might be worth the try. Recommend to the beginning make money online person, great info just be careful about what you read, watch the videos!

Special Mentions

copyblogger.com

CoppyBlogger.com
Specialty: Copywriting

This is a very very helpful blog to read on a daily basis if you are a site developer or blogger. They discuss everything from how to write successfully to problems with people’s landing pages. A wealth of information that should be taken to heart and applied to your websites.

elliotsblog.com

ElliotsBlog.com
Specialty: Domaining

Its hard to put Elliot’s blog in to words. Elliot has to be one of the most transparent domainers out. The information he lets you in on, even in real time, is just amazing. Over the past year we have seen him develop some minisites and let us in on some of the deals he has made in the past. Great reads and conversation take place at this industry focal point.

There are 3 easy ways to create a wordpress blog. All of them are super easy and i will take you through them all step by step. I am creating this as part of the How To Make Money Blogging post i made.

1. Creating a WordPress Blog on WordPress.com

Creating a WordPress Blog on WordPress.com is probably the easiest way to set up and start blogging right out of the gates. The only down side to this is that you will be using a sub-domains, i.e YGrabMoney.wordpress.com.

Step #1
Click on the sign up button at the top of WordPress.com and then fill out the required fields it presents you with. Make sure that you click on “Gimme a blog too”
*BONUS* Even if you plan on creating a wordpress blog on your own server, it is recommended that you still make an account on wordpress.com. Some plug-ins require a code that you get from that account

Step #2
On the next screen it will ask you your language, blog title, and what url you want for your blog. Again you will be using a sub-domain. After that it will send an email to your email address, go check it and click the confirmation. You can log in from that email but i suggest just moving on from where you had left off at on the other screen. It will ask you your name ect. Now go log in.

Step #3
Log in at WordPress.com and go to “My Dashboard” at the top of the screen when you log in. Congrats your blog is not created and can be accessed and visited by anyone anywhere.
*BONUS* When in the control panel of the blog you can actually set it up to your own domain name. Just click on upgrades below the left side bar. In the menu there should be a tab for domains, just click and add. They will guide you through the process.

2. Creating a WordPress Blog on Your Own Hosting Account

This is the most recommended way of creating a wordpress blog. When doing it this way you have complete control of your domain names, hosting, and blog itself.

Step #1
Download and unzip the WordPress package, if you haven’t already.

Step #2
Create a database for WordPress on your web server, as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it.

Step #3
Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.

Step #4
Open wp-config.php in your favorite text editor and fill in your database details as explained in Editing wp-config.php to generate and use your secret key password.

Step #5
Place the WordPress files in the desired location on your web server:
* If you want to integrate WordPress into the root of your domain (e.g. http://example.com/), move or upload all contents of the unzipped WordPress directory (but excluding the directory itself) into the root directory of your web server.
* If you want to have your WordPress installation in its own sub-directory on your web site (e.g. http://example.com/blog/), rename the directory wordpress to the name you’d like the sub-directory to have and move or upload it to your web server. For example if you want the WordPress installation in a sub-directory called “blog”, you should rename the directory called “wordpress” to “blog” and upload it to the root directory of your web server.

Step #6
Run the WordPress installation script by accessing wp-admin/install.php in your favorite web browser.
* If you installed WordPress in the root directory, you should visit: http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php
* If you installed WordPress in its own subdirectory called blog, for example, you should visit: http://example.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php

3. Creating a WordPress Blog With Fantastico

Fastastico is a self installing script installer. At Least that’s what i would call it. There are an amazing amount of stable scripts to be installed here including joomla, wordpress, and other popular scripts.

Step #1
Click on your Fantastico Icon. On the next page look for ‘wordpress’ on the left hand side, click it.

Step #2
Click New Installation. In the drop down menu select the domain you want it to be installed on. If you want the blog to be installed in another directory other than the main directory fill in that field, if not leave it blank. Fill in the rest of the details. Click ‘Install WordPress’

Step #3
Then click finish installation, then you are done. You can access the blog at yourdomainname.com/wordpressblog/wp-admin. Obviously fill in with your own domain and sub-directory if used.

So as you can see its pretty simple to create and start blogging. Just one more reason to get in on the action and take your online adventures to the next level. So create your own wordpress blog and get on it.

If you need hosting i would recommend HostGator they have fantastico along with great support. Plus they are super super cheap and reliable.

If you read my article from yesterday you may have seen that Blogging was on the list of how to make money with domain names. Well i think blogging is a great place to bury your foot in the sand. It helps you understand websites, how they work, and most of all developing content. This is where you can mess up and in the grand scheme of things it really will not matter. Along with that you are able express feelings, opinions, mess with designs, and see where you want to go with domain names or whatever it is that brought you to blogging. Think of it as something to do while you learn and read the bigger picture.

With blogging for money being something that people think of as a dream job or just simply think the opposite and call it a joke, it has never been easier to just jump in. Yes you may not get traffic for the longest time or you will only see pennies for months. Well this is a cold hard fact, unless you get noticed for something or you are launching in to a blog network, you will have to rely on search engines and backlinks. This is the natural and most painful way but it will help you int he long run.

Some things that you might want to read up on before you start blogging are SEO, Blogging, and wordpress. I say wordpress because it is the preferred blogging platform of most blogs out there these days. On top of that the platform is extremely dynamic and is super expansive.

Alright now that you know what you need lets look in to what type of things you should blog about. Picking a niche is the most important thing when you first start blogging. Most people will fall in to line with most other people and blog about things like Money, Stocks, or something that everyone else is doing. My recommendation is find something that you like talking about and know a lot about, everyone is an expert about something.

After you have picked a niche its pretty easy to get started. Really all there is to it is setting up a wordpress blog at Wordpress.com or using your own domain name with the wordpress CMS set up on it. The second choice is highly recommended. It gives you complete control over your system and allows you to designs and use more dynamic things on the blog.

Once you have the blog set up it is really a matter of writing posts. Yes you can sit there and mess with the design for hours or add a hundred plug-ins but none of that will matter if you have no content up and going. When i sit down and create a new blog i try to get out at least 10 posts before i start messing with anything on the site itself. I do not post them i just have them on the back burner ready to go. This helps you create a snowball effect and builds your confidence when starting.

When writing your posts think about what people want to read. This will help you target your audience and provide value to your blog in the long run. Doing market research on the audience that will read your blog will help you write posts and create a blog with evergreen content. The most successful blogs out there are ‘How To’, Informational blogs, or ‘Tips” blogs. The reason these are the top blogs around is because they provide information what people are looking for and how to do it. These articles and blogs are searched over and over again returning traffic time and time again. This is really important when blogging for money.

Since you have your site built now and some articles your are now on your way to Blogging for money. It really is as simple as that. There are some off page SEO techniques that will help you but in the whole outlook of things you should be blogging for fun and on something you do not mind blogging about. If you do it for the right reasons and have fun with it the blogging for money part will follow for sure. So have fun with it and just remember that blogging is an activity not your life !

I was just over at Mark Fulton’s DotSauce and i saw this amazing post about Matt Cutts telling all about blogging and SEO. I had not seen this slide show yet and was pretty amazed by what Matt has presented everyone with. About the only thing that is different with my blog and what he suggests is my link structure. I use the category in my link structure along with the post title. Other than that i am good to go according to his slide show, which he presented at WordCamp San Fransico this past Saturday. God i wish they would bring one of those here to Idaho or any domaining/internet event LOL. Matt even straight out suggests wordpress to get you started and says that it already has 90% of what you need for the mechanics of SEO. On top of that he shows you what plug-ins he uses. Here is the slide show with out further ado:

Mark made a list of highlights from the slide show:

Highlight Slides from the Presentation

• Slide #12: Use WordPress to get a head start!
• Slide #13: Basic but essential WordPress Plugins.
• Slide #21: SEO Tip – Choosing content keywords.
• Slides #22-#23: Ask yourself, “What will my visitors type?”
• Slide #26: Tweak your titles, URLs and content.
• Slide #27: Use keywords as categories and use dashes between words.
• Slide #29: Be passionate, write often, but don’t over do it.
• Slide #34: Be useful, creative and informative.
• Slides #36-#39: Use Google’s free Webmaster Tools to optimize.
• Slide #46: Save the Internet! Support net neutrality.
• Slide #48: WordPress Security – Block access to wp-admin with htaccess.