How to set up a blog

If you a going to create a niche site then there are two options create a web site or create a blog.In this post I am going with a blog seeing as how this platform is one!

Which blogging platform to use.

There are several platforms including WordPress.org,WordPress.com and Blogger.com.The last two are free services but the URL you will be assigned includes blogger or wordpress which detracts from the professional image you will want to portray.It’s like using a Hotmail account for your business you just don’t do it.

The best option is WordPress.org which gives you greater flexibility and your own URL.There is a cost to pay being the purchase of the domain name which is around $10 per annum.I use Namecheap.com which offer domain names slightly lower than the big ISPs such as GoDaddy.

For hosting I would recommend Hostgator where for $7.95 a month you can host an unlimited number of websites or blogs.In fact you can install WordPress inside you cpanel in a matter of seconds.Once the site is live you can change the theme from the WordPress default theme to another be it free or paid.

If you do use say Namecheap to register the domain name and Hostgator for hosting you will have to change the Nameserver settings inside Namecheap so they point to Hostgator but there are instructions inside both Namecheap and Hostgator as to how this is done.

Plug Ins

There are a number of plugins that you will need to optimize the blog for the search engines.They are:

All In One Seo- This plug in overrides your normal WordPress setting for the page title and description.A box will appear at the base of any post you are writing where you can insert the title and description that will appear in the Google search results.The title is the bit that appears as dark blue in Google and the description is the bit that comes next.Be sure to use your keyword phrase in both.There is also a box for keywords that are inserted in the HTML metatag part of you page but do not appear on the page.

These keywords are not given as much weight as they once were,because people were using keywords unrelated to the page in order to gain high ranking.Google now give more importance to backlinking from sites with a high page ranking.

2. XML Site map- this plug in creates a file that is used by the Google spiders to index the site.

3.Easy Privacy Policy creates a privacy policy page plus privacy content which Google likes to see.The page is automatically shown in your navigation bar.

4.Permalinks allows you to alter the url of your blog post so that you can incorporate your keyword phrase.

You want to select the custom structure option as shown above and the use the coding /%postname%/.Then when you write a post you can change the file name to whatever you want.

5.You will want to track where your traffic is coming from so you can use Google Analytics.This plug in will link to a Google Analytics account you have already created.You can set up your account here.This plug in gets round the problem of inserting the analytics code in your html directly if the thought of that makes you nervous.

The Theme

The next important part is the look and feel of the blog.Just as with hosting you can have free or paid themes the latter giving you more flexibility but if you are on a budget then the free ones do just fine.Look for the appearance tab on your wordpress dashboard and look for the themes option.

This will open a page which shows the current theme you have but look for a search box where you can find more to chose from.There is even a filter function where you can specify the colours used and how many columns are deployed.Then with one click the current theme is removed and your new one goes in.It’s that simple.

Content

Once you have completed all these tasks you are ready to write your first blog post.Remember each blog post must be keyword focused so you need to know what are good keywords to write about in your niche.We can say the people come to the internet looking for information that will solve a problem.They will not stay on your site or buy from you if you are not offering a solution to a problem.

So you need to find they keyword phrases people are using to find those solutions and then build blog posts around those keywords.I use Wordtracker for my research though this is a paid service.For free keyword searches use the Google keyword tool.

Another tool to find what question are being asked in your niche is to go to Yahoo Answers .There is a search function where you can find the questions.As well as getting post ideas you can start answering the questions yourself and post a link back to your blog.

Well this post has gone on rather a bit so look out for the next one where I will go into more content strategy as content will always beat SEO in the end, as it is content that people really want.

Happy Blogging

Andrew Collinson

The trials of internet marketing

Posted: January 6th, 2010 | Author: Andrew Collinson | Filed under: Internet Marketing | Tags: Adwords, Affiliate Link, Ann Sieg, Autoresponder, Dashboard, Domain Name Service, Godaddy, Google, Honesty, Hostgator, Hosting Service, How To Buy A Domain, How To Buy A Domain Name, Mac User, Marketing Product, Messaging Service, Mike Dillard, Pdf Files, Secs, Uploading Files | No Comments »

I recently bought an internet marketing product and have decided to share with you what challenges and victories I have with it as I go through the training.The course is said to run for 12 months with one tutorial a week delivered via a pdf file I get via an autoresponder email.

You might guess that I am now an affiliate of this product.This is true.But rather than go and put an affiliate link on this site straight away I am going to resist the urge until I actually start making money with it.Then and only then could I say in all honesty that it is worth buying.

I think many people put up affiliate links,I admit I do it,for products they have never tried and tested and wonder why they get no sales.

I should add the affiliates on this blog I have used: Perry Marshall’s Guide to Google Adwords,and the products of Ann Sieg and Mike Dillard.

But anyway back to the course.

The course is a membership site and costs $27 per month so $324 over 12.

I am up to week 7 and have hit my first problem.

Back tracking first the first 5 tutorials are about getting ready to set up a sales page which means learning how to buy a domain name and set up a hosting service.I knew most of this already though I had not heard of the domain name service before Namecheap ( no that is not an affiliate link though it could be!) slightly cheaper than say Godaddy which I have used up to now.

As for web hosting I have gone with Hostgator I find the dashboard better to work with than Godaddy.

I also had a few technical problems about uploading files via FTP .Hostgator have a messaging service where you can chat with someone about a problem you have.I only had to wait about 30 secs before someone came on and had a solution for my problem immediately.
One problem was uploading pdf files.If it won’t work with Firefox try Safari.( i am a Mac user of course).

Once I had the domain registered and a host in place it was time to upload some web pages.

The course advises you to buy what are known as PLR ebooks. These are information products that someone has written which they then sell and you are allowed to change the books around a bit and then sell them again under your name.This is legal.

The trick is to get a product that is about a subject that there is interest in ,and it should come with a sales and thank you page.

The sales page is the one you upload to your web host and then and have Clickbank take the orders.

I have a HTML editor in Dreamweaver and was able to change the ebook and the sales page so that it was acceptable to Clickbank.

Yes a real person at Clickbank will check your site and see that it meets their standards.One of the things that I picked up was that you must offer a 60 day money back guarantee if the buyer is not happy with the product.
Now my guarantee was was 90 days but Clickbank wouldn’t accept this, they wanted 60 days, no more no less, even though my offer was better! So just make sure it’s sixty days.

You as a vendor with Clickbank must pay a one off registration fee of $49.95.I have paid this but my product is still not live as yet.So just be patient.

Now the problem I mentioned right at the start of this post.

The course recommends I offer a free ebook just to get names on my list.To do this they recommend I create a lightbox pop up page.

This is a page that appears on the sales page for my main product after after ten seconds.Now the course recommends we use Aweber as the autoresponder but I use Getresponse.

Now aweber have a good pop up page creator that allows quite a bit of copy to go on the pop up.The Getresponse one has only limited functionality .You can add a bit of text and that’s all.

Getresponse have told me that I would have to create my own code for a longer pop up page.

I’m not techie enough to do that so I am going to go over to Warrior forum and ask for a quote to do it.

That is where I am at now.Anyone got any other solutions for solving this problem?Let me know.

Thanks
love and peace

Andrew

How to set up a blog