Setting Up Your Wordpress Blog
Of all the free blog software, I strongly recommend WordPress for any net-task, especially for a site to generate income.
Introduction: WordPress is a blog software written in PHP, and there are now hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. This software can be used to create your own stand-along blog site. Since it is in PHP, it is rugged and resists attempts at hacking.
Thousands of programmers contribute to the refinement and development and new versions keep coming with increased functionally, ease of use, and speed of operation. Thousands of others develop add-ons or plugins and themes, all available free of cost. There are also many commercial plugins and themes. In summary, here is a blog software which offers so many choices that you can use it for setting up practically any kind of site with any facility. Sky is the limit if you search around.
Your Own Domain: You should have your own domain and server space before you set up your own stand-along blog. WordPress.Com offers what is known as “hosted” blogs. These are hosted by WordPress and though you can set up what you wish, the ownership of the facility belongs to those who host. If they ever delete your blog or revoke your right to post, you cannot do anything because you are using the property that belongs to someone else.
A stand-alone blog or website is your own property over which you have full rights and privileges. You will need to register a “domain name” and buy “server space” to host this website or blog. Registering a domain such as MedicalHelps.Com is not costly. And you can buy server-space cheap for hosting this blog. Together they should not cost more than $20 per year if you look for a good company. Once you own a domain name, and once you take server space on rent, you are ready to set up your blog for profit. If you can seek help from an enthusiast, he will teach you all the tricks in one go. If not, you will have to do it by yourself. This is not difficulty if you strictly follow the instructions in the following paragraphs.
Setting Up The Database: Your server will give you the facility to set up a database to be used by your wordpress blog. For this you should do the following things
Log into your server control panel. (Your server-space provider will give you the user-name and password to access your server control panel).
Go To MySQL or other database.
Create a “Database”. Use a name here that you can remember easily, but which others cannot guess. Record this name somewhere.
After that, create a “User” and a “password”. Chose names which are nearly impossible to guess. Record these names because there is no way to recover the password if lost and you will end up losing precious information.
There will be a facility on the same location to “connect” the user with the “database”. Do it with “all privileges”.
Now you are ready to set up your blog.
Setting Up WordPress: You should visit www.WordPress.org and download the latest issue. After that do the following
Unzip the software
Upload this software to your server in the correct folder. Your server-space provider will inform you the folder where files are to be loaded. (You will need an FTP software for this upload).
Once all the files are uploaded, you are ready for the install. Just log on to your domain. WordPress will automatically ask many questions. As you answer them, it will use that information to set up the software.
Once the software gives you the user-name “admin” and the password, carefully store this password BEFORE you log into your blog. If you use this password, you will find it almost impossible to log into your blog.
At times the setup process is halted and it says that certain files are not “writable”. In such rare cases you will have to go to that file through control panel (or through an FTP software) and change the file “attributes” till you get the value as 666.
Using The WordPress Blog: You are ready to use your WordPress blog as soon as it is set up. I suggest that you log into the Blog Control Panel and make necessary changes in the title, subtitle etc and start posting. Proper themes and plugins can be selected in a day or two. Start blogging immediately and submit your blog to search engines immediately. Let the spider start visiting your site before you do other things.
Persist and the day will be yours!!
How to Set Up Wordpress as a Membership, Lead Capture or Product Delivery Site
Google + WordPress = Love
It’s no secret that people who are using Wordpress as a blog have been producing some great results. It was only a short time ago that this was all Wordpress was used for.
Blog popularity is due in large part to blogs’ simplicity. Hosting companies have made setting up a personal site easy. Every one on the Internet no mater what level of technical proficiency is capable of setting up a blog.
Today Wordpress is not just for blogging but can be used as a Content Management System (CMS) which opens all sorts of new possibilities to businesses and marketers.
This means that it is more of a web site development program.
Since Wordpress enabled its CMS as a default option you can now create portals, membership sites, lead capture sites and even deliver product in this simple system.
The process is basically the same for all the above options.
1. Load your Wordpress Script
2. Customize your site with a theme
3. Add some plugins for greater flexibility
4. Lock down your registration and login scripts
5. Add your content and chose your system
What system you choose will depend on what you want to do.
Membership Program
You can easily run a simple membership program and add content on a regular basis and charge for it using any of the popular payment processors.
Lead Capture
Basically the same as the members system however you change the sales letter to drive them to the signup box instead of the payment one.
Product Delivery
Again you use the same system however instead of constantly adding product you can just use it to deliver your product in the member’s area.
The secret is to change the login and registration files or simply get a plugin. Once changed you direct the client to the changed registration page so they can access the locked content.
There are lots of plugins to organize all this for you however I have been using a simple manual system where the customer pays for a product or service; they are directed to the new wordpress registration page and enter a username and email and their password is sent to them.
All this is the normal Wordpress automated system. The only manual part is if you are accepting monthly payments and they don’t pay. You will get a notice from the processor and you go and delete the account. Very simple and easy to manage.
Create Money Making Blogs
Blogs are becoming ever more popular on the internet, and although you may not actually realize it but you could find yourself making money from them. There has been some things written about ways of making money through blogging, but not many. However, since the publication of WordPress Goldmine this has greatly changed and below we look at how this could help you to make money through your blog.
But first let us explain a little bit about blogs. A blog is in fact a weblog, which is a way for people to now express their own individual’s thoughts on a certain subject matter or may even be about themselves. Each blog is made up of just one web page and entries will then be posted to it on a regular basis starting with the most recent addition at the beginning.
Many people now have their own blogs on the internet, covering a wide variety of subjects but some still have not actually realized that they can make money from theirs. There are several ways in which money can be made from a blog and in WordPress Goldmine you will find just some of the ways that are available. But in order for you to be able to do this you first need to decide just what subject that your blog is going to be about.
Ideally what you are aiming to do with your blog is gain the trust of those people who come to read it. Certainly, once you have been able to gain these people’s trust then in all likelihood they are much more likely to try any of the products that you are recommending to them.
When it comes to producing good quality blogs this is where WordPress shines. Yes there are various different types of blogging platforms available for you to use, but WordPress is the easiest of them all to use and understand. Although, it must be said that Blogger follows a very close second behind it. But the author of WordPress Goldmine as the name suggested has used the one that is rated first of all blogging platforms.
When it comes to setting up a blog using WordPress you will find that whole process very simple and easy to complete. But first you must register with the site and once this is done then you can start building your first ever blog with them. Actually building the blogs will cost you nothing and will only take a few minutes for you to complete and then all you need to do is start adding more information to it once it is up and running.
It is vital that what you post to your blog is not only relevant information but that which your readers will find useful. Through WordPress Goldmine the author explains exactly how to find the right kinds of blog posts that you should be making for yours, and it does not even matter if you have no real knowledge regarding the subject that you have selected for your blog.
The WordPress Goldmine e-book explains completely the steps that one should be taking in order that a person can actually start to profit from any blogs that they have. It helps you to avoid those mistakes which many novices new to blogging make and which end up wasting them time and losing them money. Through this e-book you will learn about how to set up your blog correctly, choosing the right subject matter and the right products that you should recommend to your visitors.
Earning Money The Adsense Way
AdSense is the fastest and easiest way for any website publisher to display relevant, unobtrusive ads on their websites content pages and even earn money from it. These ads can monetize as well as enhance the content page of the website. Google adsense is a way for providing a google search to their sites and simply earn money by displaying google ads on the search result pages. The program is free and a combination of pay-per-click and pay-per-impression advertising meaning that one would get paid for any valid clicks on the site or search result pages as well as impressions on content pages. Google adsense simply matches ads to the content of the site and one can earn money from clicks or impressions on google ads on search result pages or content page.
APT from yahoo updates the function of ad serving in the market and also brings together all the capabilities of ad network and exchange in one place. One can easily integrate full-premium and non-premium ad management. It delivers a great inventory yield and automates the time consuming task of allocating inventory. It also assures that you get the most value from each ad impression as buyers compete for an impression and APT automatically allocates it to the highest bidder. It simply unlocks greater value for your inventory. With targeting capabilities, performance and guaranteed inventory tabs yahoo has capabilities to create more orders with more confidence. Automation assures highest click rates allowing to create a custom expectations depending upon you to serve the ads. Better quality management gives greater control over contents. So in a way it lets you do business in your own way to adapt for a better tomorrow.
Adsense manager is a simple wordpress plugin that would manage adsense ads on your blog. It supports various features like adsense, adbrite, adgridwork, adpinion, adroll, commission junction, crispads, shopping ads, yahoo pn and widgetbucks. It generates an automatic code that allows position of ads with widgets. The system is completely automated with an ad code importer for all supported networks with automatic limitation of ads to meet the standard and need of network. Wordpress guarantees that all ads are hand-selected and family friendly.
Adsense thus in its true way is the best method to earn money the easiest way if you have a web site. The procedure to earn money is also very simple by simply displaying ads and text on your website or content page. The payment may be small but one can earn a good income if he plans to do it in a proper way. No matter what mode you use, like google, yahoo or wordpress, they all pay you for displaying the ads on your web site and web content pages. It generates a good healthy income for both advertisers and web site owners.
Marketing tips on blogging
Blogging are one of the effective tools for online sharing of thoughts and ideas on a variety of topics. Bloggers attain huge success through blogging, provided they market their blog well.
Generally, blogs consist of core components such as content, frequency and distribution, to increase their success. Nonetheless, bloggers need to make online visitors return time after time to their blog through efficient business strategies.
With mounting number of blogs on the Internet, it is a mystery for many bloggers to make their blog unique among all other blogs on the Internet. There are literally several kinds of blogs and certain strategies are applicable to all of them. Effective Tips:
Below discussed are some effective tips to get more traffic for a blog site:
1. first, target the audience according to the blog post. This is of utmost importance and bloggers need to consider it before venturing into online blog marketing. It is necessary that offered services satisfy the needs of target audience. There needs to be accurate customer division in blog marketing.
2. After targeting the precise audience, bloggers need to seek all essential sources on the Internet to know what people wish to buy and look for. For this, conducting online survey is of great use. Through surveys, bloggers ask questions about audiences’ likes and dislikes.
3. In addition, bloggers need to read the minds of target audience well. This helps to know what the audience likes to read on other people’s blogs. This determines the usefulness of a blog, which all audiences are likely to read. Thus, bloggers can access different ways and means to update their blogs for grasping constant attention of visitors.
4. It is equally important that bloggers consider the market competition and accordingly modify their blog from time to time. For this, bloggers need to analyze strategies used by their competitors and know how efficiently they carry out the same to achieve business success. Obtaining all these details certainly enables bloggers to develop new strategies for improving their blog, which can receive more clicks.
5. It is necessary that search engines bring the blog in front of visitors, when they search for relevant items. Hence, a blog has to have keywords, which most of the viewers will use for searching and buying things on the Internet. Although this is a difficult task, it is very helpful for maximizing profits.
6. Web links play a vital role in the success of online blog marketing. Hence, paste several web links that are related to the blogs. More the links in a blog better will be its performance. The moment visitors witness that a blogger’s blog is a beneficial resource they return time after time to that blog and refer others to go through it. Bloggers can also access several free tools to help them in this regard.
Overview:
Effective marketing of blogs needs dedication in terms of investment of time, ideas and efforts. Work smartly, invest hard effort in blog marketing and witness benefits in the form of search engine visibility, better customer relationship, increased sales and better brand reputation on the Internet.
Wordpress and General Blogging Tips
So I’ll discuss a little about the wordpress platform, themes, recommended plugins and some tips.
If you have just started blogging, there are a few steps you should take.
1. Activate the akismet plugin. This plugin comes preinstalled with wordpress but you have to activate it and get a wordpress key (which takes 2 minutes). Akismet blocks spam comments on your blog, so if you choose to enable comments on your posts (which you should) then this plugin is a must, and best of all it’s a set and forget.
2. Choose a theme. You could use the default theme, but it’s way overused. The ideal is to choose a theme that is very user friendly, with good link visibility, nice color contrast, and a nice and attractive layout. If you know how to design a theme or can change a free theme to your liking, then you should do so, unique content and layout designs are always a better choice than free themes that are probably used by hundreds or more. A good place to get themes is the Wordpress Theme Directory. Another one is searching google for “free wordpress themes” 
3. Decide on a permalink structure, permalinks are the actual links to your blog posts, and wordpress gives you a lot of flexibility here. For maximum SEO performance, you should simply choose “yourdomain.com/blog-post-title” but this really comes down to personal preference as I personally don’t think it makes that much of a difference, so you might prefer “yourdomain.com/year/month/blog-post-title” that is also search engine (and user) friendly. Whatever you choose, do activate the permalink feature because otherwise you’ll have those ugly query strings all over your urls.
4. Download and install the Google XML Sitemaps Generator Plugin. This plugin takes care of updating and submitting your sitemap to Google and other search engines. This allows search engine to know more about the structure of your website.
5. Dowload and install the All In One SEO Pack Plugin. This plugin optimizes your blogs output for search engine optimization. Optimizes keywords, page titles and more.
6. Install the ShareThis plugin or a similar social bookmarking plugin. This should go right after your posts along with a reminder letting visitors know they can subscribe to your feed. This way visitors have some options when they finish reading your posts. If they like your post, they will be able to quickly submit it to whatever social bookmarking sites they use or e-mail to a friend.
7. Create an About page. You should use this page to introduce yourself to the visitors, your background, your work, what you do and like and what people should expect from your blog. This gives your blog a personal touch that helps visitors to identify you as an actual human behind the blog. Also consider placing one or several pictures of yourself on the about page (or on a photos page if you prefer) as this also greatly increases the human awareness of the visitor.
8. Create a Contact page. You can simply put up a page with e-mail instructions or use a contact me plugin like Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form. This gives confidence to the visitor that he can reach you if he so chooses and, like the about page, gives the human touch.
9. Create an account on FeedBurner for your blog and give your visitors a visible option to subscribe to your blog by RSS and by e-mail (FeedBurner takes good care of all this). This allows users to use an rss reader or just get your posts by e-mail. Most visitors never return so you should make it easy and worthwhile for them to subscribe to your blog and receive future updates.
Well, those are 9 of the things that I think are most common and needed, but I could go on, you should familiarize yourself as much as possible with wordpress (or your other blogging platform of choice), try out new plugins and optimize your theme. It’s a work in progress, but you shouldn’t let that get in the way of your posting.
You could consider setting up a password protected subdomain and creating a clone blog for testing (or install it on your own computer) because once you start getting traffic you shouldn’t go trying new things on your live site where things could break giving your visitors a bad surfing experience. A clone blog is obviously just a blog installation that matches your actual site with the same theme, same plugins and a few dummy posts so you can do your testing.
Once you get your blog ready to go, all that’s left to do is start posting! You should make a nice first post, introducing yourself briefly and letting the reader know that you have an About page with more details. You should give some idea of what visitors can expect from your blog posts.
Now for some quick blogging tips:
1. Make constant posts. You should try your best to do about 3 posts per week minimum. This all depends on your ability to express yourself with words. If you’re good at it, then post as much as you can, daily or even bidaily. If you’re not, well, then try to make at least 3 posts per week.
2. Use post titles wisely. Your post title is very important as it’s the part that will be most visible to the web. Create informative titles, the words you choose here will eventually make your site rank on google for some or all of those same keywords.
3. Make medium to long posts. Not saying that you can’t do small blog posts, you can and should, but you should try your best to create full length and keyword rich posts. Write your best and biggest posts as if the were articles with a small intro, content and conclusion.
4. Post about other blogs. Read blogs about the same topic than yours and link to them and do your own spin on the post, agree, disagree, whatever. Basically try to engage in friendly debates with other bloggers.
5. Leave them wanting for more. End your posts with a small text about what you’ll be posting about next time. Be creative and suspenseful.
6. Proof read and spell check your post before publishing. Occasional typos are ok, but proof reading and using a spell checker should keep them to a minimum.
7. Have fun! You should be having fun blogging. If you’re just starting you can probably feel a little intimidated or sometimes don’t knowing what to post. But you shouldn’t stress to much about it, just take a break and post some other time. Blogging should be relaxing not stressful. Find inspiration around you.
Well and that’s it, there you have just some blogging tips to get you started. These are of course mostly geared to blogging beginners. You can do much more with blogs and use the blogging platform to create other type of niche sites and adsense sites but that is topic for a whole different article.
Your Blog is As Good As Its Platform and Four Must Have Plug-Ins
Can the blogging platform you use actually make your blog better? Are there that many different platforms, that it makes a difference to which one you use? Yes, I think there is.
There are many platforms for bloggers to use today. Most of them are free and some charge a small fee. While the free platforms are more popular because they are, well, free, they are also likely to have less features than the fee based platforms.
That is where WordPress comes in. In case you don’t know WordPress is, it is probably the best blogging platform available, in my opinion, at this time. And did I tell you that is totally free. WordPress can do this because it is an open source project, a project that is worked on by thousands of people around the world.
WordPress can be either set up on its own domain or you can get a free WordPress blog set up at WordPress.com. Although the last option makes using WordPress totally free, I would advise setting up WordPress on its own domain. If you are not of the tech type, then check out WordPress.org and there are ways to get your WordPress blog loaded to your web host for you for free.
Besides being free, there are many other features that make WordPress great. One is the awesome support and community that is built around WordPress. WordPress.org has a huge help section under the Docs heading. If you cannot find your answer here, then you can most likely find the answer in the forums.
Another great feature is that there are tons of free themes or designs that you can use with your WordPress blog. They differ in colors, how many columns there are and almost anything else you can imagine can be found for your blogs theme. A quick search on Google for “free WordPress themes” will give you thousands to chose from.
Probably the best feature about WordPress is its plug-ins. Plug-ins are tools that extend the functionality of WordPress and offer custom functions and features so that each user can tailor their site to their specific needs. A list of Plug-ins can be found under the Extend heading at the WordPress.org website.
I hope this article has helped you learn about WordPress and the advantages of using and in return makes your blog better.
WordPress Plug-ins You Must Have
This article will show you what WordPress plug-ins are a must have to have installed on your blog and why.
If you are not familiar with WordPress, it is an open source project that lets users use the program for free. You can learn more about and get your own WordPress blog by visiting WordPress.org today.
In case you don’t know, Plug-ins are tools that extend the functionality of WordPress and offer custom functions and features so that each user can tailor their site to their specific needs. A list of Plug-ins can be found under the Extend heading at the WordPress.org website.
Installing the plug-ins in not to difficult. After the plug-in is downloaded, it the has to be uploaded to your blogs plug-in folder via a FTP site. If you are unfamiliar with this then check with your hosting company, as they usually have some kind of guide to help you.
Now lets discuss the plug-ins that you must have.
All in one SEO Pack – This plug-in will give you the edge at making your site Search Engine Optimized. It allows you to add custom title, description and keywords into the header of your posts and pages.
Akismet Spam Filtering – Akismet is a must if you are going to allow comments on your blog. It does a fine job at separating true comments and spam comments. If you seen a blog with a bunch of spam comments, then you know what kind of trash this plug-in will keep off of your blog.
Sidebar Widget – The sidebar widget allows you to move other widgets in and out of your sidebar like a category list or blogroll. Very handy indeed.
AdSense Manager – As the title says it helps you manage your AdSense on your blog. Comes in handy if you us AdSense.
These are a just a few of the hundreds of plug-ins that are available to incorporate into your WordPress blog. Feel free to explore and have fun with them and make the best blog you can.
Tips for writing the best blog – Part 1
The best blogger in the world is the blogger that only cares about people and forgets about blogging for money. Losers blog for many as well as millions of other losers. Readers don’t care about how much money you are making, they only care about what they can get from your blog. Content is king all the time. The question is: what is good content? Good question. Nobody knows for sure but one thing I can tell you, if you like it, your readers will like it too. Give them what they want to read and they will give you want you want: clicks on your ads.
Good content can be information about anything you know a lot about, like for example cimputer maintenance, or cars. It can also be images from the most exotic places in the world such as Paris or NEw Zealand. I leave this one up to you. Imagine you are making a blog for yourself that is not published and never will be published. What would you put on that blog? Crap that nobody would want to read? No! You will put the very best out of you and write something people will love long after you are as good as gone! These are the blogs that matter.
Don’t forget that people must trust you for you to have a very good rank. It’s easy to forget about what really important when we leave in a dangerous business place that eats the competition like they eat fish.
Keep focused on improving the content. The best art made until today was not made for the money, but for the desire of being the best in the world. Do you share this same desire or do you just care about the numbers. Think again.
How do you fell when a bad quality blog appears full of ads and crap nobody wants to read? I bet you click on the back button faster than a bullet. People will think the same of you if you make a blog like that.
To make the best blog in the world I recomend you to use Wordpress. It’s the best self publishing tool. It will organize your blog immediately and you can download millions of free templates and plugins to enhance your blog. Imagination is the limit.
Now stop reading this and go making your blog! While you are wasting time reading this everyone else is writting on their blogs
7 Reasons Why Review Blogs Are Best Affiliate Sales Tool
Product reviews can become your best source of affiliate income, assuming your follow few simple guidelines and integrate a few options. And here are the 7 reasons why Review Blogs your best bet when using product reviews as affiliate sales tool:
1. Blogs are SEO friendly. Search engines love blogs and score a lot higher for your chosen keywords and help you get free traffic to your product review and as result – more sales through affiliate links clicks. It is a well known fact that properly written blog post often picked up by Google and shown in search engine results just minutes from publishing. More traffic simply means more sales for you.
2. Blogs are easily integrated with Social Marketing. Unless you have been living in total isolation you know by now that word of the mouth marketing or what is common known as Social Marketing is huge. People tend to listen to their friends before they act on something and friend’s recommendations are a huge benefit that drives sales through the roof. Blogs seamlessly integrate into Social Marketing as by their definition – they are Part of Web 2.0 revolution!
3. Blogs allow people to comment on post, or product review and share their opinion. We are all social creatures and sharing our thoughts and opinion is one of the driving factors of social media and web interaction. Blogs are designed to be part of the conversation and help you get more content by simply allowing people to comment and share their own opinion. Comments that establish more trust with other readers and help you get that desired click on affiliate link and as result – sale.
4. Blog are infinitely extensible and easily customized for your target audience. Proper presentation and functionality of your site that corresponds to your target visitor expectation goes a long way for establishing the trust and getting them to read your content. My favorite – WordPress blog, give you ability to change appearance as easily as changing a theme by picking one of the hundreds currently available at no cost. Adding new functionality is nearly effortless by simply adding a plugin that fits your need. You options are limited only by your imagination and your visitors’ expectations as you want to cater to your target audience.
5. Blogs are easy to use. WordPress blogs allow you to create content enhanced with images, videos as easily as you would writing a document in word processor. If you know how to type – you can create professionally looking reviews without any html or php knowledge and publish content ready for profits.
6. Blogs are cost effective. WordPress blogs can be easily installed using most of the modern hosting accounts and you can host hundreds of blogs on any single hosting account that cost you just a few dollars per month. Using properly coded theme and plugins will ensure that your blog is “shared hosting†friendly and permits you to have multiple blogs on one account. Earn more by spending less.
7. Blogs have best support. WordPress blog is now one of the most popular also comes with superb community support. If you have any issues – simple search on Google will provide you with a solution that someone already posted and community forums where you can post new problems. And if you need more personalized support – experts available for hire at very decent and competitive prices. You can always be sure that your blog will not be messed up because you couldn’t find any help.
How to Setup Wordpress Blog on Shared Hosting
As a beginner guide, I will start with web hosting and then blog setup, and they adding content into it and running it. First, you will need to find a good web hosting that support wordpress blog, and have the right Mysql database. Not all hosting plan are supporting the latest wordpress script. I recommend hostican hosting, as you can get discounted price on your sign up with hostican coupon code from hosticanreview.org and your first year hosting plan will cost you $45 dollars, and that is less than $4 per month.
Next login to hostican cpanel control panel, here is the hosting administrative area, and we will get started. The easiest way to setup wordpress is through the fantastico. Click on the fantastico icon will goes to the script selection page, and on your left, select the wordpress blog. The setup will begin, it will asked for blog name etc. Fill it in, and complete the setup. Its simple as that and your blog is running. From web hosting sign up to setting up a blog, it took less than 10 minutes.
Alternative for advanced user is to upload the wordpress script and follow the readme file to setup the blog manually. This will require some extra works. But it works as well.
Next what we need to do is to find a good wordpress theme. These theme will give new design and look to your blog. There is no web design knowledge require. You need to go to themes.wordpress.net theme website and find the right theme for your blog. Download it, unzip it and upload to your web hosting folder where you setup the blog. Upload it to /wp-content/themes . Once you are done, login to wordpress admin area and go to presentation tab and select the new theme. Done, the new design is apply to your website now.