Top Blogger Tips,How To Increase Blog Revenue and Visiter

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Creating A Wordpress Blog With Fantastico

Blogging With Wordpress

WordPress is a free personal publishing platform. It is an easy to use, fast and flexible blog script. It comes with a great set of features, designed to make your experience as a publisher as pleasant as possible.

But Firstly, If you want to install a wordpress blog script you will need to have a webhost, in this tutorial I suppose that you already had a webhost, you know about the basic stuffs about it and you just want to know how to install the wordpress blog script on your website or webhost, besides, there are a lot of good webhost out there and you just need to find a good web hosting company that offer a quality service.

Note: Be sure that the webhosting company you are using offers a free Fantastico Cpanel plugin

What is Fantastico?

Fantastico De Lux is the leading auto installer for cPanel servers. With more than 10,000 installations, it provides more than one million end users the ability to quickly install dozens of the leading open source content management systems into their web space and that includes Wordpress installation.

Installing Wordpress

Step 1.) Log into your website’s cPanel account, then click on the Fantastico icon.

Step 2.) You will now be brought to the Fantastico user interface, scroll down until you see the Blogs section and just after it, you will see WordPress in the list. Click on WordPress

Step 3.) On the right side, you will be given with some information about the version of WordPress that will be able to install. Make sure that it’s up to date. and If all is OK, click on New Installation.

Step 4.) You should arrive at the first of three steps in the one-click installation process. Here, you’ll be able to determine which folder you’d like to have WordPress installed to, as well as some other blog information

Installation Location. If you want your blog to be your website’s homepage, ensure that you leave the space blank, otherwise type in the name of the folder you want WordPress installed to (make sure it doesn’t already exist).

Admin access data. Choose the username and password you’d like to use in order to access the WordPress admin panel after installation is completed.

Base configuration. Type a nickname you’d like to use throughout the blog. By default, the nickname is used whenever you leave comments or write an entry on the blog, so choose something you don’t mind the world seeing. The admin e-mail address is where notices, passwords, and other information about the administration of the blog is sent. Your blog’s name and description should be self-explanatory.

E-mail account configuration. You only need to worry about this if you plan to blog via e-mail. If you’ve set up a special e-mail account that you’ll use for blogging via e-mail, then enter the settings where applicable. (Bear in mind, you will need to enter an e-mail account password in order to proceed with the installation, simply use a false one if you don’t plan to blog via e-mail.)

When your blog information is complete, click on the Install WordPress button at the bottom.

Step 5.) Verify that the information you provided is correct and click on Finish installation. Fantastico will create a brand new database for you and create the necessary WordPress files.

Step 6.) When the process is complete, you will receive a confirmation notice with the details of the installation. If you’d like a copy of the report for your records, you’ll have the option to send an e-mail to an account of your choosing.

Make your Blog Professional

Image via CrunchBase

Having a Professional Blog Structure

Blog Logo

Somehow, amateur bloggers tend to have no concern to brand their own blogs, and probably that is because they are using the default "Text Title" logo for their blog, if you want to make your blog unique from others then make a blog logo, it's easy you won't really need somewhat like a graphic designer to design your logo for you, all you need is to search for an Icon that reflects on what's on your blog or what is your blog all about, then try to add some Text Beside it or something like changing the icon's color and there you go! you have your own logo for your blog.

Blog Theme Color

When you design your blog, decide on a theme color that your blog will follow, Familiar with facebook?(Of Course) although Facebook is not a blog but you can get an idea out of it on how a theme color affects the overall professionalism or look of the blog or website, consider using at least two color variations that reflects your blog, such as if your blog is about nature, why not have a theme color of green and yellow green? it will greatly impact the "look" and the "feel" of your blog.

Blog Favicon

Aside from having a custom Blog Logo and a blog theme color, you should also consider having a custom Favicon for your Blog, A Favicon is the small website or blog icon that appears on a browser's address bar and tab bar, we will tackle more on blog favicons on future posts (So stay tuned), for the mean time, if you want to create your own favicon for free you can go to Favicon.cc or go to Blogger-Bookmark - Custom Blog Favicon for a short tutorial about having a Blog Favicon.

Post Titles Arrangements

This goes for both for your blog and post titles. This is a common mistake that most newbie bloggers tend to make. Why? Because when a user is searching for information they are looking for specific keywords that you may have written about — not your blog’s name. This will make a huge difference to your blog's professionalism and search engine optimization, This trick can be implemented on Wordpress using a plugin but on blogger, here is how to do it:

Go To Blogger->Dashboard->Design->Edit HTML and tick the box on "Expand Widget Templates"

(Note: Always backup your blog's template first before doing anything, so that you might not end up messing your blog.)

Then find (CTRL+F) this code:

and replace the code above with this one:

and that's it!

Default Template Icons

When you try to install a packaged blog template on your blog, whether it is a blogger template or a wordpress theme, it usually has some default icons along with it, chances are, that the template you are using have been also used by a lot of other bloggers for their blogs especially if it is a popular template and thus making your blog common to the reader's eye, if you want to brand your blog and make it professional then try to change those default Icons to other icons that is similar to it and has the same size.

RSS Newsfeed Subscription

Always have an RSS Newsfeed subscription option or button for your blog, it lets your readers get connected and updated about your posts or articles, if you would like to have an RSS newsfeed for your blog, you can use Feedburner , it offers a free RSS content management.

Social Bookmarking Widgets

If you really want your blog to be more interactive, "talk of the town", and to be more professional, then you may consider adding Social Bookmarking Widgets, such as Facebook Like, Tweeter Retweet or Google's Buzz This to your blog posts. These widgets will make your blog have an edge in the raging competition on the Blogosphere, there are a lot of free Social Bookmarking Services out there such as Addthis, ShareThis, and Add To Any.

Clean up Cluttered pieces

Being simple and clean does make your blog more professional, always try to arrange or clean up pieces, widgets, links and images on your blog so that it will not look cluttered and amateur, also, avoid using or putting too much widgets on your blog, widgets use javascripts from other sites, and when the server is down, it will affect your blog's loading time and slow it down.

Image Sizes

When you insert images on your blog, it is much nicer and professional to have a uniform image sizes, such as, Main images for posts are 350x350 pixels on size and advertisements images on the sidebar would be 250x250 pixels, it would make your blog look clean and much more eyepopping than a blog with scrambled image sizes inserted on their blog.

Indexing Your Blog On Directories

So, You have your blog, maybe with a flashy design, with worthwhile superb articles, decent number of readers and regular updates, great!

Now, you want to advance your blog, you want to show it to the whole world and your ready to compete and enter the exciting world of blogosphere competition, but you're confused on where to start?

List your Blog!

If you want your precious blog to be known and acknowledged, list it! Listing your blog to high profile Blog Directories gives you an edge an d opportunity to "Show Off" and get your blog noticed, consider visiting the top Blogs on the blogosphere, does their blog listed to Blog Directories?

Of course! because if the blog haven't even listed yet, how can you determine the blog to be one of the "Top Blogs", likewise if you don't even submit and list your blog to Top Blogging Directories, how can you expect your blog to be acknowledged as a Top Blog?

The Benefits of Listing your Blog

There are certainly a lot of benefits you get when you list your blog to Blog Directories, and the best hing about it is you can get all of these benefits for free!

Backlinks

Backlinks are like roads that connect to your blog from the broad highway of the blogosphere, if a lot of website links to your blog, then that would mean a higher probability for your blog to be visited or by a visitor or a potential loyal blog reader.

Connect With Bloggers And Have Readers

Submitting your blog to blogging directories gives you an opportunity to know and to be known by other bloggers on the blogosphere, thus having a chance to have blog readers and blogging friends.

Discover Blogs

Blogosphere is a new world to explore, and that means new blogs to be discovered, new articles to be read, new friends to know, you name it! Blogging really is not all about competition, so have time to visit and comment on other blogs, it also helps you to build your profile as a blogger.

Compete and Change

When you discover blogs that are similar to what you blog about, then it's a good thing to know about their blogs too! Observed and learned from the things that makes a successful blog and avoid the mistakes made by amateur blogs.

How do you plan to promote your blog

Why is it good to know this before you start your blog? Because it will help you decide where best to invest your time and effort when you need to build traffic to your blog.

You'll learn more about the methods to promote your blog when you subscribe to the email course below. Some of these tasks can be outsourced, while others you would have to do yourself.

Decide what you want to take on and look out for service providers to handle the other functions so you can start building traffic to your blog as soon as possible.

In Conclusion

Blogging is not for everyone. It's just another form of communication, but you can use this type of communication to have an edge on marketing.

Don't get so hung up on the technology that you end up ignoring more appropriate ways of communicating your message and some things may be easier to communicate face to face, in a conference room, or even through the good old telephone.

But if you asked yourself all the questions above and decided that blogging meets all your objectives, then a blog for your business surely is a lucrative choice. so what are you waiting for? start a blog now!

Blogging For Your Business

Image via Wikipedia

A blog can also be a superb tool for marketing your business online, it gives you an advantage to connect with your customers or to market your goods online.

But with so many marketers jumping on the blogging world, few people are giving a thought to whether blogs are really up their alley, or taking the time to consider the best ways of going about it.

If you are planning to start a blog for your business, then try to ask yourself with these questions before you plunge into blogging.

Do you really need a blog?

Writing and maintaining a blog takes surely needs a commitment, as well as a passion for stringing words into a post that your customers may have a reasons to comeback. If you don't enjoy writing that much, you could always create an audio or video blog (or let others write for you).

But would your business objectives really be served by starting a blog? Or would you prefer to use other methods to market your business?

Whom do you want to reach with your blog?

The first step on reaching your audience, is understanding them and where they go to find information about your products.

If your audience largely consists of people who live in your town or use products that they search for in the newspapers, offline advertising might be more suited to your purpose such as Flyers and banners.

However, your target audience belongs to one or more of these segments, a blog might be just the thing to boost your business.

Internet users

Does your target potential customers would really need to use the internet to be encouraged to purchase something you sell? If not, then starting a blog will just be a huge waste of time and effort.

Blog readers

Does your target audience read blogs? Or do they prefer to get their information in their inbox? If the latter is true, then an email newsletter might be a better option than a blog.

Search engine users

If you already have a website for your business, A blog is an excellent way to boost your search engine rankings and get listed for a lot of your target keywords to market your products online. If you know that your audience uses search engines to find information, a blog will increase your chances of getting their attention.

What do you want to achieve with your blog?

There are a lot of things that a blog can do for your business. Blogs can help you:

- Increase your products visibility

- Brand yourself, your products, your services, and your company

- Build a community and connect to your customers

- Expand your reach to those outside your current sphere of influence

- Build up your Business’ profile

- Reach out to potential customers

Deciding exactly what you want to achieve with your blog can help you get focused, so that you can spend your time and effort in activities that help, without hindering your business objectives.

How much time can you spend on your blog?

Time is a valuable resource that is equivalent to money, if you’re serious about blogging about your business then you must decide how much time you would spend on your blog.

What blogging platform will serve your needs best?

Deciding your blogging platform is an important step that you should take only after becoming familiar with the features and benefits of each option.

The reason it is so crucial is because it can be extremely difficult to migrate an established blog to a new platform once you have started it. Moving your blog can result in you losing your data, search engine listings and readers, so don't take this decision lightly.

Decide which platform will best meet your marketing objectives, time constraints and personal preferences before you make your first post.

Blogger and Wordpress are some of the best blogging platforms, you can refer to "Creating A Blog With Blogger" and "Creating A Wordpress Blog With Fantastico" posts on how to create a blog with blogger and wordpress blogging platform.

Developing your Blog

Image via Wikipedia

You've finally created a blog and you've made your first post. Now how do you get people to actually read what you're blogging about?

Here are some tips on promoting your blog.

Quality Content

Interesting content will keep your readership returning. Update your blog regularly. Google-bot, which is Google's web-crawling robot loves content. The more you update your blog, the more frequent the search engine spiders will return to it.

Marketing on Forums

Take part in forums that are related to blogging. Ask other bloggers for their opinion on your blog and take their suggestions to heart.This helps you have an audience for your blog and build a relationship, even before your visitors read your blog.

Publish an RSS/Atom/XML feed

If you're using Blogger, you can turn on RSS feed by clicking on settings in your dashboard and then clicking on site feed and make sure that your settings are set to yes.If on other blogging platform such as Wordpress, you can use free RSS feed services like feedburner.com.

Carefully choose your post titles

Taking into consideration what other internet users may be searching for, Use keywords in your posts title.keywords are the main texts that is preferably considered by search engines as the main topic of your posts.

Technorati.com , is a blog search engine that also lists the top search words. The more targeted your keywords are, the greater your return in search engines will be.

Involve yourself in commenting on other blogs

You can gain a loyal readership just by offering feedback to your fellow bloggers. some blogs has the comment feature that allows you to add a link back to your blog as well.

Link Signature

Be sure to include your blog address in forum signatures and in your email signature. it helps to promote your blog's link.

Submit your blog to directories

As previously posted "Indexing Your Blog On Directories", submit your blog on directories, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and other Top Blog Directories such as BlogTopSites.

What is a Dofollow and a Nofollow Blog

Image via Wikipedia

Many blog writers have discussed and debate over the question "What is better; a DoFollow Blog? Or a NoFollow Blog?, certainly many of them answered DoFollow, and only a few answered Nofollow, but what is the real reason of this debate? This is my own opinions and views:

A Dofollow Blog leaves a space and grants access to their visitors to have a backlink on their blogs, the effect is that whenever somebody leaves a link on the blog, both the author of the blog and the one who interlink backlinks will be benefited, because it will affect and adds up both of their blogs or websites' reputation and search engine ranking, so you see the good effect there?

But a one big disadvantage of this technique is that; what if you have a high reputaion and a high pagerank blog or website? And the one who made a backlink at your blog has a website or a blog with a bad reputation(sites that are related to hacks, pornography, etc)? Such as their blogs may be out of your niche, have bad credit, full of spams, has malicious contents, etc. Would you still want to unite your blog's well earned reputation and credit to a bad reputation blog? Well think again.

Many spammers liked blogs who has a property that grant them access to put their own links, and they will try to put no quality comments , familiar with "hey thanks!", "nice post!", "great!", "blahblahblah", some bloggers comment just to have a backlink on your blog.

A NoFollow blog is a blog or a website that restricts their visitors or readers to have a backlink on their website or blog, at first it may sound greedy or selfish but what they are really doing is their protecting their blogs from spammers who tries to spam their way just to have a backlink.

Many newbie bloggers get the wrong reaction to NoFollow, because they think a DoFollow is much useful for their blog, and maybe their right! But have they observed high reputation and pagerank blogs? Most of it has a NoFollow property, because they want to control the contents and quality that links to their blogs.

In conclusion, both Dofollow and NoFollow property has their own advantages and disadvantages, but in my own opinion, when you have just newly started your blog, you can try to implement the DoFollow system because it will help your blog get up to the seo(search engine optimazition) ladder, and later when you have build up high credibility you can then change this property to NoFollow, to control the quality that links to your blog.

If this sounded greedy to you don't worry, because you can tell your blog readers that you will link to them if they have a good credibility blogs and quality comments on your blog, this is also a way of building relationship with your loyal readers.

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Sunday, September 5, 2010