start blogging - a step-by-step guide

Start Blogging

A Step-by-Step GuideChoosing a Blog PlatformPresented by Internet-Classroom.net, a Second Self Virtual Assistance Company.1SoWhats a Blogging Platform?

A blogging platform is the software that will help you turn your writing into a website that can be easily navigated and accessed by visitors from around the world. Think of it as any other software you currently have on your computer or use online.

Lesson One Choosing Your Blogging Platform

Presented by Internet-Classroom.net, a Second Self Virtual Assistance Company.

2There are 2 Basic Platforms to Choose from:

WordPress.com and WordPress.orgBlogger

Both of these options have advantages and disadvantages. Before you make your decision, you should read through the pros and cons of each and think about which will be best for your needs. Go beyond todays class to each platforms website and see what they have to say.



3Blogger Advantages:

Its very easy for new bloggers to use.Setting up a blog with Blogger is as simple as following a few prompts.There is nothing to install.Blogger is totally free to use.You dont have to purchase a domain name as the system will give you an address based on the name of your blog.Posting to your blog is easy.You can change the look of your blog very easily. This is all done through Bloggers dashboard.If you have more than one blog with Blogger, you can access all of the blogs from the same dashboard.



4Blogger Disadvantages:

Compared to other options out there, the design and function of a Blogger blog is very limited.You can download and install custom themes for the blog, but most look very similar. This means your blog wont stand out as well in your niche.You cannot use the your own hosting or URL. You will get a free domain name with your Blogger blog, but the domain name will be yourblogname.blogspot.cominstead of yourblogname.com.You will never truly own your Blogger blog because the files and content are hosted on Bloggers server.



5Lets Now Talk About WordPress

WordPress is the other popular platform for blogging. There is a free option that functions similarly to Blogger; they host your site. However, there is also an option that allows you to have your own website name.

You install WordPress on your website hosting and hook it up to a domain name that you own. If you dont know how to do this, your hosting company should be able to walk you through the process.


Presented by Internet-Classroom.net, a Second Self Virtual Assistance Company.6WordPress Advantages:

WordPress themes are diverse and plentiful. Some themes will even make your blog look like one of the real estate websites that people are paying hundreds of dollars a year for.

WordPress users have created tons of plugins and widgets that will increase the functionality of your blog and help you get the most out of your site.



7WordPress Disadvantages:Some people feel that its not as user-friendly as Blogger, which can make it intimidating for newbies. I dont personally agree with this opinion but you can check both options out and see which one best suits your skill level and needs.

You will also have to spend money to get your domain name and your website hosting.

Despite these disadvantages, most professional bloggers go with the WordPress option because they maintain ownership of their blogs and can customize them to their hearts content.



8Lets Summarize

A Blog platform is the software that you need to have a blog.

There are basically 2 types of blog platforms; Blogger and WordPress.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each blog platform.



9Whats Next?

Starting a blog is one of the easiest and most accessible ways to get great online exposure and ultimately make money. If you are starting your first blog, you are being confronted with many choices about how to set it up, including the selection of your blogging platform.

Check into the Blogger and WordPress platforms and decide which one works best for you.



10Start Blogging

A Step-by-Step GuidePresented by Internet-Classroom.net, a Second Self Virtual Assistance Company.

Generating Good Topic Ideas11In this second Blogging from the Beginning lesson, we are going to talk about how to generate good topic ideas for your blog.

We all have busy lives and keeping it interesting and fresh can sometimes be a bit challenging. While many bloggers have no trouble beginning their blog, the number of abandoned blogs, or blogs that are rarely updated, shows just how many bloggers dont know what to do to keep their blog going with fresh content.

Lesson Two Generating Good Topic Ideas


12You may be a little intimidated at the thought of having to come up with a lot of topic ideas, but brainstorming great topic ideas is easy if you use the following tricks:

News in Your Niche Your blog should be timely. A good way to attract attention to your blog is to tap into some new or on going news stories. Sign up for Google Alerts (its free) and set up alerts on important words in your niche. This way youll be able to see timely news and blog about those current topics.



13Comments Section The comments section on your blog can be a great source of inspiration. Lets say you have a post on your blog about Going Green. Within the comments section, a few people start asking about what appliances are the best for energy savings. There you go! You have your next blog post. Look through your comments section to identify topics that you can write about or questions you can answer in the form of a blog post.



14Resource Lists Are there some websites or other resources that your niche market needs to know about? Resource lists posts are very easy to write and they provide maximum value to your readers because your readers can get the information that they need easily. When you cant think of anything else to write about, you can pull together a helpful list for your readers.



15Blogs in Your Niche Market Find other blogs in your niche market and see what they are writing about. You can take a different angle on the same topic or cover an area of the topic that the original author missed. If you disagree with the author, feel free to go ahead and express your opinion on your blog (without calling out the original author, of course). Get involved in blogging communities such as Active Rain or RealTown They can be a great resource.



16Whats Next?

Post frequently. (I recommend at least once a week.) This means that youre going to need an ever-present stream of content coming into your blog.

Start keeping a file with blog post ideas and youll never be at a loss for material.



17Start Blogging


5 Types of Blogs18So far we've covered "Choosing Your Blogging Platform" and Generating Good Topic Ideas".

In Lesson Three, we are going to talk about the different kinds of blog posts you can use on your blog.

Whether you are blogging to make money directly from the blog or blogging to drive traffic to your website, you should know about these five kinds of blog posts.

Lesson Three Types of Blogs


19ReviewsReview blog posts can help you monetize your blog. When you review a product and include an affiliate link, you'll make a commission from each sale generated with your affiliate link.

Review blog posts should go over the benefits as well as the pitfalls of the product. Keep your review balanced. Your audience will appreciate your honesty and be more likely to trust your recommendation.



20Quick TipsQuick tips are great in between posts since they can be kept short. If theres a great bit of information that you want to share with your niche but it doesn't really warrant a full blog post, you can post a quick tip.

The tip should be focused on one key area of the niche. For example, How to Create Curb Appeal is a perfect quick tip article for a real estate blog.



21ListsBlog readers love lists! You can make lists fit literally any niche topic imaginable. They are great ways to convey information online because they can easily be scanned by readers. You can create resource lists that will help your readers find information. You can also create lists of different ways to accomplish a goal in a niche, like 5 Ways to Sell Your Home Quick. The possibilities are endless.



22InterviewsAlthough these require a bit of preparation, they can be very valuable to your blog. You can interview someone in your niche and share the results of the interview with your blog readers. This will not only help provide valuable content for your blog, but you can also get more traffic to your blog. Likely, the person who you are interviewing will publicize the event on their blog which will bring more traffic back to you.



23How to PostsLike quick tips, "how to" posts help you provide valuable information to your readers. Unlike "quick tips" these posts go into more detail. Some "how to" posts are even written into two or three part courses (like this post, for instance).

For ideas about what to write about, look at the most frequently asked questions in your niche and develop posts around those topics.



24Whats Next?

Blog posts come in many different forms and lengths. If you want to keep your blog fresh and interesting, you should post often. I suggest no less than once a week. Creating different types of blog posts will keep your audience interested and will help showcase yourself as an expert in your field.

Choose a type of blog and create a post.

Lesson ThreeTypes of Blogs


25Start Blogging


Effective Traffic-Building Techniques26Now that you know how to:

Choose a Blog PlatformGenerate Good Topic IdeasWrite Several Types of Blogs

Heres a quick guide to the five most popular and effective traffic-building techniques:

Lesson Four Traffic-Building Techniques


27Put Your Party Pants on and Get social!

Social networking and blogging go hand-in-hand. Your blog posts can be distributed across social networking channels in many different ways. Sign up for Twitter and tweet about your posts as soon as they are added to you blog. Update your Facebook status with a link to you new blog posts. By the way, if you have a self-hosted WordPress blog site, theres a plugin that will automatically feed your blog posts into your social media sites. Submit your stories to Digg.com, Reddit.com and StumbleUpon.com as well as niche-specific networks. Remember that in order for social networking to be effective, you need to participate with other people on your list. If you visit their links and respond to their updates, theyll be likely to do the same for you.

Lesson FourTraffic-Building Techniques

Presented by Internet-Classroom.net, a Second Self Virtual Assistance Company.28Be a Stand Out and Get Noticed!

Find blogs in your niche and start following their posts. Make sure to add insightful and interesting comments on their posts. Not only will the blog owner take notice and visit your blog, other commenters will visit your blog to get more of your great insight. You dont have to spend a lot of time on comments, but make it a point to comment on a few related blogs each week.



29The Beast Must be Fed!

RSS feeds are a way to syndicate your blogs content so that it is sent to many different people in their own blog readers or on their own sites. Most blogging systems have RSS feeds automatically included but you can add a lot more functionality to your feed by using a free service like FeedBurner.com. With FeedBurner you can add things like sharing the feed via e-mail so it will pull in new readers and encourage previous visitors to come back to the blog again.



30Paper! Paper! Read all About it!

Get articles in directories. You may think that by being a blogger you dont need article marketing. However, you can get a lot of traffic to your blog by tweaking some of your popular blog posts and adding them to article directories. Notice the word tweak? Article directories wont accept articles that have been blog posts. So, read the article directorys rules and make your changes as needed. You can post your popular posts as articles with a link back to your blog in many different article directories. Not only will you get a valuable backlink but your article may also be used by ezine owners which will bring you more traffic. And, dont forget that little piece of valuable real estate at the end of your article your short bio.


Presented by Internet-Classroom.net, a Second Self Virtual Assistance Company.31Get Backlinking Not at all Back Breaking!

You should work to build backlinks to your blog. By creating backlinks, youll improve your blogs ranking in search engine results. You can get lots of traffic from search engines if you are within the first group of search results for your keywords.



32Whats Next?

Building traffic is just as an important as writing quality posts. These simple ways of building traffic should be used to help build traffic to your blog and increase your readership.

Put each of the five traffic-building techniques into practice.

Lesson FourTraffic-Building Techniques


33Start Blogging


Make Money from your Blog34After following the previous four lessons, youre now ready to start making money from your blog.

Here are five ways to make your blog pay for itself and being in some extra cash for you.

Lesson Five Make Money from your Blog


35Affiliate Marketing

This is one of the easiest ways to make money from your blog and very simple to start. You begin by selecting an affiliate program from one of the popular affiliate networks such as ClickBank or Commission Junction. You will be given an affiliate link. You can either post a review on your blog about the product or post ads along the side of your posts, including your affiliate link.



36Selling Your Own Product

If you want to create your own product, you can add it and advertise it to your blog for another stream of income. Your readers have already built a level of trust with you so they'll be likely to be interested in your product.

You can link to your products sales page directly from your posts and display graphic ads in the sidebars of your blog.



37Contextual Advertising

This is a way to make money from your blog with hardly any participation on your part. When you sign up with a company like Text Links, InfoLinks or a similar service, your blog posts will automatically have certain words hyperlinked. These links go to advertisers websites. You get paid when someone clicks on a link. Unlike with affiliate programs, you won't get a commission on a sale but you do get paid whether or not your visitor buys from the advertisers site.



38Other Types of Advertising

Google Adsense and other pay per click advertising programs will give you code to add to your website. These programs will automatically display ads in the sidebars of your website. Anytime a visitor clicks on one of these links, you will get paid anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars depending on your niche. These ads dont appear within the body of your post, but they are based on the content of your posts so they will be relative to your audience.



39Get Paid for Reviews

Once you have some traffic coming to your blog, you can be paid to post reviews. There are many different networks that link advertisers with bloggers. You simply find an advertiser through one of these networks and promise to post a review on your blog about the product or service. Youll be paid a flat rate for your review. Be sure the product or service is relevant to your niche for best results. There are tons of these so I recommend that you type Get Paid for Reviews into a Google search and see which sites best suit your goals.


Presented by Internet-Classroom.net, a Second Self Virtual Assistance Company.40Whats Next?

What started out as an online diary or newspaper has fast become a source of income for some. By taking the right steps, you really can make money from your blog.

Start with one money-making technique and build from there.

Lesson FiveMake Money from your Blog


41By the way.

For tons of free resources, tips and information for your business, please visit my blog.

For a variety of ebooks, ecourses and other digital downloadable information, go to my Internet-Classroom.

If you are ready to dip your big toe into the WordPress blogging world, get started in 3 easy steps for as little as $58 per year.

If you have any questions or need any assistance please feel free to contact me at anytime. I will be happy to help.

Start BloggingA Step-by-Step Guide

Presented by Internet-Classroom.net, a Second Self Virtual Assistance Company.42

start blogging - a step-by-step guide

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