1. Use a keyword research tool for mining keywords related to your site’s offerings. One of the most effective and free keyword research tool is Google Adwords Keyword tool. Do a Google search for the URL of the site.

You start with some broad keywords like “golf ball” and the tool lists all the related keywords people use in their search queries related to “golf ball”. The tool also displays the monthly volumes of those search queries.

2. Get a domain name that is not too long and has relevancy to the products or services your site is offering. Using the keyword research tool, pick a few keywords related to your site. Pick a domain name based on one of these keywords.

All the domains based on broad keywords are already sold out. So you cannot get a domain based on a broad keyword, like golf ball. If you find one, grab it without any delay. However, most domain registrars, like Godaddy, have domain finding tools that suggest available domains based on broad keywords.

3. Your Website title that is located in the HTML TITLE tag should be meaningful and at the same time it should contain related keywords. Limit the title tag to 50 characters so that is is not truncated in the search result page.

4. The most important meta tag in a web page for a search engine crawler is the description meta tag that has two attributes: NAME=”description” and CONTENT=”your site’s content”. Describe your site’s contents using a few sentences in the content attribute of the META tag. Your site description should contain related keywords.

5. Create quality contents using texts and graphics. Use short paragraphs for text and separate texts using headings or H1 tag, and sub headings or H2 tags. Use one H1 tag per page. Don’t forget to use keywords in your paragraphs, H1, and H2 tags.

Use plenty of white spaces and bulleted items so that visitors can scan your page easily. Most people don’t read web pages but they scan to find texts that are of particular interest to them.

6. If you are using images, use keywords in the ALT and TITLE attributes of the IMG tag. Use keywords for image file names. Most people use meaningless image file names like image1, image2, etc. Search engine crawlers have no way to understand what image1 and image2 are all about.

7. Cross links your web pages using keywords in the anchor texts. For example, if your web site is about golf ball, you can use anchor text “callaway golf ball” on your home page to direct visitors to a page dedicated to “callaway golf ball”.

Search engine optimization is the art of creating contents for human readers using keywords. Don’t create contents for search engines. Create contents for human and use keywords strategically placed in your contents for the consumption of search engine crawlers.

Now the form name wp-gbcf might be pretty drab but the form isn’t! I found this form extremely easy to set up. The form has security features, is customizable and is available in several designs to fit in with the design of your website or blog. This plugin has been tested and works with WordPress version 2.6.x. Here at Terry Lile I tried the default style and saw no need to check out the many other styles.

There is no need to write a long post to explain this form. The form is pretty much self-explanatory and when you download it the download includes extremely thorough directions for setting it up along with instructions next to the form and on the Internet. I would estimate that between the time I downloaded the plugin, loaded it to my server and had the form up and running it took me less than 15 minutes. For a techless, clueless old fart blogger like me that is not bad. For those of you that have a bit of technical sense you can probably do it in half the time.

Techless Terry

How Do I pick a Domain Name?

There are several factors that you may want to consider when deciding upon a domain name. You may want to use your own name or a name that is better identified with your type of blog or the product or service you may be promoting. Are you developing a social network or is your intention to make money with you blog or perhaps both. Are you using your blog to promote a service or an offline business? Are you hoping to get advertisers for a particular product or service? Obviously there are several factors that come into play when selecting a blog name.

Branding

You want people to remember your address so that they can reach you easily. The domain name may be associated with an existing offline business that you want to promote or it may be a totally new online venture. A few examples of domains are Ferrariusa.com, YouTube.com, FloorCentral.com, AskUncleTerry.com or even a personal name like TerryLile.com. Some people use domain names that seem to make little sense. An example of this is one I registered called p69er.com. I have no idea what I will ever do with that domain.

Keyword Rich Domains

I had registered several domains before I ever realized there was any science behind picking a domain name. A lot of experts recommend that you register a domain name that is keyword rich.  Keywords are the word phrases that we type into Google or other favorite search engine to find what we are looking for on the Internet. So far I have not been very good at registering keyword rich domains and I hope to get better. I was recently preparing to setup a teenage obesity site. After doing keyword research I was pleased when I found that I was able to register the name tenageobesity.com. A few days after registering it I realized that I had accidentally spelled teenage as tenage.  Oh well, I guess I will have to set up a site for fat ten year olds. LOL

Since keywords and key phrases are an in-depth subject we will be talking more about those in the future as I share my limited knowledge on SEO – Search Engine Optimization.  For now though if you would like to know more about keyword optimization, one of my favorite experts Jason Katzenback the voice of John Cow is offering some great free tools. One of these is a 130-page e-book “How to Build a Business Not Just a Blog” and another is a free keyword optimization tool called Keyword Coral.  You might want to check these tools out. I use them and again they are free.

Top Level Domains

Should you register a domain name that ends with .com, .net, biz, .org, or some other extension! I usually will select a .com figuring that is what most people think a website is. If you have your heart set on a particular name and it is only available in a different extension then you may choose to go that way. If it is a keyword rich name you may want to take advantage of it regardless of what the extension is. For example since I still wanted to have a teenage obesity site I registered teenageobesity.us and my mistake domain tenageobesity.com with only one “e” in teenage will be forwarded into it. We will see if I get enough hits on it to make it worth keeping.

Buying Existing Domain Names

There are always existing domain names that are for sale. Should you buy one or just register one? That is a decision you will need to make. You can register a domain name for about 10-12 dollars per year. Buying an existing name will cost you more but may be worth it to you. I have been told that one advantage is that an existing domain being older will often have better recognition with the search engines, which is an SEO factor to consider.

Registering Your Domain Name

Once you have decided what type of blog you are going to build you will register a domain name. The average fee to register a domain names is between $10-15.00 per year. This fee will vary somewhat as will the service of the companies you are dealing with and what options they may include. You can register a domain at hundreds of places. I use DomainReg.com I have found it very easy to use, the prices are competitive, they have provided excellent service and if the domain name I want is not available they offer suggestions for other domain names.

You can register for as little as one year. I usually register for 2 or more years. SEO experts usually teach that if a name is registered for less than a couple of years the search engines will not take you seriously.

When registering you can register as private if you don’t want people to know who you are. At most blogs you are probably going to tell people who you are anyway. There are some types of blogs though where you may choose to keep it private so use whichever option you choose.

When registering you will usually be offered other products and services. For me, I am not an impulse buyer and will usually shy away from adding any additional products or services at the time of registration.

As  we continue with our series How Do I Start A Blog, In the next article we will talk about getting a host for your blog. Please come back and you comments are welcome.

Techless Terry

How do I start a blog became a nagging question. When I later was to start my first blog I knew that I wanted an online business. I needed to supplement my income now that I was semi-retired. I am not a technical person and knew nothing about an on line business and certainly nothing about blogging. Thanks to good advice I started out using a WordPress platform though with my blogs I was just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what would stick. Unfortunately lots of the spaghetti was sticking but I was not making any money.

Later I started visiting other blogs and reading articles by those that had become successful in blogging. Clues here and there I started absorbing the information, putting it to work and started to change my blogs to make some money. I am still in the transition stage but am seeing results. While I am far from an expert I am happy to share with you the information I have found and often with frustration as I dug deeper into that question how do I start a blog?

What Interest You?

First decide what topics interest you. I have found that it helps to choose a topic of interest as this makes it much easier to write about. With blogging you either write a lot of original material, post the writings of others or both. I do both though I prefer to write my own so that something identical is not at another site.

What Type of Blog Would You Prefer

As I learned from one of my favorite experts Jason at John Cow, there are 5 basic Internet business structures that most small business websites and blogs fall within. (By the way, if you haven’t already done so you should get his free book How to Build a Business Not Just a Blog). Anyway, these 5 types of site are community. e-commerce, content, portfolio and hybrid.

• A community site usually encompasses a specific group or a special interest. Community sites are usually very good for building traffic.
• E-commerce sites are similar to a retail business though your sales floor is the Internet and the consumers computer monitor. At an e-commerce site you market, sell and ship your product to the consumer.
• A content site is one in which you provide content such as articles, images or other content that will attract readers. Like a magazine, newspaper, radio or television program your job is to add the media that attracts traffic and promote your site to attract traffic to it. Just as a television or radio program has their commercials or printed media has its print ads, you will offer your readers the opportunity to click on your ads. The companies that have the ads on your pages will pay you for the ad space, clicks to their products or the purchases that those coming from your site make.
• A portfolio site may not sell anything directly. It may be an adjunct whose primary job is to attract customers or clients to a service, consulting or other offline business.
• The hybrid site is a combination of these types of sites. For instance one of my own sites floorcentral.com provides information much like a community site, attracts and encourages readers to click on the ads of others like a content site and attracts clients to my floor covering consulting business like a portfolio site.

Are There Products To Advertise Or Sell?

I then ask myself if there are products to advertise or sell for this topic. Naturally this is only important if you are building a blogging business as I am. If you are doing it just for fun this step is not needed. Since I want to make money I will be doing research on my product, the competition and the potential income that I can expect. We will talk more about this in a later article.

Once I have decided what type of blog to be built I will purchase a domain name and select a host for the blog. In the next article How Do I Setup A Blog we will talk more about this.

These are my original steps and there are many more that follow. If you follow along I will be happy to each day share more and more with you as to what I am doing. I hope you will visit regularly as we continue our series

As we continue with How Do I Start A Blog I would appreciate having you add your own thoughts. This will help all of us non-technical people and perhaps some technical people alike that want to build a blog of their own.

Techless Terry