How Do I Start a Blog – The Needed Marketing Objectives
As small business owners we often have little time and little money to develop a productive website. This is where WordPress again is a great benefit to us. WordPress is free to use and even the techless such as me can learn how to use it. When starting a blog or website we need to consider our marketing objectives so that we the site will benefit us and hopefully bring us increased business. I for one have spent many long nights learning from my own mistakes and with the help of experts have slowly overcome many of them. It is my hope that others will learn from those mistakes. Read more
Don’t Allow A Poor Attitude To Affect Your Blogging Profits
If you are an Internet entrepreneur you know the many challenges you face everyday trying to turn a profit. One challenge that is often overlooked is the attitude we all bring to our office everyday. Read more
How Do I Start A Blog – 6 Link Building Stratagies
The use of positive statements and compliments when approaching a webmaster or newsletter publisher for an ad swap, link exchange or joint venture will have far greater impact and success than almost anything else to improve your response rate and traffic. The old expression you may recall is, “You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar”. Read more
How Do I Start A Blog – Article Writing Strategy
In our last article we discussed tips on marketing your blog or website. One of the suggestions mentioned was article writing. In this post we will expand on article marketing. Read more
Tips on Increasing Traffic to Your Website or Blog
A while back I joined InfoGoRound a service that provides articles many of them written by members of varied expertise. As a member you are able to select articles for placement on your own website or blog or to use for other purposes. When the articles are placed the original author is to remain anonymous. Now I do not claim to be a marketing expert but some of the other writers are. At Terry Lile dot com we continue to post some of these articles and hope you will find them helpful. This article on increasing traffic has provided some good ideas to me and I felt that it would be a good one to share. Read more
Your Internet Marketing Strategy
There are numerous Internet marketing strategies that can help you make the most out of your website – a bewildering array. These strategies increase traffic to your website on one hand, while improving sales and customer retention on the other. Read more
How To Start Social Networking A Beginners Guide
When you start out on the Internet with a small business you will hear a lot of talk about social networking. You will hear names like Facebook, Bebo, or MySpace and you might wonder what the buzz is about. Read more
How Do I Set Up A Blog – Download WordPress
n the previous series How Do I Start A Blog we discussed a number of the basic steps that you will need to take when starting your blog. We discussed making a decision as to what type of blog might interest you; the 5 basic Internet business structures; what products you might sell or promote; steps in selecting a domain name, ftp client and host for your blog and much more. While some of those steps would have been avoided if you did not register a domain name and place it with a host. For me I want the control and options that I have by owning my domain name and using a host. You will need to decide what is best for you.
As earlier discussed in our series How Do I Start A blog, there are a variety of publishing platforms that can be used. I use WordPress exclusively and will not be talking about any other blog platform. I have found WordPress to be reliable, very easy to use even for a non-technical person like me. It is very customizable, powerful and my favorite word “free.” It also seems like there is just about a limitless number of free themes and plugins for WordPress. There are also a number of reasonably priced premium themes such as the AdSense Niche Themes and the Revolution Series Themes that I have used on some of my blogs.
Also as previously discussed in How Do I Start A Blog, WordPress offers a couple of options. You can register your own domain name and set it up on a host such as HostGator. HostGator and a number of other hosting companies enable you to add WordPress to your domain through a couple of easy clicks. If your hosting service is like the one I previously used they did not offer that service and you will need to go WordPress.org and download it to your hard drive. Another option is WordPress.com. This is an absolutely no cost blog using a blog name that will have a WordPress extension. I Personally register a domain name at a small annual fee and pay a small monthly fee to host my blog. For me the control of ownership that a self hosted blog gives me is preferable.
Now that we have all of that out of the way lets get WordPress set up.
Sign in to your host: For TeenageObesity.us I enter http://teenageobesity.us/cpanel. This brings up the cPanel Login. Enter your Username and Password and click on Login.
At the cPanel of Host Gator you see a blue box titled “Do you need help getting started.” You may have something similar at the hosting service you have decided to use. If you are new to a cPanel or need a refresher you will want to view this and the other tutorials offered. You may do it now or come back to them later. For now I am going to continue to get started with WordPress. If you are using Host Gator and following along, look for the box titled Software / Services. In that box click on the blue smiley face-like image titled “Fantastico De Luxe.”
On the left hand side under Blogs you will wee WordPress listed. Click on WordPress and it will bring up a panel where you will give the Password and Login you wish to use for WordPress.
The total time from signing in to signing out should have taken about 5 minutes. If you are like me and anything related to technology confuses you it may take a bit longer the first time. One thing I like about HostGator is that they have lots of free tutorials and if you still run into problems you can call them and get a live person that will walk you through it.
Now when we sign into our domain we see a panel where we can login using the username and password that we assigned to ourself while using Fantastico at the Cpanel to upload WordPress. After entering our username and password and clicking on Log In we are taken to the WordPress Dashboard. At the Dashboard we click on Themes and we will see a couple of default themes that we can select from. At the bottom of that page is a link WordPress theme directory. Clicking on that link you will have over 450 free themes that you can select from. There are also other free themes that you can find by doing a search at your favorite search engine along with premium themes.
In our next session of How Do I Setup A Blog we will discuss selecting and adding a theme to our blog and adding plugins that will assist us in marketing our site. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Techless Terry
How Do I Start A Blog? – Getting A Host
As we continue with our series How Do I Start A Blog you need to sign up for a hosting service if you have not already done so. If you do a quick Google search you will find that there are hundreds of hosting services. Not every blogger seems to like the same hosting company. For TerryLile.com I am using HostGator. I have found that they offer good service, their system is easy to navigate, and you can log in and set up a new WordPress site in a few minutes.
Previously I was using a host where you had to upload WordPress, which I found both time consuming and aggravating. HostGator offers hosting for $9.95 per month for an unlimited number of domains. Host Gator gives you a 45 day money back guarantee so if you are not satisfied with their service which is rare, you get your money back. If you are switching from another host HostGator will do it for you free.
As I have previously mentioned I will only recommend a company that I have personally used and am happy with. To learn more or sign up for HostGator click here. Enter the coupon code: Green for a 20% discount.
Starting with the next article we will be leaving the series “How Do I Start A Blog” and begin a series “How Do I Set Up A Blog?” We will begin with setting up our domain at the host and adding WordPress. As we go through the series we will select a theme, add plugins, set the site up for search engine optimization and continue through with the site building and promotion. I look forward to you joining me and this non-technical blogger always appreciates your comments.
Techless Terry
How Do I Start A Blog – Get Domain Name
At this point in our series “How Do I Start A Blog” we will be talking about getting a domain name. As the address to your house tells people how to get there or where the mail needs to be delivered a domain name is the address to your blog or website.
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
