Archive for September, 2008

How to Create a Blog - Part 5

September 26th, 2008 • stephenlawes • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under

We have been talking about how to create a blog here on My Newbie Blog.  In our last article we began to discuss the importance of content.  In this article we want to continue to discussion in regard to adding quality content to your site.  While you are developing your own content, you can often build readership by presenting useful content from other sources on the Internet.  One of the ways to do this is to take advantage of RSS feeds that are available from some popular sites.

We took three hours this afternoon and took a site from bare bones to looking presentable by adding a new theme, adding some RSS feeds, adding some video feeds, and utilizing some plugins and widgets.  We also designed a logo and added some 125 ads.  The site is called Current Events Online and it now looks like this:

currentevents1.JPG

If anyone visits the site now, they could spend a long time looking through all of the information available.  What we will do now is begin to add some articles over time.  This will allow us to develop the site while at the same time keeping people who come to the site before all of our own content is on the site. If you visit the Current Events Online site you might think that it has been around for a long time.  The lack of articles is not readily apparent because of the impact of the RSS feeds.  We have used a theme that will allow us to add our content as featured articles which can be developed over the next weeks and months.  This can be a very helpful way to develop a site and establish an Internet presence.

How to Create a Blog - Part 4

September 15th, 2008 • stephenlawes • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under

We are continuing this series of articles on how to create a blog today by talking about adding content to your site.  Good content is the foundation for any site you develop.  Even if your are developing niche sites your content needs to be original and well written.  We have been developing a blog as an example during this series of articles called Alternative Energy.  So far we have been laying the the basic foundation.  We have added an SEO friendly theme, added some pages and plugins, and have written a couple of starter articles.

From this point forward we need to develop a steady stream of articles.  One of the realities for most bloggers is that the articles you write in the very beginning of your blog won’t be read by many people.   These beginning articles need to be good articles, but you don’t need to hit a home run with every article.  Once your site is better developed and you begin to see organic traffic coming to your site, you will need to take a little more time with your writing.  For now, write 200-300 word articles about subjects that are a good fit for your site.  You can also get a little better quality article by finding a video clip to accent your post.

For example, on Alternative Energy Online I just wrote an article in which I included a video clip by T. Boone Pickens on Youtube in which he explains his energy plan.  The article is a good one because the video clip adds a lot of meat to it.  All I had to do was write a quick introduction and an ending statement.  Writing these articles will help develop your writing style over time, allowing you to write your best articles once the site is more fully developed.

I write all my foundational articles under a category which I usually designate as site maintenance.  Then, at some point after the site has matured, I can use a category excluder plugin  to take all of the foundational articles off of the home page.  They still exist, and still generate links, but they are not immediately visible to everyone who comes to the site.

In the initial phases of a blog you should be adding fresh content 3 or 4 times a week.  Once you have begun to get the sarch engine results you are looking for, you can slow the pace a little, but still need to consitently add fresh content.   As always, we hope you find the articles on My Newbie Blog a helpful resource for your blogging needs.

How to Create a Blog - Part 3

September 9th, 2008 • stephenlawes • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under

We are writing this series of “How to Create a Blog” articles to help you get a blog up and running.  For demonstration purposes we are setting up a blog called Alternative Energy.  We are running through the beginning steps pretty quickly, (if you need more detailed help, there are a lot of articles on My Newbie Blog to help you with the process).

Today we are going to talk about setting up some Pages.  There are four Pages that you should include on all your websites.  You need to have an About Page.  On the About Page you need to write a brief description about what the site is, and where the site is headed.  Include a link to the hone page using your keywords as the anchor text.

The next Page you need to set up is a Contact Page.  On the Contact page you should install the Contact Form 7 plugin.  You can also use your email address, but you need to write out the @ sign and the . so that spammers don’t start using your email account.  For example JohnSmith@email.com should be written as JohnSmith[at]email[dot]com.  This will make it harder for any spammer bots to lift your email address of the page.  Include a link to the home page by using your keywords as the anchor text.

Set up a Privacy Policy Page.  This Page is necessary to assure people that you won’t capture their information and give it or sell it to anyone else.  Don’t forget to include a link to the home page.

Finally, add a Terms and Conditions Page.  This will limit your legal exposure to things that are put on your site.  Always put the responsibility on the people that are reading your site.  Include a link to the home page here as well.

Now, we have a theme to help us with SEO, we have a nice set of plugins, and we have the Pages we need in place.  We will begin talking about content in our next article.