All Posts Tagged With: "how to create a blog"
Blog Content Experiment - Part 1
As we continue to help people try and answer the how to create a blog question we are going to run a little experiment on the importance of content. The three big factors in SEO are time, content and links. There is an ongoing discussion about the importance of content with regards to search engine results. We have devised an experiment to see just how important content is here on My Newbie Blog. We started two new blogs today. They were started within one hour of each other. They are identical in every way except that they were started in two different domains as sub-domain sites. The only difference between the two sites is that the domain names in the URL address is different. For the purpose of this experiment we will refer to one site as “Plus” and one site as “Advantage”.
Here is how the experiment will work. We will keep the sites identical in both the time and links part of the equation. The only difference between the two will be that one of the sites will get more content than the other. We will then track the search engines to see which site shows up first and which site gets the best search engine result. If the site with more content does better, our assumption will be that content is King. If the site that gets less content does better, we will probably assume that content is not as important as the other factors.
Let’s say for the record that our pre-experiment belief is that the site with more content should do much better than the site with less content. However, we are open to whatever result might come. We will begin the process of getting some (identical) links pointed at the sites and adding some initial content to each of the sites. We will be writing regular updates to let you know how the experiment is going in the weeks and months ahead.
How to Create a Blog - Part 11
I was hoping to pass along a little Newbie Blog encouragement and a little wisdom to any of you newbies who find your way to this site or for those of you who have questions about how to create a blog. The wisdom is this, it takes a lot of time and work to get your blog developed and to the place where it starts generating traffic. If you are in a hurry or if you think that you are going to be making piles of money quickly, you need to think again. Any site that promises you easy quick money is not telling you the truth. It takes time, hard work, and some sort of strategy to make your blog a success. It is also likely that once you have been blogging for a while you will be changing and updating your strategy.
My encouragement is to stick with it. There are millions of blogs on the Internet that started with a flourish and then were just abandoned. If you can stick with it, over time your blog will start to have much better results. You will also begin to see opportunities to monetize your site over time. Adsesne is a good thing, but there are not many people who are really making a living with Adsense. There are some, but for most publishers it might eventually provide enough income to cover the cost of running a site. More people are making money by reselling and by offering some type of specialized service. Both of these options are easier to accomplish once your own blog is well established.
So, continue to blog and learn and don’t get discouraged. For most of you it will take at least a year before you start to see your blogs taking shape and generating any real measurable traffic. Take this time to write good content, develop links, and get a good keyword strategy. You may want to get a few more blogs on line to start acquiring age for projects in the future. Give it time and watch what happens.
How to Create a Blog - Part 10
My Newbie Blog is coming up on it’s first anniversary. We have been writing articles on how to create a blog since January 26 of 2008. The site was set up to help people walk through creating a blog step by step. Along the way we discuss some basic SEO strategies and some of the different ways to try and make money on the Internet. We have specifically targeted the keywords “how to create a blog” to drive traffic to this site. Currently, we show up in position 10 or 11 on Yahoo and in position 45 on Google. The Yahoo return generates some traffic to the site, and we also generate a fairly steady stream of traffic by encouraging people on some of our other sites to take advantage of the information provided on this site.
When this blog was started we were using version 2.2 of WordPress. Now we are up to 2.7. This means that some of the screen shots will be different, but the basic information is still primarily the same. The site will still be able to asnwer your how to create a blog questions.
The site has never down well with Adsense. I have put ads on the site at different times, but the click percentage is always bad and I have to take the ads back down. That happens on certain sites, usually because the type of people who are visiting the site aren’t interested in the ads.
We are still hoping to get the site to become a page 1 Google return for the how to create a blog keywords. We are page 1 for Newbie Blog on Google, but that doesn’t generate much traffic. Most sites do better after they have been around for about a year. We are looking forward to seeing what happens to the site in 2009. We lalso ook forward to what the year holds and if we can help you with your blog please let us know!
How to Create a Blog - Part 8
We use WordPress for our how to create a blog site called My Newbie Blog. WordPress is a wonderful platform for a blog. It is simple to use and it has a large user base which helps keep the software fresh and innovative. WordPress also has a lot of plugins available which can allow you to customize your blog in many creative ways.
One of the few drawbacks to using WordPress comes out of its innovation. There are a lot of updates. When WordPress is developing something new it may come through as a lot of mini-updates. Each time this happens you need to update your site. At least you should. This is a problem if you have a lot of blogs. If you don’t stay up with the updates you leave your site vulnerable to hackers.
One helpful tool to have is a plugin called WordPress Upgrade. This plugin makes the process very simple and will save you some time. The latest versions of WordPress have also made it easier to keep your plugins current. You can usually get the latest update for a plugin now by just clicking on the update button on your plugin page.
Once a month I have a Site Maintenace day. I visit all my sites and check on the staus of the WordPress version and see if any of the plugins need to be updated. I also check the links out and make sure they are current and operating. If I haven’t posted to the site recently, I will write an article of two or three hundred words on an appropriate topic. I would encourage you to include a site maintenace day in to your regualr blogging routine. In case you hadn’t realized it, today is site maintenance day for me. This is an example of an article I post on my blogs on site maintenenace day.
How to Create a Blog - Part 6
There are a lot of ways to get your blog started and running. There is no one answer on how to create a blog. Recently we started a site called Hurricane Tracking Sites. We did this because we live in an area where there is a great potential for hurricanes. In fact, as we were tracking a hurricane we decided it would be convenient to have all the tracking sites on one convenient site. The best solution we could think of was a blog. We searched on GoodNewsDomains for a suitable domain name and we found www.hurricanetrackingsites.com. This was a good find because our actual keyword search for tracking sites had been “hurricane tracking sites”.
We got an economy hosting plan and put some articles on the site and added some links to other tracking sites. This site had an immediate rise to page 1 of Google. It was actually in position 5 for almost 2 months. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone from the search engine. What happened? Sandbox. Not surprised. The site really went to page one fast, literally within 3 hours of when we first put the site up, it turned up on page 1. The sandbox will keep this new site from mixing with the older sites for a while.
The good news is that hurricane season is almost over for the year. Hopefully, before the next hurricane season the site will come out of the sandbox. In it’s first three days the site got over 400 hits. It was amazing. Sometimes the best iddeas for sites come out of a real life situation. You should always think about what you search for on the Internet and see if it has potential as a blog. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Hurricane Tracking Site in the future. The site will eventually be featured on Blogs For Sale.
More on Starting Free Blogs
In my last post about how to create a blog I wrote about utilizing all of the MYSQL that come with most web hosting packages in an article called Adding Additional Blogs for Free. Today we will examine two additional ways to start free blogs. One of them is Blogger.com, the other is WordPress.com.
Blogger.com
Go to blogger.com.
Either sign in (if you have a gmail account already) or sign up. After you have done this you should be at the Blogger dashboard. Here you can edit any existing Blogger blogs you have or create new ones.
Go to Create a Blog
Enter in a Blog Title (I used Blogging Newbie Advice). Now you need to select a blog address. This process can take a few tries because a lot of addresses are already taken (I used bloggingnewbieadvice). Type in the word verification and press continue.
Choose a template and press Continue
Your blog has been created! Press Start Blogging. You can also get to your blog by typing in the URL address: http://bloggingnewbieadvice.blogspot.com
You can either jump right into a post or you can check your settings, layout, or view your blog. Play around with your new free blog. Write some posts and you are on your way.
WordPress.com
Go to WordPress.com
You can either sign in or sign up. At this screen you can edit blogs you have already started or register another blog.
Press register a blog or (another blog).
Enter in a domain name, a blog title and press Create Blog. I chose Newbie Blogger Advice for the title and newbiebloggeradvice.wordpress.com for the domain name.
Click on the link for your new blog or type it into your web browser.
There it is! Under Meta press Site Admin
At the WordPress dashboard click on Presentation and select a theme from those provided. I chose Blix. When you press on the theme you want you will see a preview.
If you like the theme press on Activate in the top right corner of the preview.
You are good to go. Add some posts (if you need some help with how the editor works read Using the WordPress Write Post and Write Page Editor), and have fun figuring out your new free blog.
Until next time!
Hi Judith,
You should spend about ten dollars for a domain name. Maybe another fifty for a year of hosting. ...
oh dear. i basically cancelled the variations. got myself set up with the acccount, now reading desperately through your blog ...
Every step by step instruction has been awesome. The instructions are clear and concise; even a techie challenged person ...
one of the most understandable step by step on how to start a blog I've found around. I'm just starting ...
Wow! You are amazing. I have to struggle, swear, cry & in order to get most anything done ...
Thanks for the tip about the WordPress backup and upgrade plugins.