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:

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.

I wrote an article some time ago called Create a Blog You Can be Proud Of that demonstrated how to create a blog from scratch all the way to having a blank WordPress theme. This article will take you from that standard theme to one that includes the plugins, pages and posts you should have to get your blog going.  Follow the steps and you will soon have a blog that you will really enjoy.

It Starts with the Kubrick Theme

Under the Meta heading click on Login

Enter in your Username and Password. Welcome to WordPress!

At the WordPress Dashboard click on Options

Change the Blog title. Change the Tagline.

Press Update Options and then press View Site

You should see your new Blog title and your new tagline. Under Meta press login to go back to the WordPress Dashboard. Press Options and Privacy. Change the visibility of the blog so that everyone including search engines can see your blog.

Press Update Options. On the WordPress Dashboard go to Options and Writing. Look at the bottom of the page where it says Update Services. Make sure that the ping is set to http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

Press Update Options. At the WordPress Dashboard go to Options and Permalinks. Select Custom and enter /%postname%/

Press Update Permalink Structure. At this time you need to change your WordPress Theme. For a detailed explanation of how to do this read 50 Things to Do to Start a Blog From Scratch - Part 2.

Now That Your Theme is in Place

Go to the WordPress Dashboard - Users - Your Profile. Change the display name from admin to your name.

Press Update Profile. You need to add some pages to your site. Start with an About Page. If you need help adding a page read my article called Using the WordPress Write Post and Write Page Editor.

Now is a good time to write your first Post. Delete the Hello World post that came with the Kubrick WordPress theme.

Write your first post by describing what your blog will be about. While you are writing add your first category. At the end of the post include some tags (keywords for your post). After you publish this post you can go back and copy the text and paste it into your About page. Get your plugins installed.

Installing Plugins

WordPress Database Backup - I am listing this one first because I think it is one of the most important plugins you will install. It will automatically backup your blog every day and send you the backup in an email. You should do this!

WordPress Automatic Upgrade - Another important plugin. This one automatically upgrades your WordPress whenever there is a new release!

Akismet - This one comes with WordPress but you need to activate it and get an API key. Akismet is a spam blocker. For more information on how to install this one read my article titled Installing the Akismet Plugin. This is a good one to start with. It will help you get the idea of how to install a plugin.

All in One SEO Pack - This plugin is important for gettting your blog optimized for search engines.

Brian’s Threaded Comments - This gives you threaded comments and a wandering comment form.

Dagon Design Sitemap Generator - This plugin does all the work for your Sitmap page. It is an HTML sitemap, which means that people can see it. IT is different than the XML sitemap that you will create for Google. If you have questions about installing plugins you can read the article I wrote about installing this plugin titled More Progress on the 50 Things to DO to Start a Blog from Scratch.

FeedBurner/FeedSmith - This plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber. For more information onsetting up FeedBurner read my article titled Making Progress on the Starting a Blog from Scratch List.

Google XML Sitemap - This one is for the search engines. People on your site will never see it. The instructions will help you upload it to the search engines when you have it installed.

NoWWW - This is really a matter of preference. Do you want your site to be http://www.whatever or just http://whatever? If you install this plugin you will get rid of the www. You get this plugin at the WordPress Plugin Directory.

Sociable - Automatically add links to your posts to popular socail bookmarking sites. This plugin makes all links Nofollowed.

Related Posts - This one is good for SEO. It is a little tricky to install. Make sure you have a backup before you do it.

WP-Contact Form - This plugin is a drop in form for users to contact you. I go in to a lot of detail about installing this plugin in an article I wrote called 50 Things to Do to Start a Blog from Scratch - Part 3. If you read this article it will help you through the process of installing all kinds of plugins.

Add the Widgets

A good place to start is with the Text Widget you need for the Feedburner plugin. For more information read Making Progress on the Starting a Blog from Scratch List. Add a tag cloud widget. Tidy up your blogroll and your categories.

Finishing Touches

You should add a few more posts and a couple of categories. You should try and have at least five pages in place. Get Adsense set up. For information on getting your Adsense account working read Google Adsense. You may want to further monetize your site by setting up a Paypal Account to receive donations. Read How to Start Monetizing Your Blog. That should have your blog in a really good place. Now you need to focus on writing articles and promoting your blog!

In this article we will discuss some ways to monetize (make money) from your blog. If you have been reading and following along and have seen all the work it takes to start a blog and then you have probably realized that you are not going to get rich quick from blogging. It is very possible that you could make a few dollars if you offer something helpful to people. That is why writing good articles is so important. People will keep coming back if you give them something they are interested in. The exception to this is if you plan on doing Niche sites which are all about good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and driving people to your sites with keyword searches and then getting them to click on whatever advertising you have set up. But for most of us, it’s going to be about quality, writing about things that people are interested in.

Monetizing

We took our first steps toward monetizing the blog when we installed Adsense. Google Adsense is a proven program but it only works if you have readers who also click on the ads. I have done some research on Kontera. Kontera is a provider of In-Text Advertising. You have probably seen this on blogs that as you reading the blog you can roll your mouse of underlined test and you get a screen that advertises a product related to the the text. If people click on the ad you can get some money. You may want to check Kontera out (www.kontera.com), but at this time I have decided not to use that type of text advertising. I am adding a nice way to receive donations from PayPal.

PayPal Donations

There are several PayPal plugins available at the WordPress.org plugin directory. We are going to add one called Buy me a Beer(Coffee). If you don’t have a PayPal account you will to set one up. The process is pretty straightforward. Start by going to the PayPal website. If you don’t have an account click on sign-up.

I chose the Premier Account. It’s free and allows me to accept Paypal and credit cards. Once you choose your option you will be required to fill out information and then you will have a PayPal account. In order to verify the account PayPal will make to small deposits into your bank account. Once you have seen the deposits you type in the amounts at the PayPal site and you are good to go. This process can take a few days so you need to get on it. The plugins we are going to install won’t work until your PayPal account is up and verified. Here are the plugins I am using with PayPal.

Buy me a Beer Coffee

The plugin is called buy me a beer, but you can change it very easily to buy me a coffee once you install it. I like this plugin because it is more directed then just saying please contribute. I set it up as a $5.00 cup of virtual coffee. Sometimes I buy myself a cup just to feel good about the blog. Why don’t you buy me one? Or even two. You can see how this plugin looks on the sidebar to the right just above the tag cloud. It’s is really pretty easy to get running. Download the Buy Me a Beer Plugin and then install it in the Wordpress Plugin Directory. Activate the plugin and then go to Options and Buy Me a Beer.

Make sure your PayPal email address is entered in. Enter in the type of currency. Enter in an amount. This is optional but I like the idea of having a set amount so I put in $5.00. I gave it a title “Buy Me a Vitual Coffee” and a brief description “If you are enjoying this blog, click on the coffee mug to buy me a virtual coffee”. I then changed the image from a beer to Cafe. You can also set it up to appear after each post but I decided not to do that. Press Update Options and you are good to go. If you are like me you will have to check it out by buying yourself a cup. Once you do go and check your PayPal account and you should see some money. I hope it is just the first of a lot of money you see in your PayPal account! Another How to Create a Blog question answered.