This series of articles on how to create a blog is being written to help you develop a blog that will bring visitors back over and over again.  We are setting up a blog called “Current Events Online” to act as a demonstration for this series of articles.  Current Events Online will eventually be made available on Blogs For Sale in the event that you are interested in purchasing a blog that is already set up.

In this article we are going to talk briefly about plugins.  WordPress plugins help you to customize your site to make it function the way you want it to.  I am going to suggest the following 8 plugins as a minimum for your blog.  You may want to add others.  All of them can be found at the WordPress.org plugin database and are available for free.

Advanced Category Excluder - With this plugin you can define categories for some parts of the site to be hidden.

Akismet -  Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.

All in One SEO Pack -  Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog.

Contact Form 7 - Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.

EasyDonation - PayPal Donation Management plugin.

Exclude Pages from Navigation - Provides a checkbox on the editing page which you can check to exclude pages from the primary navigation.

Official StatCounter Plugin - Adds the StatCounter tracking code to your blog.

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade - Wordpress Automatic Upgrade allows a user to automatically upgrade the wordpress installation to the latest one provided by wordpress.org using the 5 steps provided in the wordpress upgrade instructions.

WordPress Database Backup - On-demand backup of your WordPress database.

Each of these plugins will be very useful in developing your blog.  We will talk about how these plugins can be used for the maximim effect in later articles.  Go ahead and get these plugins downloaded and activated on your blog.  If you need help with that process you read the articles on Starting a Blog From Scratch available right here on My Newbie Blog.

Once you have your blog up and running and while you are promoting your blog you may want to take a look at utilizing some or all of the MYSQL databases that are provided by your web host. At GoodNewsDomains (where I get my blog hosted) I got 25 MYSQL databases included when I signed up. It takes 1 MYSQL for a blog. What that means is that there are 24 more possibilities for future blogs at no additional cost. You are already paying for them. So in continuing to answer the How to Create a Blog question lets utilize another MYSQL and start another blog.

Starting a Blog for Free

For this blog I did a little keyword research. If you want some information on how to do your own keyword research read my article called Keywords, Keywords, Keywords. I am going to use the keywords “What is Blogging” for this blog. It gets searched for quite a bit and while there is some pretty good competition for the keywords I feel like I can get this blog up and over time get some traffic to it. This site has some Google Adsense potential because the keyword “What is Blogging” could bring some people who are new to blogging to the site. They are a lot more likely to actually click on the ads when they see something that interests them. People who are already blogging don’t usually click on the ads. Let’s get this party started. Log in to your hosting account and on the control panel click on Open

At the Hosting page press Settings

Press Domain Management

You are not adding a domain - you will be adding a sub domain. Press the Add button next to where you see Sub Domain

In the space that has now shown up under Sub Domain type in the name of the site you want to start. I will type in “What is Blogging”

Leave the path alone and press Save. You will see that the host is processing the information and then you will get a screen saying Pending Setup

It can take a few minutes or more for the set up to be completed. Go ahead and log out of the hosting control manager for now. Once the sub domain is set up I will install WordPress and I will then have a site located at http://whatisblogging.mynewbieblog.com. While that URL is not one that people can easily remember or type in the idea is that I want them to find it by keyword searching and therefore the URL is not that important. If it become a problem later on I will by a domain name that matches the site and I will point it at that site. A domain name if I really need one will cost 10 dollars a year. I don’t think I will need one because I will try and drive traffic to the site through keywords. This site has the potential to be up and running with no additional cost to me. All the cost is absorbed in my main site - My Newbie Blog.

Let’s Install WordPress

You have probably installed WordPress on your main site already but let’s walk through the process with our new sub-domain. Go back to your hosting account manager. At the Settings-Database page you should see that your new sub domain is now set-up and that the path has also been established.

You want to look at the top of the page for the Value Applications button

Press Value applications. If WordPress isn’t showing on the front page press show all application and scroll down until you find WordPress.

Press on the WordPress logo

Press Install Now. The manager will take a few seconds to process. It will then ask you which domain you want to use. You may only have one but if you have more pick the one that is the main one for your site. In my case I will choose MyNewbieBlog.com even though I will actually be installing WordPress into a sub domain

You can see that at this moment I still have 24 MYSQL available. After this installation I will have 23. Choose your domain and press Continue

Enter in your new directory name. I entered WhatIsBlogging and then enter in and verify a password (write it down). Press Next. At this screen you need to make sure you install WordPress into the sub domain and not the root directory. Select your recently created sub domain I chose whatisblogging

Press Next

Enter in your admin name, password, email address and give your blog a title. Make sure you write down whatever admin name and password you use. As far as your Blog Title you can always change that later.

Press Finish.

It will now take up to an hour for WordPress to be installed. You will be notified by email when it is finished. Sometimes it only takes a couple of minutes. Congratulations, you now have a fully functional blog site and it won’t cost you a thing. Here is what What is Blogging looks like as I finish the article.

When you finish reading the article go to the What is Blogging? blog and check out what the blog looks like now.

One of the great tools available to answer the question of “How to Create a Blog” is StatCounter. StatCounter is a free service that provides incredibly useful information about what is happening with your blog. How many people are visiting, where they come from, how they got there, what keywords they used and more. It is simple to install and a definite must for every one who is serious about starting a blog. To get started go to StatCounter.com.

Press on the Register Now link and fill out the information they are asking for.

When you are finished click the Register My Account button.

You will be congratulated and the asked to add a project. Click on the Proceed & Add a Project button.

Fill in the title of your blog and the URL of your blog. You will be asked for a category, pick the one that matches your site. You will want to type in your IP address in the IP Blocking box so that you don’t keep stats of how many times you are at your site. Your IP address will actually show up (look in the screenshot above where I blacked out my IP address. That is where your’s will be. When you are finished press Next.

You will get congratulated again! Click on the Configure & Install Code button. You can pick which kind of Counter you want. I chose the invisible counter and clicked Next.

Enter in what type of site you have (in my case I entered self-hosted WordPress) and press Next.

If you are using WordPress you are going to need the information that I blacked out. Your project number, your partition number, and your security number. While you are on the screen with your code on it click on the option to download a zipped version of the WordPress StatCounter Plugin. Download the file and install it in your WordPress Plugin directory. If you need help downloading and installing a plugin please read my article 50 Things to Do to Start a Blog From Scratch - Part 2. Activate the plugin on the WordPress dashboard and then go to Options and StatCounter.

Enter in the numbers from your code that I told you to copy and then click Enabled and Update Options. Give your site a little time to get some traffic (if you are a new site and not getting much traffic, just go and check out your site from a different computer with a different IP address). Go back to StatCounter.com and you can get some amazing information.

Analyzing Your Stats

Click on your site name on the StatCounter project page.

As you get traffic you will see a bar graph that tells you how many page loads, unique visitors, and returning visitors you have had. If you look to the left you will see a menu of all types of useful information.

Check out all the summaries. The Keyword Analysis will be very helpful in finding out how people are getting to your site and what keywords you should focus on. You can also find out what pages they are gong to and how much time they are spending on your site. This is a very helpful tool and definitely makes the Cool Tool Page.