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Peter Nisbet asked:


If you know how to blog from your own website then you will have many options open to you in the design and functionality of your blog that are not available on a hosted blog.

You can use Blogger from blogger.com or Wordpress from wordpress.com. Each has its own peculiarities, benefits and disadvantages, such as the lack of trackback and categories on Blogger, and the relatively poor raw html editing facility on Wordpress. However, each has its fans and adherents, and those used to one or the other are generally loathe to changing. Neither, however, offers the wide range of options open to those that have chosen to run Wordpress or any other blogging software from their own webspace.

Those who use the hosted versions likely do so either because they have no need of the options that the uploaded software offers, and are happy operating a blog using the range of options offered by the blog host. Others might not have a website, and have no intentions of having one because they have no need for their own site. Many bloggers are not involved in internet marketing, and are not using their blogs to make money – not even Adsense revenue.

They enjoy blogging about the political issues of the day, the latest movies and even just their everyday lives. Others, however, use blogs professionally as part of their business, and a blog is a great medium for advertising a business or a product. It is an ideal way of linking several websites that have been designed to sell different products, and even cover different niches. This is not easy to do without a blog, since search engines such as Google frown on adverts on one website for anther site offering information on a totally different topic.

What is regarded as a lack of relevance in a website is diversity in a blog. So how do you go about running your blog from your own website? Wordpress.org offers free software that you can upload to your own web space. The best way to do this is by use of an ftp client. This is software that allows you transfer files and folders from your hard drive to your website. It can also be used to transfer files from one website to another.

Upload facilities on websites allow you only to upload files, not folders or directories. Without an ftp client, you would have to create folders identical to those containing the Wordpress files. You would then have to upload each file individually, while maintaining the original directory structure. This can take some time to do, and errors are easy to make. Your first steps, then, are to download the blogging software to your hard disk, then ftp it to your website. When doing this, your ftp software will also allow you to change file permissions as detailed in the blog set up instructions. You will also have to use a text editor to change the contents of a few files, but this is fairly simple to do.

You then have to create a MySQL database for your blog. MySQL is a powerful Open Source Software database management system that uses SQL (structured query language) that most normal web hosting services offer free on your web space. The database is easy to set up by following the instructions that will likely be provided by your web host.

After that you are all set. You can use the default page template that comes with Wordpress, but you now have complete flexibility in the look and feel of your blog. You can upload any of the thousands of free or paid templates available online, and also any of the plugins that you want to use. You can edit all of the template elements you want to completely customize them, including the stylesheet for the whole page, the header, footer, sidebars and so on. You can add graphics, Adsense blocks, affiliate links and even offer your own products for sale.

Plugins are software elements that provide specific resources to your blog. Examples are calendars, anti-spam filters, RSS feeds, sitemap generators, tag systems and so on. There are thousands of them that can be used to totally customize your blog.

If you have your own website and business, then a blog can be a very dangerous thing. It can become so addictive that you can find yourself neglecting your website and business and spending all your time blogging and trying out various plugins, templates and themes.

Knowing how to blog from your blog from own website can be very useful, but make sure that you budget your time on it. A blog is a great thing, but very addictive.

Michelle Greene asked:


It’s been said that affiliate marketing is, without a doubt, one the quickest and most efficient ways of making money online. There are several reasons for this. A big attraction is that most affiliate programs don’t require any enrollment fees. There’s no financial investment on the part of the affiliate. Plus, it’s an excellent way to earn money online without having your own products to sell. You can simply choose a product you are interested in, and set up a web site to promote it.

An affiliate’s only job is to generate traffic to their unique affiliate link by pre-selling the merchant’s products. The sales page, the payment processing, the digital delivery, and the post sales services is all handled by the affiliate merchant.

An affiliate tracking link will track how many sales you make from your website, and you’ll be rewarded with the commission earnings.

What You Need To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer

An affiliate network to manage your sales. This is not mandatory, but is preferred for beginners as you are able to manage your sales and statistics from one central interface. Also, many networks contain several affiliate products, so you can group similarly themed products to sell.

Two of the major affiliate networks are Commission Junction and Clickbank. Amazon and Ebay also have their own affiliate programs which can be quite lucrative. There are hundreds of other affiliate providers and you can use your favorite search engine to find them. Just enter the terms ‘affiliate networks’ and hit search.

Sometimes, to achieve better results require some expense. Getting a web host, for example, as well as a domain name, would require you to spend money. Getting professionally made graphics to make your website attractive can also cost dig into your pocket. Pay Per Click advertising, commonly referred to as PPC advertising can be costly if not done properly. These are just a few things to keep in mind.

A Website

You will require a web site or at least one page on an existing web site you might own. It’s not always necessary to set up a whole website to promote one affiliate product. You might choose to dedicate just one single page to this product, and this is fine. This method can actually be very successful. If you don’t know HTML, the language required to build a website, you can consider using a blog.

WordPress Blog Platform

WordPress is a movable-type blog. It’s a software program you download and use to create your own blogs which you could upload in your own server. You won’t have to settle for the words ‘blogspot’ or ‘livejournal’ or ‘xanga’ to be attached to your URL. You could host your blog under its own domain name, or as another page in your main website.

Blogs are great marketing tools. They get indexed quite quickly by the search engines, and often, the figure prominently well in the search engine results pages (SERPs). They could also give your main website the backlinks it needs to boost its own page rank. Additionally, a blog can be customized to become your main website.

The primary advantage of this approach is the convenience you’ll receive when it comes to publishing content. Download the WordPress client for free from www.wordpress.com .

A Product To Promote

Preferably this will be a product you have purchased yourself, as you will want to be fully aware of all aspects of the product so you can produce truthful reviews and promotions for it.

It’s best if you can choose a product that you truly like, as people will prefer your honest opinion on it and can generally tell if you are only promoting it “for the money” rather than from your own experience.

Clickbank.com and Commission Junction for example, have thousands of products that you can choose from in a wide variety of niches. These are good places to begin to find a product to promote as an affiliate.

Text That Sells The Product (Copywriting)

This is where you make your sales. You need to tell people why they should buy this product, what is in it for them?

Often this can take the form of a product review. You might casually review the product you are promoting, and subtly add an affiliate link during and after the article. This method works well as it doesn’t directly look like you are selling anything.

Those are the basics of starting your affiliate internet marketing business.

Lisa Alexander asked:


Web 2.0 doesn’t have a hard cold definition – the truth; it means different things to different people. So let’s start out historically for a second.

Tim O’Reilly, the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world, and an activist for open standards, wrote in a October 2005 article, “The bursting of the dot-com bubble in the fall of 2001 marked a turning point for the web. Many people concluded that the web was over hyped, when in fact bubbles and consequent shakeouts (a major change in an organization or system resulting in some streamlining) appear to be a common feature of all technological revolutions. Shakeouts typically mark the point at which an ascendant technology is ready to take its place at center stage. The pretenders are given the bum’s rush, the real success stories show their strength, and there begins to be an understanding of what separates one from the other.”

Tim continues, “The concept of ‘Web 2.0’ began with a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O’Reilly VP, noted that far from having ‘crashed’, the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What’s more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as ‘Web 2.0’ might make sense? We agreed that id did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.”

According to O’Reilly and many others, they agree there are eight core Web 2.0 design patterns to evaluate if a site is worthy of the Web 2.0 name. But keep in mind that each example they have investigated exhibits one or more of the key principles. So in other words, one site may have six out of eight of the core patterns, or three out of eight, etc. but still is worthy enough to carry the Web 2.0 name.

When people talk about Web 2.0 they may think it is a just about social networking and others look at Web 2.0 from a technological aspect (but according to Scott Prager, an IBM Engineer – He comments that one of the common mistakes people make, is if they use this technology then it’s Web 2.0, be Scott thinks it’s more about what enables rather than what technology it’s built with). Either way you look at it; there is a set core of characteristics build into a Web 2.0 pattern. So in other words, it’s just not about social networking or technology – it’s really about that and more.

Technologies important to Web 2.0: Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), XML and HTML, REST (Representational State Transfer), RSS (Really Simple Syndication), Atom, Tagging, also playing a large role in Web 2.0 companies are, API (least used, but important to know), Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby … etc.

Let’s go over the eight characteristics:



The Long Tail (first coined by Chris Anderson): Is a niche strategy used to implement a series of new marketing techniques, such as (Wikipedia source examples):



 

New Media Marketing: a term to describe the building and managing of social networks and online or virtual communities, and extend the reach of marketing to the low-frequency, low-intensity consumer in a cost effective way.

Buzz Marketing: The strategic use of word of mouth, the transmission of commercial information from person to person in an online or real-world environment.

Viral Marketing: The intentional spreading of marketing messages using social networks, with an emphasis of the casual, non-intentional and low cost.



Harnessing Collective Intelligence: Rich “interactive” user experience and Web as a platform rather than once specific aspect. Essentially what this means is that “users” contributions greatly help build and make the foundation stronger and more popular by adding their content, such as links, comments, forum posts, reviews, rating others, an aggregation of the best work of thousands, then millions of web users (example: YouTube – more comments, more “thumbs-up” the more popularity), and any content contribution really. Without the end “user” the sites popularity goes down – if there is no interactivity for the end user, it’s not collective “anything.” So in short – the site grows organically in response to user activity.

Users Add Value: The architecture of your software development relies on “public” users to add their own data thus adding more value to your application. Some examples of this are Joomla and WordPress.

Network Effects by Default: Only a small percentage of the public will go to the trouble to add value to your application and as a result, set broad scope of defaults formed by the collection of user data as a side-effect of their use of the application.

“Some” Rights Reserved: Expanding the range of creative works accessible for others to legally build upon and share. The Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to just that. The organization has released several copyright licenses known as Creative Commons licenses. These licenses, depending on the one selected, restrict only particular rights (or none) of the work instead of customary copyright, which is more restraining.

Beta: Sites like, Frappr, CafePress, Flickr, FeedBurner…etc., don’t package up new features into massive releases, but instead add them on a regular basis as part of the normal user experience. In other words, if you “package” up new features and connect them to the Internet – they are no longer ongoing services, it’s a one time deal.

Rich User Experience: According to O’Reilly’s interpretation, “Cooperate, don’t control.” He wrote that Web 2.0 applications are built of a network of cooperating data services. In a more similar explanation, applets (Small programs that run in Web browsers; usually written in Java) initially used as early as 1992, are programs that you write, and put inside your web page. Examples of a couple of “applets” are a smiley and calculator embedded in a web page.

Software above One Single Device: The application should be designed to integrate with hand-held devices, PCs and Internet services – not just the PC. It becomes more valuable if your application can be used on both he PC and an iPod for example.



 

As you can see Web 2.0 isn’t as simple as social networking or just about the technical side. It’s a broad range of characteristics that build a Web 2.0 site.

Kanon Potana asked:


The great idea is the most important thing for making your blog. The way to discover the good strategy is looking at the websites or blogs that have successfully. Blog or Weblog is easy to build and organize. Almost blogs on the internet are text. But some blogs are photo, video and multimedia blogs. It is not necessary to have the knowledge about the programming for your blog. Of course, you need to add the quality contents and unique subjects to your blog. The great contents will keep the visitors comeback and the personal blog like the online community is a good idea, too. To get traffic to your blog, you need to draft a smart marketing plan. It will make your blog to stand apart from the competitions.

There are a lot of blogging tools and blogging services on the internet. The learning of the free blogging tools is the good idea for you. They will change your blog to the new looking and more interesting. If you decide to use these tools, you should be plan about the benefits of them. You can use a lot of the free blogging tools in your blog but it does not mean that you want them.

The common tool is the visitor counter. It will track the number of the visitors, the keywords on your blog and more statistics about the visitors. You will using the search engine to find the free visitor counters on the internet.

The other tools such as media player, special effect and flash should be used if you have assessing what tools will help you realize the looking and increasing the traffic. But you should known that the free tools may not be used in the long run.

The basic factors for build the blog are the platform, the web hosting and the domain name. These factors are discussed here.

1. The platform

The software program which is the main program for control and organize your blog such as blogger and wordpress. There are many functions that you should to realize such as write the posts, update blog, blog theme, font style (CSS style) and more.

2. The web hosting

This is the data storage for your blog. You will communicating with the web hosting when you upload the pictures, edit the post and more. There is the free web hosting for your blog with the free blogging service. But they will limit some features of the service such as the bandwidth, data storage space, database function and some scripts (PHP, Email, Cron job, etc…). If your blog have a lot of traffics, you should pay for the web hosting service to get the more benefits. The cost is varying from 1.00 to 100.00+ per month.

3. The domain name

This is the online address of your blog. You can get the own domain name by registering with the domain registrar. Or you can get the free domain name with some blogging service website as blogger and wordpress. But you will get the subdomain with this service.

For blogger: you will get “yourdomain.blogspot.com”

For wordpress: you will get “yourdomain.wordpress.com”

Davion W asked:


Niche marketing blogs are powerful income machines. Many online marketing gurus own such blogs. Not one or two only but dozens to thousands of them. This is how it works. With each niche blog pumping in a few dollars a day, it can quickly add up to huge incomes. The gurus understand that. What about you? Are you ready to learn how to create a niche marketing blog empire?

Niche marketing blogs are essentially mini-sites using blog platforms to market a product in a niche. The most popular blog content management platforms are Blogger and Wordpress. These are the kings in terms of SEO and userability and expandability. Let us now take a look at what is needed to build our very own niche marketing blog empire.

Niche marketing blogs are centered around a particular tight niche. Once you select a niche topic that receives moderate searches but has little or no competition, you can start to create your first niche blog around the topic. You also need to find affiliate programs or products to sell on your blog. Since they are effective in pulling small sales over the entire month, you would need tons of them in order to create an empire.

In short, you need to duplicate the following steps for each niche marketing blog you build assuming we are using WordPress blogs.

1. Formatting and tweaking the theme to make it SEO friendly

2. Make your site easy to social bookmark

3. Putting in the relevant plug-ins

4. Monetizing the site with affiliate links and Adsense blocks

5. Updating the site with fresh content regularly

6. Promoting the blog by pinging it to major services and submitting RSS feeds to the directories.

By now, I am presuming you can see how much work is needed to do so. It is manageable if you only own one blog. But anything beyond 5 or 6 of them and you would face the crunch in terms of time and efforts. It can be challenging therefore if you want to build dozens of such niche marketing blogs, not to mention hundreds of them.

How then are the marketing gurus able to achieve that?

The gurus are able to do so because they have teams of people working for them. They have employees and many of their jobs are outsourced. But they are gurus and have deep pockets.

What about the average online or affiliate marketer?

All hope is not lost. In recent months, a powerful blogging management tool has emerged and has leveled the playing field. Without needing any manpower resource, this single tool can handle all the tasks I have mentioned earlier. What is amazing is that it can create a niche marketing blog from scratch in 5 minutes. In other words, in 5 minutes, you can own a blog ready to start earning for you.

Everything from blog creation to multiple blog management, content updating and blog promotion are managed from one tool. So now, even the average marketer can beat the odds and build his or her own niche marketing blog empire.

Find out what is this secret weapon from my niche blog.

Susan Patterson asked:


The power of the internet not only lies in the ability to access information quickly, but also through the ability to make connections and collaborate with people all over the world.  Do an internet search on weight loss blogs, and you will find millions of results, many times complete with pictures and weekly weigh-ins.  The ability to connect with people quickly and easily has allowed people to build instant support networks for their weight loss programs. 

And the big names in weight loss are noticing, too.  Weight Watchers allows members to complete their program completely online, and eDiets.com was the first to be available only online.  Advances in technology allow interactive tools to aid in even greater weight loss.  Start with an online evaluation, where the results are used to build the dieter’s program.  Other tools include BMI calculators, calorie counters, online journals, goal trackers and more.  Many report quick weight loss because of the range of support and tools available to help them on their journey.  Forums, where members can interact with and encourage each other tend to be the most popular.  There is also a certain anonymity that comes along with using the internet, where it is not quite as embarrassing as facing people in the real world.

But for the individual user, blogging is the most popular way to share their story with the world.  A blog is simple and free to create, and can be customized to tell your story any way you like.  There are online journals, where people record what they do and eat daily.  Many times there is a weigh-in at the end of the week, complete with pictures, allowing a person to see the results.  Other versions are like mini-magazines, with daily articles.  Both versions usually allow readers to comment, and the site owner has the ability to moderate as much as they want.

If you are seeking support for your weight loss but are too embarrassed or busy to find a face-to-face support group, you might want to consider using the internet to help you in your journey.  You can start a blog for free almost anywhere; Blogger or Wordpress tend to be the most popular.  Be sure to write daily; this helps keep you accountable for your progress and what you did today to help you with your weight loss.  Be sure to keep the focus on one topic.  Losing weight is a great topic because it is so broad.  Some choose to focus on healthy eating, while other may discuss natural weight loss methods and supplements such as hoodia.  Read the blogs of others for inspiration, and comment on articles you find helpful.  Soon you will find that you have started your own little online community.

Michael Small asked:


Since the day Tim O’Reilly (founder of O’Reilly Media) first used the term “Web 2.0″ rumors have flown faster than fact could catch up. Within weeks there were dozens of so called “definitions.” So what is Web 2.0? It’s really just a concept. Web 2.0 is the idea that the Internet can be used for bigger business than viewing simple Websites and sending email, if the right technologies are employed. Chances are you’ve been using Web 2.0 technology for a couple years already via shared multi media, social networking, and online collaboration sites.

Primary tools of Web 2.0 include video sharing sites such as YouTube; Wiki sites like Wikipedia; blogs and various “live face” technologies. We will cover 3 of the quickest, easiest ways to optimize for Web 2.0, beginning with blogs.

1.) SEO for Blogs

Optimizing a blog is one of the absolute best ways to capture Google’s most coveted top spots very quickly. You can hit number 1 on Google in a matter of days. Here’s how you do it…

a.) First, find a good blogging tool. There are plenty out there. I use WordPress (http://www.WordPress.org.) I originally picked it because it was so quick and easy to setup. And soon I realized the platform does 50% of SEO by its very nature. It’s free and you can get thousands of themes, to fit any style you wish, also for free.

b.) Next, make sure your hosting provider can support your blog. I’ve never seen one that can’t. If you are starting fresh, do a Google search for “WordPress blog hosting” and you’ll find great packages that only cost $25 for a whole year. Just avoid the freebie hosts since you are almost guaranteed to be sharing server space (and likely an IP range) with sites banned by Google, which can cost you your ranking.

c.) Once your blog app is installed, turn on the “permalink” option from the control panel. This way each posting you enter will also get its own URL. Finally, begin entering posts of 200 or more words, focusing on only 1 or 2 keywords per post. Try to begin each post title with the primary keyword for that topic.

d.) To best optimize your keywords and content follow the steps outlined in SEO cbt’s release “Google Domination” (http://www.SEOcbt.com). This is a free computer based training module for SEO do it yourselfers that works extremely well. It was not written specifically for blogs but all the information is perfectly suited to them.

Inside Tip: Register your domain name for a five year period or longer. Just extend it if needed. Google has been known to check “whois” records and assumes the longer the domain is registered in advance, the more “real” the site is.

2.) SEO for YouTube Videos

YouTube accounts for more than 60% of ALL online videos watched in the US. And your YouTube videos can be found in Google’s search results just like any normal Web page. This means they can rank number 1 in just days, with the right SEO.

If you’re looking to capitalize on SEO for Web 2.0, this is a fast and free way to do it. I won’t get into how to upload the videos and optimize the frame size, etc. That said; let’s assume you have signed up for your free account at YouTube.com and are ready to upload your first video using their easy to follow instructions. This is all the SEO you need to know…

a.) When forming your title, think in terms of “long tail” keywords, meaning keyword phrases of three or more words. Be sure these are in the same order people would search for them (eg/ “long tail keywords” not “keywords long tail.”) Also try to anticipate what the user will type in his search. “How to” is one of the most common search phrases people use in Google and YouTube to get answers quick.

b.) Think of “tags” as keywords and enter them like you would the Meta keyword tag of a web page. Select only the most likely search terms people are using and keep the words in the order people use them. Don’t just use random words separated by commas. Use full length search phrases exactly how people search for them. And don’t go too crazy here. Excessive tags tend to confuse the YouTube engine. Incidentally, if you have “how to” as a tag, also add “howto” (without the space.) If “how to” returns a bunch of unrelated junk your “howto” tag can better cut to the chase in YouTube’s search engine.

c.) The description is where you have the most freedom. It’s best to begin the description with your main keyword (and title) as close to the beginning as possible. Something like this works well… “Learn how to…” then follow up with several sentences rich in long tail keywords (the same ones from your tags.) Good grammar isn’t the biggest deal but try to make it friendly for people who might actually read the description before they decide to watch the video. Also remember that Google uses a natural text algorithm that can spot unnatural keyword spamming a mile away.

Real Life Example: I just saw a commercial on TV for a spy movie and someone threw a knife. I went to Google and entered “how to throw a knife” (without quotes.) The top three matches include a YouTube video and Wiki entry. Wow! Welcome to Web 2.0!

3.) SEO Using “Live Face” Technology

One of the biggest reasons for the dot com crash of ‘01 was that Websites became way too impersonal. One of Web 2.0’s strengths is the ability to help people relate to people once again. One of the most successful technologies leading the way is “Live Face.”

Live Face allows a video spokesperson to meet, greet and inform your Web page visitors. As far as SEO benefits, any sort of video has usually involved heavy RealTime or Flash files that block search engine spiders and hurt rankings. Now however, there are services like Live Face for Web (http://www.LivefaceForWeb.com) that can add full length videos to your site without it interfering with onsite SEO one bit (due to the file’s location) while greatly enhancing offsite efforts such as acquiring the highest quality one way and reciprocal links.

Most sites employing this technology report conversion increases of up to 5x. This means they are converting up to five times the number of sales they did before using Live Face technology.

Real Life Example: The SEOcbt.com site mentioned earlier uses Live Face for Web and they hit number one on Google for all of their major keywords within two weeks of site launch.

That’s a good start to SEO for Web 2.0. Good luck!

Robert Baird asked:


In the contemporary world, human civilization has come to depend immensely upon technological tools and computers are indispensable to human existence. The coming of the internet has not only revolutionized the modes of communication, but today any information is available at one’s finger tips just a click away. It is important to note here that the internet is made up of various web sites which provide a plethora of information to the consumers. While the consumers are satisfied many organizations are able to reach out to a wider arena thus increasing their marketing and sales. Therefore, web sites on the internet are vital in aiding a firm to increase its profit and therefore it is evident that designing a web site is a complex affair and needs to be done with extreme care while conforming to the various guidelines set down by the World Wide Web. In the web sites, all content is made available composed in the form of markup language which is appropriate for understanding by the web browser and the GUI or the Graphic User Interface is responsible for the display images. A web site usually provides necessary information on a particular topic and it is made available in the form of written content and graphics arranged in a series of web pages. The main purpose of creating a web site is to ensure the availability of information on a particular subject and there are certain patterns which are followed by the various commercial websites. The most important factor here is definitely the content that constitutes the web site and here it is necessary to remember that one must provide adequate and valid information rather than filling up the web pages with unnecessary data. A very important aspect is that the web site should be appealing in terms of its visual appearance and the style of designing should be alluring and professional but not over-exaggerated. The web site should be user-friendly that is to say that navigation should be simple. One of the most important aims of a web site is to ensure that it has enhanced visibility i.e. it is visible in the search results conducted by the various search engines. Under such circumstances, if the site is better visible, it will also ensure more visitors.

A web site is comprised of various web pages which are HTML format files having their own URL. The web site comprises of various hyperlinks which join together these web pages and all websites need to be affiliated with search engines.

Priyanka Kapil asked:


Weblogs or blogs are so popular. They become the source of not only to express views but also to earn money on line. In the world of blogging for profits, blog content and blog traffic are the two reigning kings. If you put good content on your blog and get people visiting it you’ll make money, guaranteed.

So when you go about making your blog, you should first think about what your going to sale and what content you should put on your blog to entice people who might be interested in it to pay your blog a visit. Without traffic you won’t make any money so it’s very important that you have good content on your blog to bring people to it.

After you’ve decided on the content of your blog, the next step is to start making blog post to fill your blog up with quality content. Once a day, you should make a new post to your blog. And every time you submit a new blog post to your blog, submit that article to article directories with a link back to your blog.

When it comes to producing good quality blogs this is where WordPress shines. Yes there are various different types of blogging platforms available for you to use, but WordPress is the easiest of them all to use and understand. Although, it must be said that Blogger follows a very close second behind it. But the author of WordPress Goldmine as the name recommended has used the one that is rated first of all blogging platforms.

When it comes to setting up a blog using WordPress you will find that whole process very simple and easy to complete. But first you must register with the site and once this is done then you can start building your first ever blog with them. In fact building the blogs will cost you nothing and will only take a few minutes for you to complete and then all you need to do is start adding more information to it once it is up and running.

Tips to Create Money through your Blog

1. You need to decide on what niche topic your blog empire should go for. It has to be a more general subject where you can use sub categories for your blogs. And of course, it has to be a hot niche topic that everybody is interested in. Go to ClickBank for this kind of information. And by the way, Internet Marketing is always a profitable main category to go for.

2. Start with about 5 blogs at Blogspost and WordPress. Search engines love this ones.

3. Post some great, useful information about your topics on your blogs at least every second day. This is important for the search engines to be able to notice your blogs. Google for ideas by typing in keywords related to your topics and use the results for your articles.

4. Place affiliate links into each of your posts and at the end of your articles. These links should be related to your blog theme. Also place links at the side of your blogs. Go to ClickBank and find yourself some great affiliate programs that relate to your topics and sign up as an affiliate. It’s easy. Just go by the step-by-step instructions.

These affiliate links will enable you to blog your way to riches.

Tips for Getting Internet Traffic to Your Blog

Free RSS Feed

Rich Site Summary also known as Really Simple Syndication is the process of delivering constantly updated content to your blog by pacing a block of code (known as a feed) on your webpages. In our fast paced information age, RSS fits absolutely. It allows your visitors to stay up to date on any new information you’ve added to your blog without necessarily having to visit every page on your blog. Instead they view a window that list the headlines followed by a quick summary of what each article is about.

Having a free RSS feed accomplishes two things besides getting more site traffic. First since the content is updated frequently it keeps the search engines coming back to your site and crawling for the new information. Second it can increase your visibility among your blog visitors. This is important because while they may not visit your blog everyday, providing a feed to your subscribers is a good way to for them to stay in touch.

Network

A blog network is a compilation of blogs under a sole domain or company name. Some web visitors take comfort in clicking a link that takes them to different bloggers who cover the same topic. This is also an excellent way to get free advertisement and free web traffic to your site since people who visit the network will invariably be exposed to your blog.

Email Marketing List

In a recent survey, 100% of online users say they communicate using email. This is a good way to send messages to your opt in email list with links going back to your blog web site. Let them know you’ve posted a new article or video on your blog. Use snippets or summaries to entice people to click on the link and get further information. The more times people on your list see your blog the more they will get to know you and give a second look to some products or services you maybe offering. If you can drive good amount of traffic to your blog, you’re a good blogger and you can make money out of it. Besides that, if advertisers find your blog right for their marketing campaign, they will immediately contact you and request to advertise on your blogs. That way you’ll be earning regular amount of money.

It’s not that difficult. Just make use of the resources you can find on the Internet and you can begin your business blogging career the soonest.

Barry Wayne asked:


Where have I landed?

What do I do, get or buy from here?

These 2 questions needs to be answered for your website visitors within the first 3-5 seconds of them landing on your page.

If you’re able to effectively answer these questions and your visitor doesn’t leave, then you have no more than 5 more seconds to answer some more questions:

Why should I do something?

These are the 3 key questions that your landing page needs to answer. And they must be answered quickly if you want your online business to be a success.

You may never have thought about this, but when most people end up on your site, they are really hoping their search is over. You will be the one that has the solution to their problem, or can satisfy their need for information, a product, or a service. They’re hoping this because they really don’t want to spend any more time than necessary to find what they’re looking for.

Very few people wake up and say “Today, I’m going to waste 4 hours searching and comparing features to find the best online parenting class.” More likely, they’re saying, “Oh no, I have that court date coming up, and I haven’t found a parenting class yet. I need to get going on that. I hope I can find one fast.”

And which site usually gets their business? Naturally, it will be a site on the first page of the search engine results, but that’s for another article. Besides that, it will be the one that has successfully answered our three question quickly and thoroughly for the reader.

Where have I landed? – Clearly, this question (should) be answered by the title of the site and the URL. But other items on the page can help your visitors come up with an answer to this question as well. Is this a reputable company? Does the site look professionally designed, or like your nephew put it together in computer class? Your sites’ appearance says a lot about your company.

More than anything else, except possibly for copy, this is the biggest failure I see online businesses making.

If you are using the Wordpress blog platform, you have no excuse to have an unprofessional looking site. There is a huge selection of quality premium Wordpress themes that are available today. With just a few hours and a few dollars (usually no more than $79), you can build yourself a sharp, professional site. If this small investment of your time and money isn’t worth it to you, your site will show it. And many people hesitate to do business with a company that can’t be bothered with a quality site.

Even for simple “squeeze” or sales pages, there’s a right and a wrong way to do it. If done wrong, I’ll guarantee you it has cost you sales.

Granted, design is subjective, but you should be following at least some basic guidelines and standards in order to create a credible, professional appearance.

What do I do, get or buy from here?

This may be a little harder to answer. You need to have a solid understanding of what your visitors are looking for, and convey that in a clear statement of your business’ most important benefit. An effective example would be a well-crafted tag line for your company.

Too often I see company’s make the mistake of coming up with some clever slogan, which mean nothing to their average visitor. They’ve lost out on the opportunity to really capture the readers attention and instead have created confusion. And confusion doesn’t sell, it makes people run. That’s no good.

The headline or tag line of your website should clearly state what a user can expect to do, get or buy from your site. Say it plainly and make it very easy to understand. Test your headline by showing it to different people and asking for their initial reaction. Get them to tell you in less than 5 seconds what your site is asking them to do.

Why should I do something?

Possibly the hardest question to answer for your readers, it requires that you set yourself apart from the crowd. How are you different from your competitors? Can I really trust you with my information? How is your free report going to help me? Basically, they’re listening to WII-FM, What’s In It For Me? How will being a part of your site, at whatever level, going to solve my problems, save me time, save me money, make life easier, make me happy, etc…?

What’s the rush? Can’t it wait until tomorrow? What will I miss by not acting now? Do I get anything for acting quickly?

There can be lots more variations, but I think you get the picture. Honestly, you probably won’t know the correct answer unless you try testing to see what your readers are connecting with. You can use surveys or polls, and split test your landing page with a few different versions of your copy.

Give visitors what they’re looking for, make it easy, and make it urgent and your conversions will go through the roof.