How To Create A Blog   by Trevord

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How To Create A Blog

Blogs are easy to create and easy to maintain. One of their big advantages is that once they're started, you don't need to know any HTML code. If you can use a word processor, you can create a blog.

Click here for video instruction on setting up a blog. 

How Do I Start Blogging? 

Although you can start a blog by using a free service, I'm going to assume that you care enough about your blog to create one on your own web space. This virtually eliminates the possibility of your blog being cut off because some computer thinks it is spam or too commercial.

Getting your own web space is cheap and easy. All you need to do is register a name at somewhere like namecheap and get some hosting. If you're only ever going to register and use one domain, then the hosting offered when you buy your domain is good value. But if you're planning on expanding your network of web sites then it's worth spending a little extra each month and getting your own hosting account. This will allow you to host an unlimited number of domains on one account, keeping your costs down.

Once you've got your host and domain name, it's usually a simple matter of going into your hosting control panel, selecting a thing called Fantastico and then asking it to install Wordpress for you.

If you're really impatient, that's all you need to do before you can start blogging.

But there are other tweaks that you probably should do to get the most out of your new blog.

Get a complete step by step video tutorial on how to set up a blog.

Finding A Free Blog Template 

Let's face it, the standard template that comes with Wordpress is pretty boring.

You could keep it that way - plenty of people do.

But it looks as though you don't care for your blog.

There are lots of free blog templates available. When you go into your main blog dashboard, you'll see a link towards the top called "Presentation". Click on that and scroll down the page that appears. You'll see a section called "Get More Themes" and this has a link to the Wordpress Theme Directory. Themes are what Wordpress calls templates. You could get lost for hours here. There are plenty of themes to choose from.

When you're looking for a Wordpress Theme, it pays to narrow down your search using the sorting options in the left hand column.

When you see a theme that you think might look good for your blog, click the Test Run option to see what it looks like full screen. If you still like it, download it to your hard drive. Ideally pick a folder on your hard disk to store your themes in. This will make setting up future blogs easier.

Once you've downloaded a theme to your hard disk, you'll need to upload it to your web space. Use the file upload option in your control panel or the superb, free FTP program Filezilla.

Make sure you upload your proposed new theme to the wp-content/themes folder for your site. You should then be able to select it from your Wordpress Presentation tab. Don't worry - if you don't like the look of the theme once it's installed, it's very easy to change it back. So take the time to play around until you're happy with your chosen theme.

More Things To Set Up In Your Blog 

It's a sad fact of life that some people want to spam your blog with useless comments.

Choose the Plugins tab on your Wordpress dashboard and you'll see an anti-spam plugin called Akismet. This is slightly more complicated to install than most Wordpress plugins because it requires something called a "WordPress.com API key" before you can use it. Don't be put off by this. Akismet is a great first line of defense in the war against spam comments. Just follow the instructions and you'll be blocking almost all comment spam very quickly.

There are a few other plugins that are useful to have. One of these is called Smart Update Pinger. Although it's no longer supported by the author, it works well and is easy to install. Just follow the instructions on the link and in your Wordpress plugins area. Smart update pinger does what it says on the tin - it's smart about the way it pings (notifies) the services that take note of when your blog is updated. The Wordpress standard is to notify these services every time you edit a post, which is overkill. Smart update pinger is intelligent enough to only send these notices when you make a new blog post. It's highly recommended.

The other thing you need to do before you start blogging is how your blog entries are displayed. By default, Wordpress blog entries are ugly and aren't search engine friendly. They're along the lines of YourBlog.com/?p=123

Go to the Options tab and select Permalinks.

Either choose "Date and name based", which will categorize your blog posts by date and then the title of the post. Or select the custom option. Next to the "Custom stucture" box, copy and paste:

/%postname%/

This will make the structure of your blog better from a search engine's point of view. It also has the added advantage that your blog entries don't automatically show their age in the url, so people are more likely to click on them even when they are a few months or years old.

Useful Blogging Links 

Website Hosting
If you haven't got a website host, Hostgator will allow you to host an unlimited number of domains for one inclusive monthly price. Choose the "Baby" plan (find it in Shared hosting) to allow you to do this. Once you've got an account set up, installing a new blog is as simple as clicking a button.
Wordpress Video Tutorials
Step by step videos to show you how to create and maintain your Wordpress blog.

This video tutorial is designed to guide you through the whole process of setting up your blog.
Wordpress Affiliate Pro
Easily keep track of the affiliate links you use in your Wordpress blog. Find out which are the most profitable and which are a waste of screen space that could best be replaced. Promoting affiliate programs is a good way to monetize your blog but if you do it by hand, it's easy to lose track of what you've done and what is (and isn't) making money.
Set Up A Wordpress Blog
Simple instructional videos for setting up your Wordpress blog. If you're new to all this, these are an invaluable resource. Learn from the mistakes of other bloggers so that you have the maximum chance of success with your blog.
News Videos
You can add news videos to your blog and get paid when people view them. It's free to sign up. If you can copy and paste code (same way you do with YouTube videos) you can add news to your blog.
Atomic Blogging
System that shows you how to get top 10 rankings in Google for your blog. If you're fed up with getting no money from your blog, this is well worth investigating.
Comment Hut
This simple software helps you find relevant blogs to add your comments to. There's a free trial that only checks Wordpress blogs, so you can try it before broadening out to most of the other major blog platforms. Not suitable for those who want to add spam blog comments!

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Ami

Great lens.

Another way to create a blog easily is by using Blogger.com. It is especially useful for the newbie

Step by step guide at http://www.affiliatemarketingintro.com/Create-blog.html

Posted January 06, 2008

Kumaran Kutty

The sqidoo template will be a very good blog template for me, I am sure

Posted November 22, 2007

Look who made this lens!

Trevord

Trevord Blogs. It seems everyone needs one nowadays.
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