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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Setting Up a Blog

Are you interested in blogging but don't know where to begin? Here's the basics on setting up a blog in this fast moving, fairly new industry. Blogging is a lucrative source of profit and blogs are easy to set up and maintain. Imagine a life where you are paid to write on stuff that interests you, whenever you want, wherever you are. The mere flexibility of blogging makes it easy for you to just kick back, relax and go on a vacation whenever you feel like it.

In this article, we are going to look into the profitability of a blog and set up a blog of our own at no cost! Interested? Read on!

First, we need to obtain a blog. There are several options – host a blog on your own domain or get a free blog. For starters, let’s talk about the free blogs. You can obtain a free blog at www.blogger.com or the newer (and better!) www.wordpress.com. If you are a techie, you must have heard of Wordpress, a free blog engine that is robust and infinitely expandable.

Want more information on where to host a custom Wordpress blog? Check out Best Web Hosting for Wordpress Blogs There is information on coupon codes and a very cheap, but quality web hosting service for new bloggers.

Blogger.com is actually owned by Google, so it will be detected on Google’s radar faster and you will be indexed faster. Wordpress.com, however, is a relatively new option so I have no comparison on the speed of getting indexed by search engines. However, Wordpress is better in the sense that it has more advanced features such as Trackbacks and Categories. You can also manage your sidebar links more efficiently (more about this later).

Get a free blog at either Blogger.com (http://www.blogger.com/signup.g) or Wordpress (http://wordpress.com/signup/). Then, familiarize yourself by posting your first post on your blog and tinkering around with the options and templates.

Here are a few common “blog-related” words to help you out:

1) Permalink – Permalink stands for permanent link, which is a URL (uniform resource locator) that leads to an individual post that you make in your blog.
2) Trackback – When you post about someone else’s blog post elsewhere, your post will show up in their “trackback” section. This feature, however, is not available with a Blogger.com account.
3) Pinging – Blogging seems to be paired with pinging almost every time either one is mentioned nowadays. Pinging is actually the action where a certain aggregator is notified whenever your blog is updated, so that the aggregator may show the newest post of your blog on their website. This is a useful way to gaining traffic, which we shall discuss later.

For now, I shall leave you testing out your new blog and the features that come included with it. In the next articles, we shall discuss the many ways we can gain profit from a blog, as well as tips on how to write posts that keep visitors glued and keep coming back for more!

Posted by Christina_Media at 6:53 PM 2 comments

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Google Gives Back: Essential Web Master Tools



I came down prety hard on Google in a recent post on my Technology News Blog If you want to view the article, Sentenced to Life Behind Google I decided I would talk about some of the great things that Google does offer Web Masters, that are essential and incredibly useful. First of all, their Adwords program is not only great for advertisers, it is also an incredible way for web site owners to market their own websites. The Adsense program allows you to set prices on specific keywords, choose the websites you advertise on, and allows complete control over the display of the ad. Also, you can count on Google to ensure the quality and reliablity of their advertisers. If you have money to invest in website marketing or promotion, I would highly recommend using Google Adwords to market your website. If you want to purchase Adwords ad space and watch your user base triple in size, thus increasing profit.

Now that we're talking about website marketing, let me move on to Google Adsense. There has been a lot of talk about Google Adsense, and their competitors. One thing I've heard is that users are so familiar with Google Ads and their format, that they are programmed to just kind of skim over them. But, Google Adsense allows the webmaster to completely customize the format, color and layout. So, this shouldn't really be the issue. The other argument is that Google Adsense doesn't payout as high as the competitors. But, if you're serious about making money with ads, the 2 cents you receive more from a competitor is not worth the sloppy ad displays they have. Google Adsense, without a doubt, displays the most relevant, essential and quality links compare to their competitors. This is because they can, they have the money, the experience and the means with which to provide their customers with the highest quality Advertising methods. If you want to is the answer.

Alright, on to the fun stuff! Google's Toolbar is AMAZING! The newest version out allows webmasters to view CSS, HTML Code, Form information, Site Ranking and a whole lot more. If you consider yourself a web privy individual, web master, or simply curious internet geek like me (well...I'm all three) You should be packing the toolbar in your belt. The is the only way to go for web browsing, mastering or discovering.

The Google Pack is another nifty offering handed to us by our master, Google.com. It's an entire package of lite, fluffy magic that will ensure safer browsing, and efficient web mastering.

Hope that was useful! Any website designer should understand these four essential Google tools like the back of their hand: Google Adsense, Google Adwords, Google Toolbar, and Google Pack