This is where novice bloggers get freaked out but if you’re following along and
using Yahoo webhosting them it’s really simple.
Just log in to your account and you’ll see the opening screen with all your
domains. You need to click on ‘Web Hosting Control Panel’ for the domain you
want.
Then click ‘Create & Update’ on the navigation.
Then scroll down to Blog Tools. There are 3 options here:
A Basic Yahoo Blog
Advanced Movable Type Blog
Advanced WordPress Blog
You can use any of the advanced blogging tools. However I have found
WordPress to be easier to optimize and there are also more useable plug-ins etc
for WordPress than Movable Type but for search engine rankings either blog
type works well and I haven’t seen a difference with results from testing.
If you’re going to go with WordPress then you need to select ‘Activate a
WordPress blog’
This brings up the following page where you can create an account for your blog
by simply entering a user id, password and the email address for the blog.
If you’re new then set the blog up using the default settings as you can change
these later if needed. Click ‘Next’ to create your blog.
There you have it… You’ve just created a blog the easy way. No complicated
scripts to install by yourself and messing with code, databases etc.
There’s more work to do on your blog but for now it’s created and you can move
on to the next step.
Step 4 – Content
Posting regular content to your blog is crucial. It will keep the search engine
spiders coming to crawl your posts and have existing readers coming back to
read the new stuff.
Now there are many ways of getting fresh, readable content for your blog, here’s
a few of them I like to use.
My Secret Weapon – PLR Pro
How would you like 440 articles every month split over 11 niche topics?
This is exactly what plrpro.com gives you plus tons more including instant
backlinks to your blogs to get it spidered on day 1.
The articles are the best quality around and it’s the only article content provider I
recommend.
You can easily take the 40 articles you get on a niche and post one every week
or two giving you enough enjoyable sticky blog content for a year.
Another major advantage about this service is that only 200 get these same
articles. This means there’s no need to worry about any duplicate content
problems with the search engines.
I strongly recommend you join this service as it saves you a load of time and has
helped me make a ton more money.
http://www.plrpro.com/robbenwell
Write Your Own
Now if you’re lazy like me then writing your own content doesn’t sound like such
a great idea but the best thing about it is that it is totally unique and it is 100%
free.
Writing your own can be great fun but if you are going to be doing a lot of it make
sure the market you are in interests you as it will make life much easier.
It doesn’t have to be hard to write your own content. You can comment about
existing articles or just give your opinion about something. Maybe a product or
website review.
It’s always best if you add something of your own every few weeks even if it is
just updates about the news in the market or a short article you’ve wrote.
Free Articles
You can post free articles on your blog by a range of authors.
These articles can be found in directories like:
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.articlealley.com
http://www.isnare.com
http://www.e-topic.com
http://www.rumorist.com
You can reprint these articles on your blog as long as you keep the bio/resource
box intact. This usually has a link in it to another site (the authors) so the
downside of using free articles is that you maybe sending traffic to another
source you don’t get paid for.
This puts most people off and many so called experts tell you not to use this
method because of sending someone free traffic and that outbound links are
bad… This is just BS. If your readers will benefit from the article then it’s good to
include it and you can easily put your comments in the post too.
This method goes with a couple of the blogging commandments. It serves the
reader and it also imitates nature by referencing related sites. Your blog should
have some outbound links because any natural site will have.
Outsourcing Content Creation
There are 3 main places you can go for hiring people to write content for you:
http://www.rentacoder.com
http://www.elance.com
http://www.guru.com
I personally use Rentacoder.com for around 80% of any of the work I ever
outsource and I have always found it the safest service to avoid been ripped off.
This is because the worker doesn’t get paid until the work is complete and you’re
happy with it.
You can get articles wrote for you on these websites by people all over the world
and they tend to cost around $5 per article. You can sometimes get them done
for $3 or $4 but I have found these to be of lesser quality which isn’t good news
for your blog.
If you do the sums you’ll see that if you wanted to post every week with
outsourced content then it could cost you $260 per year (52 x $5) to keep the
content flowing on your blog.
Now for one blog this isn’t too bad but if you grow your network it becomes quite
a cost to you.
I recommend only outsourcing a batch of articles if you don’t have time to use the
other 3 methods or if your blog has become very profitable and you want to start
adding an extra post or two every month.
When bidding for articles or any work make sure you give a detailed description
of what you want done. If you want 400 words then say so because a page to
some people is different to others who use larger fronts etc.
The Content Technique I Use
I know you’ll be wondering which method is best for getting content so here’s
what I personally do and have success with.
You should use all 4 methods above. I mostly use a mixture of plrpro articles and
outsourcing them but I also like to add free articles and news clips with my
opinions and maybe a few product reviews etc.
By doing this your blog will seem more real and not just a place you are putting
article after article.
You can post a plr article or outsourced one every week but have an extra post
or two just about a free article or something in the news. A reference to a cool
website you’ve found which may or may not include your affiliate link.
By using all 4 your blog will be more balanced but it still won’t require you to be
writing fresh content every few days for it which can take a lot of time up and
when you’re managing a network of tens of blogs it can become quite hard to
keep up.