How I have moved on as a Blogger!

I have learned a lot about blogging since I last posted to this blog last. And I have put all the information I have learned into one blog. This blog used to be an old blog of mine called Create Blogs, but I have made a lot of changes to it including the name.

It is now called Build a Blog and I strongly recommend you take a look, as there is a lot of new information on the blog now, that would be very helpful to anybody who is starting with blogs, or who is a beginner blogger.

It has been a very interesting journey for me the past couple of months, so if you would like to take a look and see what I have been up to visit: Build a Blog and let me know what you think!

Thanks

Mandy

Create Blogs

Create Blogs is on the Move!

I said in my previous post that I have made some changes to the way I blog, and I am about to make one of the biggest for this blog. I'm moving it!

It's moving to Wordpress which is another blogging platform but with some distinct differences to Blogger. I won't go too indepth at the moment but here are the 3 main differences for me:

• It's open source software which gives greater flexibility.
• The Wordpress software has to be uploaded onto a server.
• You need your own domain name.

That means that the name will be changing to www.builda-blog.com which I felt was a better name as it's turned into more than just a creating blogs site. This is all completely new to me, so if things look a bit funny for a while you'll have to excuse me, while I get a grip on Wordpress!

I am going to continue to share my developments about the blog, to show how this blogger does it, and give a view of my thinking behind it. I hope this is helpful to anybody, (I'm not saying this is the right way to do it or anything, just an example of the way I am doing it) please let me know what you think by leaving a comment at the end of this post.

And I hope to see you on the other side!!

Create Blogs

Taking Stock of Create Blogs

I haven’t been able to post as regularly as I would like recently, for reasons I won’t go into. But my break away from posting to Create Blogs did give me a chance to take a fresh look at how things are going, and whether I am reaching my goals with this blog.

And although I worry about losing traffic and momentum, it has been time well spent for me, and I have made some changes to my blogs and the way I want to blog (that I will share with you). But for now I am deleting 2 of my older blogs so I can focus on building Create Blogs (for the time being).

I will be starting another blog soon that I am researching at the moment. I am also going to talk about how I create it on Create Blogs, and show the steps I am going to take to do that, and what information has influenced me in making those decisions.

So stay tuned there’s more to come.

Why am I telling you all this! Well it’s what Create Blogs is all about. It’s easy to read a pro blogger’s blog and see how they’ve done it, but it can be hard to relate to, as they already have a successful blog that seems a million miles away. I am still an amateur, and found it hard going finding the information you need at the beginning, to fill in the blanks. So that is why I started Create Blogs, to help similar bloggers to myself by sharing the information I have found, and what I have learned. Hopefully making your blogging path that little bit easier!

I love blogging and really enjoy it. There is always something new to learn to help you move forward, and I know I will learn just as much if not more, than what I hope to pass on.

Create Blogs

Do You Digg?

OK I know I lied, I just wanted to add one more post to my Create Blogs Traffic Series!

So here it is - Social Bookmarking sites (and also Social networking sites) have found huge popularity at the moment and therefore have huge amounts of traffic, including returning traffic.

It’s only recently that I have come across these sites through reading about them on other blogs, and decided to give them a try. Although it could be a bit of in the right place at the right time with the right subject, as obviously some topics are more popular and have a wider audience than others. But you never know who could be reading your blog and bookmark or digg it.

It seems the 2 most popular sites at the moment are:

• digg.com
• del.icio.us

digg.com

Briefly, you can share, bookmark and promote whatever is important to you and the digg community can then vote on it (digg), the more diggs your story gets the more popular your story becomes and the further up the page (in your topic) it appears.

del.icio.us

Again briefly, del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site where you can keep all your bookmarks in one place and see what other people are bookmarking, it’s a lot of fun.

These are only 2 sites there are many more, and I’d imagine by looking at the sites if you did start to be noticed, it would have a snowball effect. So you can see if your blog became popular through one of these sites it could transform you traffic results. So if you like my blog, you might like to bookmark it!

Create Blogs

Want a bit of Link Love!

Link Love!

I am coming to the end of my blog traffic series for creating blogs, and I would like to point out that they have not been posted in any particular order, and that there are obviously a lot more ways to get traffic to your blog. It’s just these are the main ones that I have come across on my travels and use.

It’s been very interesting to write, as I realise that recently I haven’t used some of the techniques as much as I should, and links is one of them.

Don’t be an ‘insular blogger’ , you will hear a lot about this from experienced bloggers - participate in the blogging community and spread a bit of ‘link love’ (and the does and dont's), and they are right. I should do this more, I don’t do enough, but it’s just been finding the time! I think that’s more a call for me to be more organised.

So what is ‘link love’. Well, when you join in on blogging message boards or forums then you can leave a link at the end of your message taking them to your blog. Or when reading another blog and you decide to leave a comment or join a blog roll, then again you can put in a link to your blog. Now I always try to think about my comments and try to do it when I have something constructive to say, rather than spamming my link all over the place, because you’re not going to get thanked for that, and remember they’ll know your blog address!

Now, there’s 2 chances to get more traffic to your blog, and if you happen to link on higher traffic blogs than yours, then those chances start to look even better. But don’t abuse it, comment and link with respect and you’ll have a good name in the blogging community. Blog to help each other out and you’ll get the most out of blogging. And I will make sure I join in this great community more!

Creating Blogs

Get Traffic from Emails!

So how can you get traffic to your blog from emails?

Add your blog address to your email signature like we did with forums. You can add a message to the signature, inviting your recipient to pass your information on to a friend if they enjoyed your blog.

Then every time you email your list (if you have one) or family or friends, then your blog address is sent with it, giving you more exposure. And hopefully if they do enjoy your blog and pass it on, then it can become viral and bring in traffic for your blog over some time!

Creating Blogs

Drive Targeted Traffic to your Blog using Google Adwords

Google Adwords is a great tool to drive targeted traffic to your blog. You can target specific keywords from your blog that you know people will be searching for. You’ll know the keywords from having done your research on search trends and competition when you set up your blog. Which obviously means you are putting your ad in front of a hungry audience (the best kind!).

Now there’s a lot of free and paid for information out there for Adwords. I started out by using Google Cash, it was recommended to me by a writing newsletter I subscribe to (Google Cash 3 has recently been released). I also subscribed to any free courses that I came across (they are after your email address but you can always unsubscribe afterwards).

But don’t forget Google itself! adwords.google.com explains exactly what adwords does and the best way to utilise it. It also has a help centre that’s crammed full of information, demo’s, guides, troubleshooting and FAQ’s. The information is useful and they take you through each step in producing an adwords ad. It’s all free to use, just sign up for an account and have a look around.

If you would like to see more then click on the Google Adwords button on the left.

Create Blogs

Classified Adverts - Online or Offline?

Just because you work online doesn’t mean all your promotion needs to be done online! So why not try an offline method, and place a classified advert in a local newspaper to drive traffic to your blog. Depending on where you live and which newspapers you pick, the fee can vary a lot from free to big money, so pick wisely!

Or you could place classified adverts online. Now if you searched in Google for classified ad sites I’m sure you would have a huge list. So I would like to talk about 2 sites for classified ads that already receive huge amounts of traffic every day. Craigslist.org and Ebay.com.

Craigslist
It’s a free classified ad site that’s world wide, and in the top 10 most visited sites in the world (= lots of traffic). You just pick a city and place a free classified ad promoting your blog. It doesn't really have to be near where you live, as your directing them to a blog, so they won’t be collecting something they have bought (depending on what you are selling!). The only problem I see with this, is you have to submit per city - rather than countries (as with Ebay), so you would have to submit to a few cities to help get traffic - I presume. It also defaults to the San Francisco Bay Area site, so you have to pick a city from there.

Ebay
Again another site in the top 10 most visited sites in the world. You can place a classified ad on Ebay ($10 for 30 days). Now it’s not an auction, you’re not selling anything, but you can promote your business or blog in them and hopefully drive traffic to your blog. I know this service is available in the US, but may not be available on all of Ebay's sites, so use ebay.com (it gets the most traffic).

And that’s 2 ways to get your links onto high traffic sites and hopefully drive even more traffic to your blog.

Create Blogs

Creating Blog Traffic with Forums

To be honest I have only recently started to use forums for creating blog traffic - and realised their potential. They are more than just somewhere to post your news and articles to, to enable you to generate traffic. They are communities that you can tap into, and interact with a wide range of people, make friends, ask questions, learn more and even make deals. All on top of the basic fact that they can drive traffic to your blog.

You can find a forum (or message board) on pretty much any subject you can think of. Search for ‘[your subject] forum’ and see what comes up.

I’ve recently joined the Warrior Forum which is an Internet Marketing forum. It’s really helpful and motivating reading the different threads. There’s the chance to see how other people do things, and the ability to network with a lot of people in your chosen field. When you start to post don’t forget to add your signature, where you can place links to your blog or any other site you would like to send traffic to. So every time you ask a question or reply to a post your signature is added and also the link to your blog, giving you more exposure. So the more questions and replies you make the more traffic you may be able to generate. The potential of forums is undeniable.

I was going to add another list here of forums, but I’ll let you explore on your own!

Creating Blogs

Search Engines - Get Yourself a Homepage!

Obviously there are loads of Search Engines that you can submit to. But I would like to concentrate on the top 3 that will bring you the majority of your Search Engine traffic:

1. Google
2. Yahoo
3. MSN

You submit to Search Engines so that they will go and crawl your site with their ‘bots’ and add you to their index. The time it takes them to do this varies, Google takes the longest, with MSN generally the quickest and Yahoo somewhere in between.

So can you speed the process up at all?

Well here is something you could try. Just remember it’s not guaranteed but the Search Engines won’t guarantee you get included even when they find you!

Get yourself a homepage

At Google go to google.com/or .co.uk and sign up for a personalised homepage - there will be a link to ‘get started’ with a personalised homepage. Once set up you will be able to add content to your homepage (your blog) using it’s feed, so every time you update your blog it will be updated on your homepage.

MSN and Yahoo are very similar to set up. You have to create a free email account, and after doing that follow the link to My MSN or My Yahoo and that is your homepage where you can again add content to it using the feed for your blog.

So the Search Engines will hopefully pick you up and index you quicker from seeing this activity.

Another way of doing this with MSN: just type your url into MSN search bar, when it doesn’t come up they will provide a link to ‘send us an address’, click that and submit your feed, easy!

Create Blogs - blog traffic series part 3

Have you tried Blog Directories?

They are a great source of free traffic for your blogs, you never know who could be searching for your topic? And there’s loads of them. Some are more popular than others, like Technorati, you can open an account and bookmark your favourite blogs (if you search on Google for a topic you will also notice Technorati is in the top 10 results a lot).

Once submitted to a directory your blog will most likely be reviewed and then entered onto the directory when approved, they email you to let you know if it’s been approved or not. Here’s a list of some of the ones I use (sorry about all the lists):

• www.technorati.com
• www.daypop.com
• www.getblogs.com
• www.globeofblogs.com
• www.blogcatalog.com
• www.blogtoplist.com
• www.blogarama.com
• www.britblog.com (only British blogs)
• www.myblogdirectory.net

Create Blogs - blog traffic series part 2

Are Articles the Best way to get Traffic?

Article submission is said to be one of the best ways to create traffic for your blogs, and also backlinks to your site (which helps with rankings). I think it is a really good method to use, although not the quickest. You basically open an account, which are generally free and submit your article for approval, which can take anywhere from a couple of days to a month, to be approved and posted depending on the site. Due to the fact that they are approved by humans!

There is software available to help you submit your articles, it’s not fully automated though, you have to login and pick categories etc. But they generally have lists of over 100 sites and do help speed the process up, it takes a bit of time to start with but it is well worth it. The article sites see automated submissions as spam and will not approve them.

The best part about article submission is that it is long lasting, each article can stay live on a site for up to 6 months (depending) and obviously the more you submit, then the amount of backlinks to your site keeps growing. You place the backlink which is anchor text for your site, in the authors biography box which is posted with the article. If your article is downloaded by ezine providers or other websites looking for content, they have to add your bio box as well. So you can see the potential.

Here’s a list of the more popular sites to get you going:-

• www.articlecity.com
• www.goarticles.com
• www.ezinearticles.com
• www.articlealley.com
• www.searchwarp.com
• www.usfreeads.com
• www.articledashboard.com
• www.a1articles.com
• www.ideadmarketers.com
• www.contentdesk.com
• www.isnare.com
• www.articlehub.com

Create Blogs - blog traffic series part 1

Creating Blog Traffic

Do you want to be seen?

So what's the next step? It’s getting seen, now it’s a great experience creating blogs and I love doing it, but it is so much better if you have someone to talk to, you need traffic and hopefully lots of it! Talking to yourself is not always good...

So what is the best ways to get traffic? Well there are 100’s of different things you could do, but here are a few I use:-

• Article Submission
• Blog Directories
• Search Engines
• Forums
• Classified Adverts
• Adwords
• Emails
• Links

Now to do them justice I am going to write about them as a series tackling one at a time, simply because they are that important and if I did them as one post it would be ridiculously long! So more on the subject soon...

Create Blogs

Create Blogs That Last

Don't lose your Blog!

So you've set up your blog after deciding what you are going to blog about and you have started posting and adding different features to your blog, like I have just added email subscription (as mentioned in the last post).

But don't forget to protect your blog and download your template at regular intervals (in Blogger you can do it from edit html) for safe keeping. Now I know that sounds obvious and I am sure that everybody knows that. But I thought it was worth a mention, I downloaded mine the other day before adding the subscription.

As good as the internet and hosting companies are at the moment it's still possible for 'technical difficulties' to happen. Or more likely for some reason they have taken a disliking to your blog and decide to terminate it! That doesn't matter if you have a downloaded copy. Also if I am pasting code into the template, I download it as I still don't trust myself to do it right!

At the end of the day there is a lot of love and hard work gone into creating blogs and the last thing you want to do is lose it all!

Create Blogs

Create Blogs - Feeds

Added Subscription for Feeds

I just thought I would point out that I have added an email subscription form for my feed. Also there are some feed readers on the left for subscription if you prefer them (thought I'd cover all bases). Just in case your not sure what that means, if you would like to subscribe to either of these, you will be updated via email or your feed reader when my blog has been updated.

Handy if you like to follow what I am up to, or just enjoy the blog!!

Create Blogs

Create Blogs

mandy88.bttb1.hop.clickbank.net">

So what do you blog about?

You have decided which host to use to create your blogs, so the next question is ‘what do you blog about?’

It has to be something you are interested in or love to talk about, because you’ll be doing a lot of that. To blog about something that doesn’t grab your attention will mean it becomes tedious and an effort to blog, and that will come across in your writing. In the same way if you really enjoy your chosen topic that will also come across.

But you need to pick a topic that people search for or you won’t have any traffic. Also if you pick a topic with a huge amount of competition then you will find it very hard to break into. Complicated? No, but if you cover all the bases then you will have a firm foundation to your blog, so do the research first.

Of course when you start out it can seem a bit like a needle in a haystack. I know it did to me, so I turned to more experienced bloggers for help. I found a really easy to read ebook called Blogging to the Bank. It explains step by step how to research the keywords for your blog. It also gives you specific guidelines on how to do this, plus lots more information on setting up blogs. I found it an invaluable guide for setting up my blogs.

Create Blogs

Creating blogs

Blog Hosts

There are loads of blog hosts to choose from to create your blogs like Blogger , Wordpress and Typepad to name but a few, and most of them are free.

I have been using Blogger for hosting my blogs. It’s owned by Google, so if you have a Google account already you can use that to access Blogger, it also means if you’re using Adsense or Adwords they can all be accessed with the same account, password and email (handy!).

Blogger is free to host your blog, and since out of beta they have created New Blogger, which uses a drag-and-drop template editing feature which allows you to easily add Adsense, banners, buttons, photo’s etc to your blog and arrange them very easily with no html experience needed. Blogger also has an advanced feature that lets you point the blog to your website, as well as keeping everything together you don’t have to have a blogspot url, you can use the websites url.

I have found Blogger to be very user friendly and easy to create blogs, set up and customise them. They have a very extensive help center including Blogger Status, Blogger Buzz and Blogger Help Groups. So if you need a question answered you’ve got a good chance!

There are a lot of other good blog hosts out there, but this has been my experience of this one. Keep testing - I’m going to...

Create blogs

Creating blogs

First of all you look at the different ways, also known as income streams to make money on the internet e.g. adwords, blogs, adsense, ebay etc and choose one, lets say you choose blogs. You research all the information you can find on creating blogs, and find the best way of running them, you set it all up and sit back to wait for your piece of the ‘internet pie’ that you have been told about.

But you don’t get the results that you had hoped for, what do you do?

Well I don’t think this is unusual. The guru’s tell you, you can automate your system and start earning straight away, with only working a couple of hours per week. Maybe that can happen but in my experience it doesn’t, so don’t worry. I find you have to work hard at it, like any other business and have a strategic plan. Test different ideas for advert placement and templates, when you find one that works test some more. The information out there is vast and changing all the time, try to keep up with it and research your market. The key to creating blogs successfully is the same as any business it takes hard work and good planning.

But the most important thing is to stay positive and believe that it will work, don’t panic, keep testing and stay motivated (which is easier said than done). Some Guru’s do tell you this, but it never sunk in with me until I had figured it out for myself! Please learn from my mistakes, and start your journey creating blogs prepared for this. It will save you a lot of time and turmoil!

Creating blogs

Create Blogs

Do you blog from a Mac?

Have you had problems in new Blogger.com with editing the blog template using Safari?

I have recently had these problems, it was a nightmare trying to move page elements around on my blog and I couldn’t edit colours of fonts, it was getting really frustrating.

So I went to Blogger for help, and after some digging, found out that Blogger won’t work with safari! But do not despair if you have a Mac because you can use Firefox, which is an alternative web browser that you can download from www.firefox.com (its free) and everything works fine. You could also use Internet Explorer but I prefer Firefox.

Its written by Mozilla and runs on Macs with OSX, my Mac is pretty old and it runs great. Its got lots of add-ons so you can personalise it, but I quite like the search engine feature, you can choose different search engines as your default through the toolbar at the top of the page, which makes it easy to flip from google to yahoo etc (handy if your doing research). It’s made my life a lot easier.


Create Blogs

Create Blogs

The good thing about blogging is its Free. You don’t need any special software or experience to set up a blog, you just need a topic or hobby that you are interested in, and it only takes about 10 minutes to create blogs that could make money online. I went to Blogger.com to set up my blog, which is very easy to do. You are able to choose a template, add photos, place adverts, create posts and then edit it all through an easy to use interface, and they take care of the hosting - all for Free! (that's the bit I like).

Now, I had created a blog that was ready to go, but what do you do with it?
Its no good writing a blog if nobody can see it. But I had no idea how to get visitors to my blog?

That's where Blogging to the Bank came in. Rob (who wrote it) takes you through each step to creating blogs and adjusting the settings, so that the blog is set up for maximum benefit, and is optimised for visitors. He even gives you screenshots to follow exactly what he is doing. He then tells you how to go about getting visitors to your blog, and how you can make money online from your blog, all with the necessary links for easy access.

The book is straight to the point, a very unusual thing for an ebook to do, you normally have a load of marketing hype that frustrates the life out of you, before you can get to the really useful stuff. Its only 39 pages long (a change from the 100’s of pages you normally have to wade through). So it doesn’t take long to read and you can start straight away, following the steps of his blueprint to create blogs that can make money online. I’ve found it to be very good value for money, a great book and a refreshing change.

mandy88.bttb1.hop.clickbank.net">

Create Blogs

Create Blogs

Blogs have become a very important way to communicate and interact with a large amount of people that have a common interest. A blog is a webpage, like a personal diary where you can post pretty much whatever you like, anything from a political soapbox to your own personal thoughts. There are millions of blogs, and the best part is they are free to set up and host!

I had no idea how to create blogs. I searched around a bit for some information to get me started. I found an ebook by Rob Benwell that I liked called Blogging to the Bank. I chose it mainly because it is priced very reasonable (only have a small budget - roughly halve $ price to get pounds) and it is a step by step blueprint of how he creates blogs and makes money with them. Seeing as I knew nothing about blogs this seemed like a good place to start!

I have to say it is a great guide, he tells you exactly where to go and what to do, he’s straight to the point. Setting it up was very easy and you see the results instantly, he also shows you how to get traffic to your blog which at the end of the day is the most important thing. As well as the book you get bonuses including a newsletter and even his email address if you have any problems.

I am a visual person so having a step by step guide to follow was great. I needed some solid, helpful information to show me easily how to create and manage blogs, how you can use them to make money and how to get them seen. I was lucky enough to find all that in Blogging to the Bank. Creating blogs is easy, fun and a great way to communicate with people, if you haven’t already, give them a go!

mandy88.bttb1.hop.clickbank.net">

Create Blogs

Create Blogs

Make Money Online
make money on the internet

Thought you may want to see some of my other blogs, if you are interested, so here are the links.

Create Blogs

Hello and welcome to my blog!

In this blog I would like to share how I create blogs and the good information I have found to help me do this.

Also to show how easy it is to do and how rewarding and fun it can be to create blogs. I hope you enjoy this blog (and visit again!) and it is useful in creating blogs of your own. Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

Create Blogs