Blog Income Life

Blogging for Money and Loving It!

Archive for category Plan Development

Blog Ready to Launch

Feb 14

Posted by Valentina in Making Money, Plan Development, Starting a Blog | 1 Comment

After considering all the options that are available to me re creating/hosting my new blog, I have made my decision based on the following:

1. Domain Name: to be announced when the blog is up & live (this coming week)

2. Niche Market: Money.
Whoa! That is not a niche market!!!! Yes, I know – this is one of those “Do as I say, not as I do” caveats. Indeed the Internet is flooded with blogs and sites on money, how to make it, how to manage it, how to invest it … and much much more. My chances of becoming the Search Engines’ Darling and be rewarded with top ranking are slim indeed. Having said that I am willing to take longer for this blog to become a money making site for me. The reasons I chose this very broad market are:

a. It is top of mind for just about everyone today.
b. The broad topic allows for many niches.
c. It is consistent with this blog, which is about making money blogging, so it builds on to an existing “product”
d. The niches lend themselves to my being able to promote some of my other existing businesses as options
e. Topic comfort – I write my own material so this will not be as time consuming as perhaps other narrower niches I was considering

3. Platform: WordPress (paid version)
The reason I chose WordPress is twofold:

a) Many more options available for development of blog especially as I intend to make this a signature blog. For this same reason I chose the paid version as it offers so many more features and functions that I will be growing into.
and,
b) Having taken a number of courses in Internet Marketing, I was able to capitalize on an offering by Nitro Marketing to set up my blog for free.

4. Host: Hostgator
While both Blue Host and HostGator are offer similar services and product I chose HostGator because it is the host service that Nitro recommends.

OK…. I fudged a bit here. I was going to do the WordPress thing from scratch – although I was definitely going for the paid version. Techie type stuff is not my strong suite. It would not be the best use of my time. I had other options for a “set it & post it” wordpress blog (I have a few of those with another program I purchased), but decided to go with Nitro. My experiences with Nitro Marketing courses have been that the content is always strong on detail, complete, and delivers great support. I have not had a blog set up by this group before so in a way I will be testing a new product. Actually you can sign up for their free newsletter. They have started to host free webinars which I highly recommend. You will be advised of those webinars in the newsletters.

Lets recap to date:
1. Topic/Niche selection
2. Domain Name
3. Ten Posts written & ready to post in weekly or semi-weekly intervals
4. Platform (Blogger or WordPress)
5. Host (needed only if paid WordPress selected).

Happy Blogging!

Quick Links:
WordPress
HostGator
Nitro Marketing Blueprint

Subscribe to AppleSeeds Grow

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , , ,

Tags: , , ,

Blog Posts …. get ‘em ready, post ‘em often

Jan 31

Posted by Valentina in Making Money, Plan Development, Starting a Blog | 1 Comment

Before you start rolling the presses with your new blog — whether you go with blogger or wordpress, do a little bit of planning. By now you have chosen the topic for your blog, now plan at least 10 posts. If you are doing a review style blog and say your topic is dog toys , you should at least have 10 topics on dog toys, written and ready to go. Here is what I mean

post 1 – How to choose good dog toys. What you look for when you are selecting toys for your dog.

post 2 – Review a new Kong dog toy.

post 3 – Soft Toys or Hard Toys?.

… well you get the idea. The reviews don’t always have to be about a toy. What about reviewing a dog toy site you found on the website, what do you like about it. What in your opinion could improve it. Your overall impression.

This is an important step. Too often people launch a blog, all eager and ready to go. They post two, maybe three posts, and then have to come up with an idea for a fourth post and cannot find appropriate content. A degree of discomfort sets in and an ever so slight coolness begins to seep in. Soon, the posts are far and few in between. There is no traffic. The promise of making money on the blog is a distant memory. The blog languishes.

DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU…. this is a business – treat it like a business. Every business requires a plan. Plan a topic within a topic and expand. For example if you are writing about chocolates, then about mid to end January you should start writing articles on Valentines Day, where to buy the best chocolates online (your affiliates). Review some of your favorites.   Post a picture of yourself munching on those decadent morsels. Ditto for March … St Patricks Day, then there is Easter.  If you plan basics for the whole year, you will never run out of content.

But Ten Articles? Come on Valentina?

Yes … its a good way to get started. First it is a good discipline to develop. Then when you open your blog, post them 2 or  3 per week (nicely spaced), all the while writing additional articles. The spiders will love this. Here is a new active blog and the more relevant and fresh the postings, the better these cyber critters like to dine out on it and bring back good reports to the search engines.

More on posting articles on your site further down the road, for now write those articles and get ready to launch your site.

Coming soon …. ok, next week. Announcement of my next blog, its topic and related information.

Quick Links
Dog Toys World

Subscribe to AppleSeeds Grow

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , ,

Tags: , ,

Blogger or WordPress?

Jan 27

Posted by Valentina in Internet Marketing, Making Money, Plan Development, Starting a Blog | No Comments

OK. You are ready, able and willing to go.

“LET ME AT IT! Let me start on that blog already!” you say.

Not so fast my little chickadee. We’re almost there, patience. Success is an 80-20 rule and like Dan Lok says, the 80% is the work that goes in at the beginning, the preparation, the research. When all is done your chance of success goes up when you are ready to launch.

So let’s recap:
- niche topic: you’ve got one
- buyers/advertisers exist for this topic
- available affiliates
- keyword rich title picked for blog
- keyword domain availability checked
- decision made to purchase the keyword domain
- READY TO GO!

Not quite!

Your next step is to decide whether you want to use Blogger or WordPress as your host. Things to consider:

BLOGGER – www.blogger.com

What’s good about Blogger:
a) Easy to set up. Everything is done for you. You just open a Blogger account, register your blog, go through the tutorial, set up your specifications and you are ready to go. All this should take no more than two hours, I know some people who have done it in half an hour!
b) No need to know HTML (that’s a whole different internet language that webmasters are whiz bang kids at, but not you and certainly not me)
c) No need to worry whether you have a c-panel or an how to use FTP
d) No need to know when to upload and when to download — yes Virginia, there is a difference!!!
e) FREE! Unlimited number of blogs.

The downside of Blogger:
a) There is a limited selection of templates.
b) Tabulated pages are not an option
c) If you have a problem and need technical support, they expect you to rely on the forum for your answers – i.e., there does not appear to be a way to be able to connect with Google staff to help you with any technical problems you may be having.
d) Changes/additions you make sometimes don’t take. As an example if you look to the right hand side of this blog, you will notice that there are two gaps. Those gaps are supposed to be carrying Google ads, but for some reason I have not been successful in having them take.

WORDPRESS: www.wordpress.com

What’s good about WordPress:
a) looks more like a website
b) functions more like a website
c) many more templates available
d) many more options
e) professional bloggers’ choice

Downside of WordPress:
a) Not as much of a point and click system.
b) Offers two programs – one much more like the blogger, the other (the one with many more options) requires at least a familiarity for HTML, FTP and a c-panel
c) Up to three blogs free (after that it’s a for fee usage)

Most of my blogs are on Blogger. The few that I have with WordPress were set up for me. My recommendation is that if you are new to Internet Marketing and to blogging, then you cannot go wrong with Blogger. I would go so far as to suggest that your first few blogs are with Blogger. Look at these as your “starter” businesses. As you begin to build your IM muscles, then go further a field.

If you are an experienced Internet Marketer and have some knowledge with HTML, FTP and c-panel, then I would recommend WordPress … you know, as Mark Burnett says: Jump In! Even if You Don’t Know How to Swim!

There are other places where you can have your blogs hosted, but the above two seem to be the industry standards.

ACTION: Open an account with either Blogger or WordPress. Don’t go live yet.  Take the time to go over the tutorials

Quick links:
Dan Lok
Blogger

WordPress
Recommended Reading:
Jump In! Even If You Don’t Know How to Swim! Mike Burnett of Survivor Series

Subscribe to AppleSeeds Grow

Technorati Tags:U6SNUZFUK97S , ,

Tags: , ,