Steps to set up your blog
Choosing the right blogging software
How to choose the right blogging software
Before you start blogging, you need to to ask yourself the following before you decide on what software you use.
1) What are your objectives?
Are you:
- blogging for fun or for $?
- will you need much space to store photos/video content etc?
- do you want a simple blog [...]
How to choose the right blogging software
Before you start blogging, you need to to ask yourself the following before you decide on what software you use.
1) What are your objectives?
Are you:
- blogging for fun or for $?
- will you need much space to store photos/video content etc?
- do you want a simple blog or do you want to grow it into something which may require additional functionality? e.g. forums, photo album etc
2) Choosing the right blogging software
The best blogging software I know of is:
- wordpress.com (free version-no domain name required) and wordpress.org (domain name required but this offers you more flexiblility)
- blogger.com
- weebly
Depending on your needs, the blogging software you choose will differ. If you need something really simple – e.g. a personal blog or a simple site which doesn’t need much tweaking, then Blogger or Weebly are probably better. But, if you want to do more with your site than just blog, Wordpress offers the most flexibility and there are a bunch of resources available for free which make it easy to add more functionality to your site.
The free version of Wordpress is very good and has a huge number of free themes and you can literally get a blog up and running in a matter of minutes. Google also likes it and your blogs are pinged to others in the Wordpress community which means you get traffic to your site fairly quickly. Wordpress also has a pretty cool stats program which gives you a good breakdown of your users. The downside is you do not have your own domain name which means you are limited in terms of functionality.
For the purpose of this site I will focus on Wordpress because it is my blogging software of choice.
Buy a domain name
When you buy a domain name you should purchase it through your host. This makes it easier and faster to get your site up and running.
First things first – I will be discussing the use of Wordpress, so if you use another blogging software I apologize…
The first step to setting up a blog on Wordpress is to buy a domain name. You can use a free Wordpress blog (or software like Blogger.com orWeebly.com) if you aren’t doing anything too serious. But I recommend purchasing a domain name and using a host if possible. The costs aren’t significant and there are a lot of advantages to having your own domain name.
If you want your own domain name and are using Wordpress you need to buy a domain name and also decide on the host. A host basically stores all your web site data and allows you to update and change these files via something called an FTP client.
Choose a host which supports Wordpress
Wordpress is written in a programming language called PHP. Most hosts support PHP, but some make it easier than others to install Wordpress. The one I use and recommend is Bluehost, but I have heard that others such as Bigdaddy are also decent. My experience with Bluehost has been generally good, noticeably their support which is 24 hours. Some of the support has been mediocre but most of the time they are polite and efficient.
The advantage of places like Bluehost and Bigdaddy is that you can purchase your domain name through their site which makes it easy to add your domain name to their admin area and get started straight away.
Adding your domain name to C-Panel
Download a FTP Client
In order to upload information to your host you need an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Client. An FTP Client basically allows you to transfer files from one computer or server to another. You can upload plugins, themes, images etc. via your FTP Client.
I have used a few FTP Clients, but I highly recommend Filezilla FTP [...]
In order to upload information to your host you need an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Client. An FTP Client basically allows you to transfer files from one computer or server to another. You can upload plugins, themes, images etc. via your FTP Client.
I have used a few FTP Clients, but I highly recommend Filezilla FTP Client. It is free, easy to use and have never had any issues with it. You can download it from here.
Setting up Wordpress
Once you decide on your theme, you need to download the theme to your computer and drag and drop the appropriate folder to your Themes folder by using a FTP Client. Below are the steps involved. When I get around to it I’ll put a video up which will show you how to do this.
Steps [...]
Once you decide on your theme, you need to download the theme to your computer and drag and drop the appropriate folder to your Themes folder by using a FTP Client. Below are the steps involved. When I get around to it I’ll put a video up which will show you how to do this.
Steps to setting up Wordpress
1. Decide on a Wordpress theme
2. Download the theme folder to your PC
3. Download a FTP Client (I recommend Filezilla) to your computer. You can download from this page:
http://filezilla-project.org/download.php
This is free software and very easy to use.
4. Run the Filezilla FTP client and enter the appropriate Host, Username and Password.
5. Drag and drop the theme folder you just downloaded into the Themes Folder in your FTP Client (e.g. Drag and drop the theme from your desktop – e.g. Thesis theme folder – illustrated below on the right and drop it in the Themes folder, which located in the wp-content folder.When you do this you will see a whole lot of information being transferred. This means the theme is now being uploaded to your host (e.g. Bluehost) so when you open your URL you will see the generic Wordpress theme.
6. Activate the theme
- go to the domain name you registered and go to the admin area. Type in the name of your URL and at the end of it put wp-admin. For example, www.settingupablog.net/wp-admin. This will take you to the admin area of your Wordpress site. You will have been sent a username and password so put those in.
- You now have access to your admin area which allows you to do admin type stuff – e.g. change your theme, activate plugins, write posts and blog away.
- Go to the tab on the left hand side which says ‘Appearance’. You will see Themes, so click on ‘Themes’. Below, you will have a list of themes to choose from. Click on the ‘Activate’ button on the theme you just chose.
And that’s it – you’ve set up your Wordpress theme and are ready to blog away!
Choose a Wordpress Theme
Choosing a Wordpress Theme can be difficult. You have to look at your individual needs and make sure you experiment early on before delving too deep into your blog.
OK, I realize there are other ways to blog other than Wordpress, but based on my experience and from reading countless posts from those who have used other blogging software I believe that Wordpress offers the easiest and most flexible option for those of us who are not competent at programming. Wordpress has a great community and a massive amount of free plugins and themes available and you can get a site up and running minutes. Wordpress is also very SEO friendly (i.e. google seems to like Wordpress and you can get your site listed on google fairly quickly – or at least that’s been my experience).
Free Wordpress Themes vs Premium Themes
Now you have decided to use Wordpress the big decision is what Wordpress theme do you use? Over the last few years I have purchased a few premium themes with mixed results and used a whole lot of free themes. The biggest issue I found with free themes was that the support was very scant and the functionality wasn’t quite there. Also, support for certain plugins can often be an issue. There are a host of free wordpress themes which are good enough for the average joe if you are happy with a fairly generic looking site and don’t mind not having much flexibility with your layout.
With Premium themes (i.e. themes you have to pay for) you have to watch out for those who are trying to make a quick buck. If you are new to the whole blogging thing it can be a bit hard to tell, but if you go to forums and search for comments about various themes you can usually find enough information to make an informed decision.
I have experimented with a lot of Premium Themes. The companies that make the best combination of themes and good support that I have found are Templatic, Woo Themes and DIY Themes (Thesis). Solostream also isn’t bad, but I think Woo Themes and Templatic are better value for money.
Both Woo Themes and Templatic have a wide range of sites to suit different themed sites, so if you are making quite a few sites these two are good options. The advantage of using these are that you get a really nice looking site up and running in a matter of minutes. The Thesis theme actually has more flexibility in terms of what you can do with the site – e.g. changing column widths, colour scheme, number of columns etc., but the out of the box layout is a bit plain and needs a bit of work to make it look good. Most of the premium sites are also SEO optimized.
At the time of writing this I am using the AIM Wordpress theme from Templatic.
Upload plugins to Wordpress
Before you start blogging away you should install a few plugins which will make your life easier and add some functionality to your admin panel which will allow you more flexibility. I have broken these into essential plugins and non-essential but useful plugins below.
Essential Plugins
1. Contact Form
This form is a cinch to use and [...]
Before you start blogging away you should install a few plugins which will make your life easier and add some functionality to your admin panel which will allow you more flexibility. I have broken these into essential plugins and non-essential but useful plugins below.
Essential Plugins
This form is a cinch to use and allows you to easily set up a page which can capture user data such as name, email etc. It is an easy Contact Form page which means users can leave feedback and allows you to contact them in the future (provided they are kind enough to leave their email address!)
This is a great tool which checks for broken links on your site. If you have broken links on your site it is not only bad for the user experience but it also effects your site rankings because google sees those broken links and your site ranking goes down.
3. Google Analytics for Wordpress
A must for those who want to track their site stats. Easy to install with this plugin!
4. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
This is the best related posts plugin that I know. It basically lists related posts which are on your site, below the post that the user is looking at. Not only does it aid users when using your site it also helps your page rank.
If you never want to experience the pain of having your whole site go down and being unrecoverable, or making some stupid mistake and bulk deleting posts, then you really should have an automated backup plugin. You can choose the frequency with which you want back-ups sent to your email, and because gmail and other accounts now have unlimited space you can have daily updates of you blog sent to your email.
I love this plugin and use it all the time. It allows you to easily re-order posts in the order of your liking. Very very useful and this is essential for most of the blogs I use.
This plugin is probably the best photo gallery plugin for Wordpress, so if you have photos on your site I definitely recommend it.
Non-essential but useful Plugins
4. Maxblogpress Ninja Affiliate
Things to do before you start blogging
OK, before you get carried away and start blogging, there are a couple of things you need to do to your Wordpress admin area.
1. Go to Permalinks and Custom Structure and change it to: /%category%/%postname%/
- this will change the way the URL looks when you create a page or a post. i.e. you will have [...]
OK, before you get carried away and start blogging, there are a couple of things you need to do to your Wordpress admin area.
1. Go to Permalinks and Custom Structure and change it to: /%category%/%postname%/
- this will change the way the URL looks when you create a page or a post. i.e. you will have a google friendly post instead of an ugly URL which is the default in Wordpress.
2. Activate Akismet
- This is an spam filter and will save you from having to delete loads of messages from people trying to sell you viagra or sex toys. When you go to activate Akismet they will ask for your API Key. Check your email as you should have been sent this the first time you set up a Wordpress blog. Enter this API key in and you are away.
3. Install Plugins
- Plugins give you additional functionality in Wordpress. There are loads of different plugins, but there are some that you really should use which will make a big difference to your site. I have made a list of what I believe to be the most useful/important plugins. There are a bunch of blogs out there which can expand on this list, but for now these are my recommendations.
- To install a plugin, download the plugin folder to your desktop and then drag and drop it to the Plugins folder on your FTP Client.
4. Change password to something more memorable
- When you log in to your Wordpress admin for the first time you will see a message at the top of the screen asking if you want to change your password. Unless you want to keep the default password, I suggest you change it to something more memorable. You can also change your login name.
5. Set up a Contact Us page
- make sure you activate the Contact 7 plugin
- Go to the ‘Contact’ link on the left hand side in your admin panel
- Scroll down the page where it says <p>Your Email (required)<br /> [email* your-email] </p>. Insert your email into the part where it says Your email (required).
- Copy the text at the top – [contact-form 1 "Contact form 1"]
- Create a new page called Contact Us or whatever your prefer.
- Insert the code – [contact-form 1 "Contact form 1"] into the body of the page.
- Save it and you are done.
Note: If you are using Thesis, go to Thesis Options, Navigation Menu and click on the + sign where it says Select pages to include in the nav menu. Select the Contact Us page and save.
5. If you are using the Thesis theme,do the following:
- Change name of the ‘custom sample folder’ to ‘custom’ in your FTP client
- Write in some ‘Home Page Meta Data’ in appropriate spot in admin area
Writing your first post
Writing a post in Wordpress is simple. Wordpress uses a rich text editor which is essentially like a word processor and has various options such as bolding, italics, underlining, indenting etc. The steps involved in writing a post are as follows:
1. Adding a new post
Click on ‘Add New’ posts on the left hand side [...]
Writing a post in Wordpress is simple. Wordpress uses a rich text editor which is essentially like a word processor and has various options such as bolding, italics, underlining, indenting etc. The steps involved in writing a post are as follows:
1. Adding a new post
Click on ‘Add New’ posts on the left hand side of your dashboard as shown below.
2. Enter a title for your post
This should accurately reflect the content you are writing about in your post. For example, this post is called ‘Your First Post’ which is apt.
3. Write content
This is done in the body of the post (the big white space below the title). You can write what you want but I recommend that you BOLD any titles as this helps identify the content as important and apparently can help your SEO (search engine optimization).
4. Adding an image
To add an image is easy and simply involves clicking on the image icon and then choosing a file to upload. Usually a JPEG or a GIF is the best way to go.
5. Adding video to your blog
Fortunately with Wordpress always evolving, this has become very easy to do. All you have to do is press the ‘Insert/Edit Embedded Media’ and then select your video type and your file. The disadvantage to adding your own video is that it puts a load on your server and can be slower to load, so the user experience may not be so good.
A good alternative is to simply embed a YouTube video. To do this you click on the HTML button (on the right hand side of the Visual tab) and then insert the code.
After you click on Insert/Edit Embedded Media icon above, you will see the window below. Click on General and then insert the code into the File/Url box as shown below. Then your video will appear! To grab this video code from YouTube you simply copy the text which says ‘Embed’ and paste it as below.
Another way to add a video is to click on the icon below
The next screen will look like this (see below). First, Click on the ‘From URL’ link and then go to YouTube and select the ‘Embed Code’ option. Copy this code by doing Ctrl + C or going to edit and copy and then past that code as shown below. Then simply click on ‘Insert into Post’.
6. The ‘More’ button
When you write a post and you don’t want the entire post to display (i.e. an excerpt), you can simply click on the ‘Insert more tag‘ as shown below. Just select the spot you want to insert it and press it. This is very useful and I use it for many of my posts.
Basically, all text above this will display and all text below it will only display when users click on the full post.
7. Saving your post as a draft or publishing it
When you save a post, if you aren’t quite ready to announce it to the world you can save it as a draft. This means you can access it anytime and keep editing it until you are happy with it. If you Publish a post you can also save it as a draft if you change your mind, but try not to do this if possible because once it is published and it is indexed by google then users may get an error when they look for that page. If your site isn’t well known and google doesn’t index it very often then you are probably okay. When you Publish a post, it means it will display on your site and it also means ‘hopefully’ google will index your site and this will be one of the pages it indexes.
8. Deleting your post
If you want to delete your post it’s easy to do from the admin panel. When you click on POSTS in your sidebar there are 4 options – edit/quick edit/delete/view. Click in the checkbox and select which one you want.
Tips on writing a blog
What should I blog about?
When you set up your site you need to consider what your goals are for the site. Are you writing for your family and friends or do you want to make a profit? Is it a niche site or are you just blogging about anything that comes into your head?
When [...]
What should I blog about?
When you set up your site you need to consider what your goals are for the site. Are you writing for your family and friends or do you want to make a profit? Is it a niche site or are you just blogging about anything that comes into your head?
When blogging, the most important thing is that the blog is interesting to read and you keep the blog updated regularly. I have set up a number of sites which were going great in the first few months when I was updating regularly and I thought these users would keep coming back, but when I stopped posting on a regular basis my users dried up and I went from a few hundred a day to about 20 a day. Your content must also be well written (or at least not so bad that users are turned off).
1. Be useful
Writing something which is of use for others is extremely important. This is why ‘How to’ posts and ‘How to’ E-books are so popular. If you are good at something which you take for granted, try writing about it in a step by step way to explain how to do it. You’ll be surprised how many people don’t know how to do certain things and how difficult it can be to find easy to understand explanations.
2. Write for humans
What I mean by this is that many people write about what they think people will read and end up writing in an unnatural way in order to try and drive traffic to their site. You are better off writing in a natural way for your human audience.
3. Be passionate and unique
Being passionate means you are saying what you really want to say without holding back. Users appreciate honesty and passion so don’t be scared to write what is on your mind and in your own way. If you copy what others are saying without saying anything unique, users wont come back. Google also recognizes uniqueness which can really help your site ranking in the long run.
4. Be controversial
Being controversial is a great way to grab attention. By being controversial, people will often link to your site because they have something to say in response to what you are saying. People are also more likely to comment on your site which also helps drive more traffic.
5. Be Funny
Being funny is a great way to bring back readers on a regular basis and also helps your readers put a more human face to your blogs. Funny posts are probably more often linked to bland, boring posts.
6. Give credit where credit is due
If you use information from another site (e.g. photo or text), you should give credit and a link to that site. Giving credit like this will not damage your site ranking if you are linking to sites which are relevant to the topic you are writing about. In fact, I have heard that google actually rewards you if you are responsible and link to sources which are relevant to what you are writing about.
