Starting a blog...

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WebAddict

WebAddict

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Sep 19, 2006
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Hey guys,

First post, love the site!

I have no experience with blogs, so I want to start one to learn the ins and outs. I learn by doing, so I'm ready to jump in.

My plan is to start blogging on a subject I'm really interested in and monetize with adsense. My questions are the following:

1) Which blogging software? I read how some are more SE friendly than others.
2) Templates - I also have read where it is important to change the default template. Is this true? Where is a good place to get templates.
3) Generating traffic - what methods are popular for generating traffic for blogs. I'm looking mostly white hat here. I know I'll need some links and original content, but are there methods that are specific to blogs that I may be missing?
4) Any other suggestions?

I will be more than happy to keep everyone updated on my progress as well. I'm sure other blog newbies will be interested.

Thanks!
 


1 - wordpress
2 - themes.wordpress.net
3 - set up some link exchanges with fellow bloggers, submit your article to various places, word of mouth
4 - keep the content informational and original.. should get some nice returning readers :)
 
I started a blog on blogger today out of curiosity...
Very shitty. I don't know what I was expecting.
 
Hi WebAddict,

Do you have webspace now or are you looking for a hosted solution?
If you have webspace and will be installing and setting up a blog on your own domain name, you'll want to look into WordPress, or my favourite, b2Evolution.

You certainly want your own unique look and feel so when you choose your blog software, browse through the canned templates that come with it. Then alter it a bit with graphics. Both WordPress and b2Evolution have user forums where people upload and share additional templates.

As for traffic - blogs are set up to ping blog indexing services. You'll get a initial source of traffic that way. Beyond that, you can follow every other article about generating traffic for a website. Make sure you include it in your email and forum posts signatures (free advertising!)

Don't be misled by some of blogging "guru's" of the internet. You are most likely NOT going to get rich doing this. In fact, you might only earn enough each month for a dinner out. I'm not trying to discourage you, but that's just the way it is. You'll generate more traffic, interest, and therefore $$$ if you are blogging about something very controversial, or very unique. Your goal is to get loyal readers to add your .rss feed to their newsreaders so they come back for more, hanging on your every word. These are the people that will link to your site from their sites, and will do your marketing for you, for free.

Good luck!
 
Yze,

Thanks for the feedback.

As for submitting my articles and blog, are there any good blog directories that anyone recommends?
 
WebAddict said:
As for submitting my articles and blog, are there any good blog directories that anyone recommends?
Click to expand...

Rather than a blog directory, focus on your topic. If your blog is about celery, find other sites and blogs and directories based on celery and post your link, advertise, and get involved on those sites (with your link in your sig of course!)
 
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Elvie said:
Rather than a blog directory, focus on your topic. If your blog is about celery, find other sites and blogs and directories based on celery and post your link, advertise, and get involved on those sites (with your link in your sig of course!)
Click to expand...

Elvie you got some good stuff there!!...+reps for you!:banana_sml:
 
greenvy said:
Elvie you got some good stuff there!!...+reps for you!:banana_sml:
Click to expand...

Thanks greenvy,
I used to have many blogs. I quickly learned that if I wasn't REALLY interested in the topic, then it was a horrible burden to keep updated. Readers know when you're full of shit, so pick a topic that you live and breathe (probably not celery haha) and you have a much better time of it.
 
Elvie,

Thanks for the info! Just what I was looking for. Another question that I've had for some time...

Elvie said:
As for traffic - blogs are set up to ping blog indexing services. You'll get a initial source of traffic that way.
Click to expand...

Does this happen automatically? Can you give me an example of an indexing service? How does your blog get more indexing services pinging your blog?

Thanks again, You've got +rep points coming from me!
 
I have a celery blog.

Also look for some of the specialty blog directories like Technorati that you can ping when you update. I used to have a good article about getting blog traffic, but I can't find it. Sorry.
 
Yes, most blog scripts are preprogrammed to automatically ping Weblogs.com and blo.gs and technorati.com. You can usually add others like Ping-o-matic that ping multiple ping servers on your behalf. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_blog for more basic details on what pinging is.

For an example, check out Technorati.com. It's a search engine for blogs. When I'm looking for the latest news on something, I'll often search Technorati to see what other bloggers are saying about a recent news event - their blogs will be indexed there as soon as they post rather than waiting a few days for Google to index them.
 
exlinks is a new blogging platform with a referral system built in-
exLinks

i saw it on digg and powersellersunite, this is what i found on blogmad:

eXlinks is going to be a totally radical social linking network system engineered to boost traffic, hits, visitors, readers and more to your blog or website while increasing your search engine goodness

i figure it couldn't hurt if the people who already blog started spreading around some referral love with each other!
 
Sorry I need to point out that eXlinks is NOT a blogging platform. Its a social link network. Unfortunately we do not offer blog hosting.

But to further contribute to this thread I have to offer the following.

Platform of choice :
Wordpress (hosted : www.wordpress.com or install yourself www.wordpress.org )

White hat SEO:
wordpress allows you to easily rewrite article id's into permalinks ( or friendly urls ) you cant ask for a more whitehat SEO tool than friendly urls.

Traffic : use a blog traffic service like blogmad (www.blogmad.net ) to "trade" traffic and find similar blogs to yours.

Getting backlinks:
find similar blogs to yours using the directories such as technorati and comment on their articles. If your comment is sensible and not "OMG ROTFLZ LOLZ" and something more constructive, chances are the blogowner will check your blog out and hopefully link to you.


massive backlinkage:
signup and refer people to eXlinks

:)
 
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