How To Start A Blog
So this page is basically going to walk you step by step, through the process of setting up your own traffic getting, lead sucking, customer pulling & profit generating blog today. Whatever you want to blog about, I’m going to teach you how to make a crap load of money doing it.
I put a lot of thought into how I’m going to stucture this page and decided to just lay it all out rigth here in step by step instructions. I also thought about charging for this information, but that wouldn’t be very fair for the new guys on a low budget.
So here’s the deal, blogging is wonderful! Whether you’re looking to start a blog to grow your business, to express your opinions or you’re looking to start a blog to make money, follow the steps below and you’ll soon be running a highly lucrative authority blog. But first, let me tell you a quick story.I used to hate blogging!
In fact, I resented it simply because it used to be like a chore. Reason being, I was blogging about stuff I didn’t give two shits about. First there was my Volks Wagen blog, then I had a technology blog and I believe a womans health blog. Obviously, I didn’t know much about those subjects.
Anyway, the niches looked profitable so I said I would publish a post every day on all 3 blogs. I started off posting 3 times a day for 2 weeks, then it went down to around 3 posts a week. From there everything came to a halt as I completely lost interest.
So here’s the lesson, don’t start a blog unless you can picture yourself using it for the next couple of years. As that was my problem, I had absolutely no interest or opinions on anything to do with Volks Wagens, technology or woman’s health.
After I realised that it just wasn’t going to work in those dumb niches, I spent the next 2 years building niche websites, learning SEO, article marketing, email marketing and all those ninja jedi mind tricks you’ll keep hearing about.
When you’ve completely followed everything I’ve laid out here, you’ll be on your way to thousands of daily visitors, more money and the time to spend it. I actually have several blogs that all do very well. Between them I make a very comfortable living. I do internal product launches, build crazy email lists and help a lot of people make a lot of money.
Best of all, my blogs have gotten me some amazing offers. I’ve had countless people and even companies approach me offering all kinds of stuff like paid consulting. They’ve gotten me noticed and they’re allowing me to live the dream. Ok… seriously best of all… they’ve allowed me to meet some incredible people.
One thing you need to know is that making a living online is super easy. And as long as you follow my advice and don’t put boundries up for yourself, you’ll be kicking ass 100 days from now.
It’s so simple, I can even break down how you’ll make a fortune in a few bullet points…
- Setup blog (domain + hosting + wordpress + configuration)
- Write good content.
- Get traffic
- Sell stuff & make money
Step 1. Identifying Niche
So before I tell you how to setup your blog, just a quick word on niche selection. Although I’m sure the majority of you have already established your niche, this needs to be said. If you’re going to be personally blogging, you need to find yourself a niche you’re truly passionate about.
Whatever you do, don’t pick anything too narrow. You need to pick a really broad niche or you’ll run out of things to talk about. This does happen as I experienced it first hand! Pick something broad or else!
Step 2. Registering A Domain Name & Hosting
In order to get your blog online, you need a domain name and hosting. You could actually use a free service like Blogger, Typepad, WordPress.com or even Tublr. They are all free, but you’ll only get a subdomain. Say for example my blog….
Using a free service it would be www.conqueredriches.blogspot.com compared to www.conqueredriches.com. When I got started online at 12 years old, I went ahead and started using blogspot. Here’s the problem. With free services you’re really limited to what you can do. For example… you’ll only get a few theme choices, a few plugins and basically, no customization.
The other downside is that you’re virtually writing for someone else’s website! This is the key reason why you’d be astonishingly stupid to not buy your own domain.
With free services, you’re just getting a sub-domain on an already established website. So fundamentally, you’re building upon someones else’s website and increasing their authority.
You wonder why sites like Blogger, Hubpages and EzineArticles have so much page rank and authority? Simply because silly people solely write content for their sites and build pages for them. Quite frankly, it’s plain silly and there’s a time and a reason to take advantage of those sites. BUT NOT, for your own blogs!
I don’t care who you’ve been talking to or what they’ve been teaching you, you can’t use a free domain. So you’re going to use WordPress which is a completely free blogging platform.
All you need is a domain name and hosting, the WordPress install is free. Millions of blogs run on Worpress because of its incredible features and customization abilities. Plus, there are some major search engine benefits that’ll sky rocket your blog’s traffic.
There are A LOT of domain providers, so I’m going to give you 2 options. I’ve used both of these services for years and they are the most cost effective as well as easiest to use:
Both are excellent services, and while Godaddy is rated the #1 domain provider… It’s my foremost opinion that you’d be better off going with BlueHost. Why? Well because it’s a hosting service and domain registrar.
If you’re new to all this, you’re better off with an all in one solution. Godaddy also offers hosting, but you should definitely go with BlueHost. Here’s why:
- UNLIMITED Domain Hosting
- UNLIMITED GB Hosting Space
- UNLIMITED GB File Transfer
- UNLIMITED E-mail Accounts
- FREE Domain
- FREE Site Builder w/ templates
- Secure Shell, SSL, FTP, Stats
- CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL
- $75 Free Google Credit
- 99.9% Network Uptime Guarantee
Some of those features might not make total sense to you right now, but they will. All you to know is that hosting space, file transfers, domain hosting and email accounts usually cost money. With BlueHost, you get unlimited everything and to top it all off, you get a free domain. Plus, a $75 Google Adwords credit which will come in handy.
So here’s what to do. Click here to visit the BlueHost website. On that page, you’ll be able to checkout all the features and at the bottom, you’ll see where it says “I need a domain name”. You should already have a good idea of what your blog is going to be called. Just make it easy to remember and relevant to your blog topic.
Also… you MUST have a .com, a .net or a .org or you’ll have a major disadvantage over your competition. Those 3 domain extensions and the best, most professional and they rank well in the search engines.
Some of the other domains are less expensive, but we’re talking a few dollars difference. Thing is, having one of those high tier domains will give you a major advantage in the search engines. If you have a .info and you’re competing with a .com, you’ll need way more backlinks than your competitor to beat him (more on the complex stuff later).
ConqueredRiches.com is all about conquering the Internet, making money from home and being an entrepreneur. So once you’ve thought of an on topic domain, enter it in the box and proceed to the next page.
On that page you’ll need to fill in all your details, which hosting plan you want to go on and all that crap. You can get started for less than $5/month, next to nothing. So fill out the forms and you’ll of successfully purchased your first domain and hosting account.
Step 3. Installing WordPress
Once you’ve done all of the above, you’re ready to install WordPress. (quick note: If you’ve used another domain registrar and hosting company, you need to make sure your name servers are set to your hosting accounts. Then you need to login to Cpanel which I’ll explain in a minute, click addon domains and you need to enter in the domain you just purchased.
Once done just follow the rest of this tutorial) As I said earlire, WordPress is a blogging platform. This blog and millions of others run on WordPress, it’s like the industry standard. Don’t even bother looking this up as it’s a fact that WordPress ruled the blogging world.
It’s completely customizable, search engine friendly, VERY user friendly and most importantly, WordPress blogs rank really well in the search engines. So enough said about that, here’s what to do.
You’ll receive an email with all of your login credentials for BlueHost or whichever hosting company you decided to go with. In one of the emails you’ll find your Cpanel login information.
The Cpanel is essentially the back office of your hosting account. You login to your Cpanel by going to yourdomain.com/cpanel and entering your username & pass.
Once inside, you’ll find a LOAD of options. Too many in fact, but fortunately for you it’s easy to navigate through. Just scroll down until you come across the little smiley face icon that says “Fantastico De Luxe”.
Check image on the right to see the icon. It’s really simple to do, on the following page you just have to select new installation. Select the domain you want to install WordPress on and finalize. You’ll then be given the URL of your new WordPress blog’s that will be like: http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/
Make sure you remember that link as it’s the login to your blog’s control panel.
Step 4. Configuring & Customizing Your Blog
I need to break step 4 down into multiple posts as there’s a lot to it. Customizing your blog, picking the right theme, installing and configuring plugins, all that good stuff. DO NOT skip this stuff as it’ll make or break your new blog.
If you want your blog to be a raving success then it needs to look, feel and smell good. Just kidding, but it really must look good, there’s also some internal linking you need to setup before you start posting!
I’ll explain what all of this is and there’s a ton of stuff for you to learn. If you’re new, you really are wondering into the unknown here. So here are the articles and they are in a step by step structure. Read them in order!
- Finding The Best WordPress Theme For Your Blog (+ Important Step)
- The Ultimate WordPress Setup (Permalinks & other crap)
- The Best WordPress Plugins For A Lucrative Blog
- 5 WordPress Tweaks That’ll Explode Your Blog Traffic
Step 5. Getting Ready For Launch
Ok, so just before you unleash your website to the search engines, you need to do a couple of things. Post some content, setup categories and post content under all of them. Then you need to make your blog social with some cool tricks I learned from an underground traffic guru.
Anyway, posting some content before you tell the search engines about it is a very good idea. Launching a site with 1 page somehow penalizes it. However launching a site that’s got 10+ pages of quality content will give you a jump start. Not everyone will tell you this, but from my 100+ sites I’ve launched I can tell you it works.
So here’s what to do, you need to go into your WP-ADMIN and in the sidebar under posts you’ll find a tab labled categories. Click on it and create 5-15 categories. I always say never launch a site with less than 10 pieces of solid content.
So if you’re going with 5 categories, 2 posts per category. Using categories is really important, it’s good for SEO. Your category pages can rank in the search engines and bring in a ton of traffic. Plus the main reason to use them is so your visitor’s can easily navigate through your blog’s content.
They are dead simple to setup. Just enter a name, URL and description. I would actually try and use keywords for the category names as long term you’ll gain some extra traffic.
Once done, you need to write 1-3 posts per category, minimum of 10 posts total before your blog goes live. Just trust me as if you don’t do this, it will take you longer to rank well and gain Google’s trust.
I’ve proven this to be a fact, despite what others may tell you. That’s pretty much it, your new blog should be ready for launch right about now!
Step 6. All Systems Go! + Content Creation
Now is the time when you chance your privacy settings to allow search engines to index your site. It should be indexed within the next couple of days tops. So now is when you’re free to blog about whatever you want. Don’t worry though, I’m not leaving you stranded here.
Something you should know… Just because you’re blog is up, it doesn’t mean a ton of traffic and money is just going to fall into your arms. First you need to start posting regular content to keep your blog updated at all times.
So I’ve written a few posts on content creation that you’re gonna want to read: (You might want to read the “Dominating The Search Engines” posts first)
- My 100 Day Blog Content Challenge
- The Two Species Of Blog Content – When Fused Your Blog Will Explode
- Six Killer Blog Post Types Every Blogger Should Use
- On Page SEO Secrets For Search Engine Domination
Step 7. Dominating The Search Engines
If you actually want to make money from your blog, you need to learn about search engine optimization. Yeah, it may sound like this complex thing you’ll never be able to do, but it’s really simple. So why does SEO even matter? Well it’s what’s going to send you a ton of traffic. Without traffic, your blog is nothing. And without SEO, none of your blog posts will rank in the search engines.
So there are 2 sides to search engine optimization. On page SEO and Off page SEO. It’s really important that you read all of these posts. As honestly, this is the KEY ingredient to a successful blog. It will make or break your blog, so read these posts.
- What Is On page SEO?
- What Is Off Page SEO?
- 10 Link Building Strategies That’ll Sky-rocket Your Rankings
- The Best Link Building Strategy For Search Engine Success
- Top Secret Link Building Tips For Search Engine Domination
- How To Get Backlinks Today
- Link Building Software – The Big Top 5
- The Best Link Building Services
- Boosting And Indexing Backlinks
Step 8. Blog Monetization Strategies
So this is the section where I teach you how to monetize the crap out of your blog’s visitors. I would probably say this is the second most important part of this course. As any old Bob can generate traffic, but the money isn’t in traffic, it’s in monetization & conversions! Yeah, think about this for a second…
There are people who’ve pulled in over a quarter of a million dollars from an email list of under 1000 subscribers. Those numbers are pretty unheard of, but it’s been done more than once.
The point is that with online marketing, it’s all about conversions. If you’re selling 1 affiliate product per 100 visitors and you’re getting 1000 daily visitors, you might be making $300-$500/day.
Those numbers are decent right? Enough money to pretty much quit your job and live wherever you like. Anyway, what if you were converting 5% of visitors? That’d be $1500-$2500/day. I know, basic maths right…
I’m just trying to put things into perspective. As the slightest tweak to your blog can make those numbers go up or down. One affiliate banner moving from the left of your blog to the right could make that 4% difference. Anyway, this information is going to show you how to monetize your traffic and increase conversions.
- How To Make Money From Blogging
- How To Monetize Your Blog
- 9 Ways To Make Money On The Internet
- Best Ways To Make Money Online Blogging
- List Building Tips, Tricks & Secrets
- Email Marketing Tips That’ll Get Shit Sold
- The Ultimate Email Marketing Strategy
- CPA Marketing And Why It’s A Cash Cow
- The Product Launch Plan
- How To Make A Crap Load Of Money With JV’s
Step 9. Unusual Traffic Getting Guides
While the traffic you’ll be getting from the search engines is enough to absolutely dominate and make a fortune, you should definitely make use of other sources. I mean think about it, Google is 1 website out of hundreds of millions. Think about the other top 100+ websites online, you can get a lot of traffic from all of them. Sometimes more than free search engine traffic. I know guys who generate 1000-5000 visitors on a daily basis from Twitter and Facebook alone. I also know people who get a ton of traffic from social bookmarking sites, article directories and obviously Youtube.
Anyway, you need to take advantage of all the resources available. As you really don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket with almighty Google. What if they happen to de-index your blog all of a sudden? It’s happened to me before and Google’s a real bitch. They won’t give you a warning, they will literally fuck you overnight. I know SEVERAL people who’ve had $300-500+ incomes taking away overnight. Leaving them literally broke and homeless. Anyway, make use of this stuff…
- How To Increase Website Traffic - The Big 7
- The Ultimate Facebook Marketing Strategy
- The Ultimate Twitter Marketing Strategy
- Social Bookmarking Madness
- The Beginners Guide To Blog Commenting
- The Ultimate Article Marketing Strategy
- Video Marketing Tips For Search Engine Success
- Yahoo Answers Craziness
- Forum Posting And Web.20 Traffic Generation
Step 10. The Future
- Building A Long Term Blog
- Internal Product Launches
- List Building And Leverage
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