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Blogging for Money? Research Your Market First!

Posted by on 12:37 pm in Uncategorized | 2 comments

If you have an eye towards making money from your blog, then you should first have an idea of what makes a profitable blog so that you can make decisions right from the start that support that goal. There are two primary ways to make money from a blog. 1. Get lots of traffic. 2. Be in a market, or niche, that either has a lot of products or services or unique products or services that other bloggers aren’t targeting. There are two pretty simple ways to determine whether or not your topic will get lots of traffic or if it is in a ‘rich’ market. Method 1, Search for a High Traffic Topic To test the traffic level of your topic, use Google Trends...

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WordPress Blog Hosting

Posted by on 6:37 pm in Uncategorized | 7 comments

Special Offer: Sign-up for WordPress hosting using one of our preferred hosts and Ninja Blog Setup will install, setup and configure a WordPress blog for you, for free! (After you sign-up for hosting, fill out the form to order your blog installation.) Choose Your Host Wisely Before you can have a self-hosted WordPress blog with your very own domain name, you must first select a host for your site. The host is the company that provides the server where your site will be digitally stored on a hard drive and be continually connected to the internet where it can be accessed by billions of internet users. All hosts are not created equally, however, so it pays to learn just a little bit about what you should look for in a quality blog hosting company. WordPress Hosting Plan Components A standard hosting environment for blog hosting software will include the following components. Apache web server, which is found on almost 100% of Linux hosting services. SQL server – usually MySQL which will manage the WordPress blog database. A mail host, which allows your WordPress site to send email notifications for things like comments, password resets and administrator functions. Fantastico – allows easy installation of WordPress and many other popular website management tools: Drupal (themes), osCommerce, Moveable Type. PHP – WordPress runs best on the latest version of php 5+ WordPress Hosting Benefits Getting your WordPress site hosting setup on your own domain name can have many benefits over using free blog hosting services like WordPress.com or Blogger. Custom WordPress themes: You can visit any of the many WordPress themes download sites and modify it or have a designer modify it to perfectly represent your topic or business blog. WordPress plug-ins: You can perform an almost unlimited number of creative services that make creating a blog easier. Multiple sites: With a web hosting reseller unlimited account, or even many shared hosting plans, you can host 20 or more WordPress blogs on one hosting provider plan. WordPress Host Advanced Features There are many blog hosting elements that will not affect the novice or low traffic blogger searching for reliable and affordable WordPress hosting. However once your WordPress blog begins to earn decent money or you experience bandwidth limits or process throttling, you may want to upgrade to a more advanced WordPress host. Server virtualization allows your WordPress blog to run unaffected by other sites on the same server. You are protected from downtime that could result from other sites’ traffic spikes or errors. Dual processor servers or even quad processor servers provide extra speed and power for high traffic or processor intensive sites. For example lots of AJAX or many database calls for each page that is served. WordPress hosting will sometimes benefit from this if your site has a lot of traffic. WordPress Web Host Cautions These are the primary things to be aware of when looking for WordPress blog hosting: Windows hosting – WordPress will run on Windows servers, but it can be a hassle and some features like the very important search engine friendly links (permalinks) can be almost impossible. Avoid Windows Servers for WordPress hosting (this has nothing to do with the Windows on your own PC. Poor support – Before I signup for any WordPress hosting, I...

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How to Choose a Topic for your Blog

Posted by on 10:42 pm in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Darren from ProBlogger has a good post called How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog which is aimed at people trying to decide what subject to blog about. Here are the questions he asks: Is the Topic Popular? Is the Topic one that is growing or shrinking? What competition is there? What is the competition neglecting? Will you have enough Content? Are there Income Streams on the Topic? They are all worth considering, but first you need to answer the big one… Are You Interested in the Topic? A friend of mine explained it this way recently: “Probably the best place to start thinking about what your blog should be about is to consider what YOU are about.” The unspoken truth about blogging is that it isn’t easy, but it becomes virtually impossible if the subject you’ve chosen for your site doesn’t spring from a real part of your life. You will need to be constantly involved in your topic to become a great blogger and you just can’t fake real involvement and expertise. Market, Niche & Competition I think there are a lot of misconceptions about blogging for profit and most of them concern the issue of competition. If there are a lot of blogs in a topic, it may very well mean that it is a thriving market and that there is a lot of money to be made on that topic. My thought is that in general you will make more money as a mediocre blog in a very profitable niche rather than to be the best blog in the world on a topic that not very many people care about, or that there is no real market for (ie. no products or services or advertisers in that topic). However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t lucrative opportunities available in certain micro-niche markets where you may be able to dominate the niche (be the big fish in a small pond). Chose your topic carefully, but do make sure that it is something that you are naturally involved in or have some passion for. There is no room for fakers in blogging. There are varied remedies for sundry diseases. Several remedies are antifungal medicines. In specific instances pharmacies offer to them customers Viagra. If you’re concerned about erectile problem, you have to study about “cialis daily” and “daily cialis“. Probably you already know some about the matter. Maybe “cialis for daily use cost” is an extremely complicated question. Matters, like “undefined”, are linked many types of medical problems. A scientific research found that about 14 percent of patients capture Bupropion had sexual disfunction. Finally ordering remedies from the Web can save money, but keep these tips in...

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How to Pick a Domain Name for Your Blog

Posted by on 9:53 am in Domain Names | 4 comments

How to Pick a Domain Name for Your Blog

Picking a domain name for your blog is the second most important decision you’ll make when starting a blog (what to blog about is the most important). Most people who are buying a domain for the first time make the same mistakes, so I thought I would write up a crash course for buying a domain name. Here are some brainstorming tools that I use frequently to find great available domain names: World’s Largest Registrar – GoDaddy.com has a great domain search tool that gives you a list of alternative domain names when the one you want isn’t available. Bust a Name Domains Bot They all work really well but are quite different so try them both to get two different points of view when thinking up domain name ideas for your blog. Here are my guidelines for purchasing a domain name: The Basics for Domains get a .com if you can, .net only if you can’t find a good .com no hyphens or dashes no numbers avoid having any of these words: my, the, your as short as possible, ideally 3 words or less, four at a maximum If you follow those guidelines you’ll avoid most of the common domain name mistakes. Then you want to move to more advanced considerations like: How easy is it to tell someone the name, in a conversation, like over the phone and have them find your site? A great domain name works even when someone can’t read it. Watch out for expressions that are said out loud one way and written down in another. For example: Your name: South by Southwest You register: SouthXSouthwest.com (most users will type in southbysouthwest.com instead) This is the best reason not to use numbers in a domain name. If you tell someone your site is: 2 by 4 dot com Do they go to: twobyfour.com or 2by4.com How does it look when it is written down? Some site names look better when written down. This is a reason to keep it short. TrialLawyerAssociationLLC.com would be much better as: TrialLawyers.com Watch out for unintentional or hidden words in a domain name. I recommend showing your potential name to a couple people before you purchase it. You may have a slang, or common swear word in your name without even realizing it. Here’s an example from a top tech site on the web: Experts Exchange. http://www.expertsexchange.com/ Can you figure out why they should have chosen a different name? 🙂 The Last Thing to Remember Unless you are really really trying to jump on a fast moving trend, the best tip I can offer when buying a domain name is not to rush. You do risk having a name you love taken by someone else, while you sleep on it, but in my experience this risk is very low, especially when compared to the idea of naming your blog and then realizing 2 days later that the name just doesn’t fit and you aren’t comfortable with it. Find a domain name that you love and you really feel gives your blog wings. It’s worth a little extra effort up front to set a great tone for you blog. There are varied remedies for sundry diseases. Several remedies are antifungal medicines. In certain instances pharmacies offer to their customers Viagra. If...

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When To Use Blogger & When Not To

Posted by on 9:57 pm in Uncategorized | 0 comments

Most bloggers start out using a free blog service. Blogger.com or Blogspot.com is the most popular, but there are others including WordPress.com which is a free sub-domain version of WordPress.org (the hosted version of WordPress). The Best Reasons to Use A Free Blog Testing Blog Ideas If you have an idea for a new site, but you’re not sure if the niche will be popular or how people will respond to your idea, you could use a free blog as a way to test your idea risk free (no cost) and do it quickly. This way you can be more certain that your concept is going to fly before you commit to purchasing a domain and hosting and the time it takes to create a hosted blog....

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How To Update Domain Name DNS Settings

Posted by on 4:59 pm in Tutorials | 2 comments

This video will demonstrate how to update your domain name settings so that it is pointing to your web hosting company. This process needs to be done before you can set up your website with your hosting company. Also note that once this procedure has been completed, it can take up to 48 hours to become operational as the settings need to spread throughout the Internet. In order to complete this operation, you will need the letter you received from your hosting company when you signed up and the login and password with the company where you registered your domain names. Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video. If you have a question, leave a comment. Questions about Domain Name Server Settings: Is it okay to use the same DNS settings for all my sites? Yes, if your hosting account allows you to host multiple sites on the same account, all of your domains that you are hosting at that account will use the same DNS settings. There are varied remedies for sundry diseases. Several remedies are antifungal medicines. In definite instances pharmacies offer to them customers Viagra. If you’re concerned about erectile problem, you have to study about “cialis daily” and “daily cialis“. Probably you already know some about the question. Maybe “cialis for daily use cost” is an extremely complicated matter. Matters, like “undefined”, are linked many types of medical problems. A scientific research found that about 14 percent of patients capture Bupropion had sexual dysfunction. Finally ordering remedies from the Web can save money, but keep these tips in...

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Can I Import My Site from Blogger.com?

Posted by on 8:04 pm in Questions | 1 comment

Yes it is relatively simple to import all of your posts from your blogspot or blogger.com site into WordPress. WordPress has a built-in import function that automatically imports from all the following blogs: Blogger Import posts, comments, and users from a Blogger blog Blogware Import posts from Blogware DotClear Import categories, users, posts, comments, and links from a DotClear blog GreyMatter Import users, posts, and comments from a Greymatter blog LiveJournal Import posts from a LiveJournal XML export file Movable Type and TypePad Import posts and comments from a Movable Type or Typepad blog RSS Import posts from an RSS feed Textpattern Import categories, users, posts, comments, and links from a Textpattern blog WordPress Import posts, comments, custom fields, pages, and categories from a WordPress export file A Word of Caution if You have a Well Established Blogger Site Moving the posts and comments and users from other blogging platforms to WordPress is not that difficult, but it does require some expertise, if your current site has some status in the search engines to setup the proper redirects on the old site, so that you can have any visitors that arrive via links to the old site get automatically redirected to your new blog. Another potential issue is with images or pictures used in your posts. If they are embedded into your Blogger site, then they will need to be manually moved to the new site and each reference to the all the images in all of your posts will need to be edited to reference the new image location (on your new site). This can be a lot of work. If your site only uses images from Flickr, or you have uploaded all your images to a third party image hosing service, then you will not have any problems and all the images will still work once your site is moved to WordPress. Here is an article that explains some of the issues to be considered, Blogspot to Hosted Domain Name : Feeds, Links, Search Traffic and Pagerank Issues. WordPress.org also has a detailed page about Importing Content. In the long run, a move to WordPress on a fully hosted domain will pay off with much greater freedom and possibility for your site. Not only can you take advantage of all the amazing free tools and services available for WordPress but since you have your own hosting and domain name you will be able to build out your site using other applications like plugins, forums, wikis and many others. [Update – Jan 25, 2008] a new plugin has been released that performs a mapping and redirects all the old blogspot.com urls to your new WordPress blog. I haven’t tried it out yet, but a very promising new plugin for those who want to migrate from blogger to hosted WordPress. There are varied remedies for sundry diseases. Several remedies are antifungal medicines. In certain instances pharmacies offer to their customers Viagra. If you’re concerned about erectile problem, you have to study about “cialis daily” and “daily cialis“. Probably you already know some about the problem. Maybe “cialis for daily use cost” is an extremely complicated matter. Matters, like “undefined”, are linked many types of medical problems. A scientific research found that about 14 percent of patients capture Bupropion had...

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Hello Bloggers!

Posted by on 11:22 am in Uncategorized | 0 comments

“Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!” If you’re interested in seeing a “welcome to WordPress” post on your own blog but have been held back by a lack of technical skills or you just don’t want to be bothered going through all the work required to setup a fully hosted blog on your own domain, then you’ve come to the right place. Ninja Blog Setup service provides a way for everyone to get a high quality blog set up by a WordPress professional for no added cost. All you need to do is pay for your hosting and domain name (less than $10 a month) and we’ll do the rest. Our installations include setting up a professional email address, securing your site against spam comments and setting up search engine friendly addresses. On top of that we install many popular plugins to add cool and useful features to your site and include a host of themes so you can quickly (with one click) try many different visual styles. To do all of this yourself, if you include the time it would take to learn about all these features and how to set them up correctly, would take several hours. If you are serious about making money from your site then you’ll be able to get a much faster head start by having the blog setup Ninjas do the hard work for you – for free! There are varied remedies for sundry diseases. Several remedies are antifungal medicines. In certain instances pharmacies offer to their customers Viagra. If you’re concerned about erectile problem, you have to study about “cialis daily” and “daily cialis“. Probably you already know something about the matter. Maybe “cialis for daily use cost” is an extremely complicated problem. Matters, like “undefined”, are linked many types of medicinal problems. A scientific research found that about 14 percent of patients capture Bupropion had sexual dysfunction. Finally ordering remedies from the Web can save money, but keep these tips in...

read more