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Archives for 2007

Easy way to create WordPress Blog

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Did you just get a new domain? Want to start a blog? If so I highly recommend using WordPress as your blogging platform. It does have a bit of a learning curve, but it’s full of great features and you’ll enjoy using it. Since it’s a popular blogging platform there are a number of plugins and themes available for download. This is great as you can fully customize your blog to your liking with the theme of your choice and any of the thousands of plugins that are available.


So, to set up a wordpress blog the easy way you need to go into your C-Panel on your web hosting site. Login with your username and password.

Once you are in C-Panel, scroll down until you see an icon for Fantastico. Click on it:

1. In Fantastico you’ll see a list of the different types of programs that you can automatically install into your directory.

2. Look for the Blog programs and click on WordPress

3. Go through the install procedure – it will instruct you as you go. If you want your new blog to be in a directory such as mydomain/blog you’ll need to list the name of this directory at the start of the installation process. You’ll also have to assign yourself a login name and password.

4. Once you are finished you can tell Fantastico to send you an email with all of the new installation information. I recommend that you do this, and then store that email on your computer.

It’s easy isn’t it? Within less than 10 minutes you can have a new blog installed. All you have to do now is either start posting in your new blog or customizing the theme etc.




Blogburst

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Almost a year ago I signed up with a new company called Blogburst. Of course this site didn’t exist at that time. I only had two blogs back then.

Blogburst helps promote blog content and provides this content to larger sites that are looking for fresh content. For example I just discovered that my husbands site Odd Planet was finally picked up through the Blogburst network and now his posts are being syndicated on US Today and the Discovery network.

As I was learning that Chris’ site was syndicated I also discovered that my Home and Garden blog was also picked up for syndication on US Today and a few other smaller news related networks.

Blogburst just started paying some of their bloggers for the content that they provide. The top 100 bloggers at Blogburst get paid on different scales with the number 1 blogger being paid the most, and the 80th to 100th being paid about $50 or so. Soon they will open up the payments to even more bloggers.

Chris and I aren’t in that elusive top 100 yet, but perhaps by the next quarter we will be.

Check out Blogburst if you are interested in syndicating some of your sites content.

Stat Counter

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There are a number of sites on the internet that will provide you with statistics for your site. Some are free, or offer limited stats for free, and others only offer their services for a fee.

One of the free site statistic websites that I use is StatCounter. They offer both free and paid services. The free service will keep track of the stats for your last 100 visitors. Since this site doesn’t get a lot of daily traffic yet that’s fine with me.

I can visit StatCounter and see which domains the majority of my visitors have come from, what search engines sent them and what search terms they used to find my site.

Another thing that I like at StatCounter is that it keeps track of the total amount of visitors to the site. I put the code at the bottom of the sidebar, and I occasionally peek at the numbers to see how many visitors have stopped by The Web Files since I started the site.

I’ve never had any problems with the Statcounter service, so if you are looking for a free stats program for your site check it out.

Text Link Ads

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I’ve been using Text Link Ads on a number of my established websites and blogs and I must say that I’ve had some very good results.

So what are “Text-Link-Ads? Well, publishers can sign up for an account and then submit their websites or blogs to Text Link Ads. Sites are approved or rejected almost immediately through their automated site checking system.

If your site qualifies for the program you can add some code to your site that will allow any links that advertisers have purchased on your site to be shown. Text Link Ads can be displayed on the same pages as Google Adsense, Yahoo Publisher network and other contextually served ads since Text Links Ads are not a contextual product.

You can have Text Link ads either automatically approved on your site, or you can request that you be allowed to approve any link requests prior to them being added to your site.

It’s very important that when you add one of your sites to the Text Link Ads system that you take the time to fill out a good site description. Remember, you are competing with a number of other publishers for the advertisers attention. Once you’ve listed your site it will be added to the Text Link Ads directory where advertisers can browse through the listings and choose which sites they’d like to publish their links on.

Links may be purchased on your site for as little as a few days to a whole month. If the advertisers like your site and how their link has been performing on your site they will often renew their purchase each month.

Each link is sold for a minimum of $25 per link. You will be paid half of that price, and Text Link Ads will keep the other half for their part in creating the code for your site and securing an advertiser for you.

You can run as little as one to as many as 10 to 12 text link ads at one time on your site, and you may also add text link ads to WordPress feeds.

If you’re site has some PR, a number of other sites linking to it, and has also achieved a decent Alexa and Technorati ranking it will likely be accepted into the system. If you try to add a site and they don’t accept it right away don’t worry, they keep track of your rejected site and if it does achieve enough rank to qualify they will add it to their system for you.

You can also use affiliate text links or badges on your site. You can earn $25 for referring a new publisher or advertisers to text link ads.

Text Link Ads

Webmaster World

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I like to check in at Webmasterworld every now and then. I find that I visit this site most often whenever it’s become apparent that Google has begun to update page ranks.

The Webmasterworld forum has a large membership base and several key topic discussion areas that range from search engine discussions to affiliate marketing, coding, maintenance, promotion, marketing, website management and web design discussions.

Check it out if you’re looking for a discussion forum where you can learn how to develop your site marketing and optimization skills.

Fuelmyblog

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Have you heard of Fuelmyblog yet? I believe this site went public sometime in December 2006. Fuelmyblog is a site where you can advertise your blog or myspace page absolutely free.

The creators of Fuelmyblog provide a page that is filled with 625 40 px X 40 px squares. To advertise your site simply visit Fuelmyblog and select whichever square that you’d like to advertise your blog on.

When you click the square a pop-up will ask if you’d like to ADD that square. Select the word ADD and fill out the form on the page that comes up.

You can supply an image that is no more than 500 kb in size. It will automatically be resized to 40 x 40 px, or if you don’t have a photo to use for your site you can select from a number of free images.

Once you’ve completed the information page you’ll be able to pre-view your square, if it looks fine submit the form. When you view the site after filling out the form you’ll see that the square you’ve selected now has an X in it meaning that it’s reserved for your space.

Usually within only a few hours you’ll find that your site is up and being advertised on Fuelmyblog.

This service is completely free. It was created as a way for people to find interesting blogs.

At the time of writing there are only 213 squares left on the main page. There are many more unfilled squares on their feature pages – More, Business, Life, and All Sorts.

I listed several of my sites on Fuelmyblog a couple of weeks ago, and when I look at my site stats I can see that I’ve been getting a few visitors each day from Fuelmyblog, for each of the blogs that I listed.

So what are you waiting for? Get over to Fuelmyblog before all those squares are filled up!

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