MaxBlogPress Blog

How to create a blog is probably one of the most asked questions on the Internet these days. To start a blog really is very easy, despite the belief of wanna be bloggers who struggle with their blog setup. The quickest and best way to make a blog is to create a free blog with one of the many platforms readily available. The following are the most widely used blog platforms:

• WordPress
• Blogger
• Live Journal
• Weblog
• Xanga
• MSN Spaces
• Vox

Whichever blog platform you end up choosing when starting a blog, you will be guided along step by step as long as you read the onscreen information. To create a weblog (blog) will take you no longer than 10 minutes in most cases to set up. The blog setup is normally straight forward and doesn’t require any coding knowledge. This is only necessary once you want to start to personalize your blog. I get many emails where people ask me, “how do I start a blog”, “how do I create my own blog”, “how do I start a weblog”, “how do I start my own blog” or “how do you set up a blog” and my answer is always the same.

It depends on which blogging platform you are thinking of using. I could give you tutorials for each and every one of them, but this would really make this blog post endless and boring. Plus, many bloggers have already written articles on starting a blog. The best way however is to create a blog for free.

Whether you decide to create a business blog or create a blog with WordPress, you need to understand that as long as you use free blogging platforms you will be severely limited in blog design, setup, using additional tools and creating a truly personalized weblog.

If you read the instructions on the respective blog platform you will find all relevant information. WordPress is by far the most powerful blog software to startup with. You can create a blog for free in minutes. Then you just write a post and build on this. Just be aware that there are free WordPress blogs and self hosted which are totally different. If you intention is to make money online by starting a blog, then you should seriously consider getting a webhost and setting up WordPress. To create a blog on a self hosted domain, you will need to get the WordPress software from WordPress.org instead of WordPress.com (which is only for free blogs).

Should you still wonder how to create a blog right now, I suggest you visit one of the mentioned blogging platforms and choose an appropriate one to create a free blog. It is best to get comfortable with a free blogging software first and learn the ropes before paying for hosting and not knowing what to do.

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I just has to tell you about this because it’s so

…. so… weird.

Imagine getting your mail online.

No, not your email, your REAL, PHYSICAL, POSTAL mail.

Earth Class Mail will scan your physical mail and send you an email when it arrives and send you the scan to your email.

You forward you physical mail to their facility in Beaverton, OR.

It’s the weirdest, most unlikely service I’ve ever seen online… who doesn’t love to open their own mail??? ‘-)

Well, I guess there are some people… especially small businesses who use the service to replace an ‘employee’ who would do the same thing… open and sort their mail and it’s a lot cheaper than paying a staffer.

It’s also a way for you guys in Asia or Europe or UK to have a US mailing address

But it does open up the ‘idea gate’ and stretches the idea of what the ‘Internet’ can do…

Think of ways you can use the Internet to interface with some activity now that is totally OFFLINE.

It opens up some interesting possibilities

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Business owners claim the usage of blogging in businesses has improved their bottom line which makes sense when we look at current blogging trends. It is a given fact that blogging extends our reach and smart companies have trained their employees to use blogs to the advantage of their business. Statistics can show just how much blogging can improve an organizations bottom line and therefore it is no wonder that more and more business owners focus on the usage of blogging in their businesses.

You can visit a blogging job site any day to see how many employers are actually looking for blog writers these days. Blogging in business has become the new trend and business blogs are showing up at every corner on the Internet.

Advantages of usage of blogging for business:

• Business owners get more exposure
• More exposure equals more bottom line profit
• Non profit organizations can easily spread their message over the Internet
• Employers can inform their workers about the latest business news
• Customers can stay informed of what’s happening in the business
• Companies can publish statistics
• Blogs are more user friendly than websites
• And much more…

As you can see, the usage of blogging in businesses has many advantages for companies and organizations. What holds many employers back to start a blog in the first place is their fear of not knowing what to do. They are afraid of the techno babble and stop before they even start.

For business owners who want to start their own business blog and are not sure what to do next, I recommend they search for a “how to start a business blog” tutorial online. Any good search engine will return many helpful sites to explain the step by step process.

I think we established the importance of implementing the usage of blogging in businesses for companies enough by now to make a difference on the bottom line. Business blogging organizations have long discovered the unlimited advantages that a blog can bring to them. And those companies who act now can ride the wave of success with all the other business blogging organizations.

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Here’s an interesting way to monetize your blog or website… accept tips and give a link in return.

Scratchback.com provides an online tipping system which allows you to accept tips from your readers.

In exchange, you provide the person tipping you with a link to their site. And it’s hands off, just set it up and let it run.

Here’s how it works: You create a free ScratchBack widget, place it on your site, and then readers can tip you. When they do, they get a link of their choice.

So unlike a “Donate Here” button, the person doing the tipping is getting an advertisement in return. And you determine how much the minimum tip is.

It only takes a few minutes to set up, looks good on the site, and Google won’t penalize you for these ads.

Also, with ScratchBack the ads only appear for either a certain length of time, or until they’re bumped off by other ads (your choice.) So if someone wants to keep their link on your site, they’ll need to keep tipping you.

One thing I take issue with is their claim that this idea is brand new. It’s not.

While they’ve updated the look, they’re not the first to create this concept. Some time ago my friend John Delavera created a script called “Buy me a Drink” which basically does the same thing.

With John’s script there is no custom ‘message on mouseover’ like there is with Scratchback.com, but you also get to keep 100% of the tips you receive. ScratchBack keeps 10%.

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To increase blog traffic is like taking a huge slice of the available money pie that is being offered on the Internet. Bloggers know too well, that unless their blog gets a decent amount of traffic by getting a blog traffic increase, the chances of pulling in some good cash are minimal. Increasing our blog traffic isn’t really that hard and everybody can do it.

The first thing you will need to understand is unless you have an ever increasing amount of of blog traffic coming through your door, you will be doomed for failure. Without traffic, most bloggers will reside to the fact that nobody cares about what they tell the world and eventually give up. Giving up is the easy part, the hard part is actually to knuckle down and make it happen.

Who said it was going to be easy?

The most effective way to increase blog traffic would have to be social media marketing. Since it is free but time consuming it offers hope for many bloggers who simply don’t have the money to invest. Most bloggers start out by trying to make money with affiliate marketing. But many fail to actually use blog traffic tracking tools to give them an insight into what works and what doesn’t.

You need to understand that without traffic tracking, you will have absolute no idea on which promotional methods work for you and which don’t. In fact, you could be shooting for the stars but aiming at your feet instead. To get money making traffic as a blogger, you’ll need to drive a lot of traffic to your blog. Not all our traffic will buy what we have to offer. Therefore we need traffic that increases all the time. Blog traffic sites that have nailed this down to a tee are the ones who are cashing in right now. You can too with the appropriate mind set.

Those bloggers who consistently use blog traffic tracking tools know exactly were they stand with their effort. Please keep this in mind. One great free tool to utilize for this purpose would be StatCounter.

Whether you choose to go for paid methods to increase your blog traffic, or free but time consuming ones doesn’t really matter this much. Increase blog traffic now by getting active with increased promotional efforts and don’t forget to track your traffic.

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The Internet is great… lots of free content and easy access to that content.

But as a publisher it could be a nightmare trying to protect your intellectual property.

Site content thieves find it so easy to simply ‘copy-n-paste’ from your site and put it up on their site with not even as much as a ‘thank you’. How can the small publisher keep on top of sites that steal and plagiarize their content?

Try IPlagiarismCheck.com. They have detailed reports so that you can take action, when necessary.

And they do more than just check webpages, they check databases, PDF files, and most other kinds of formats as well as doing deep-web searches.

They could save your content from piracy.

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It’s really an ad for Ray-Ban sunglasses, and it’s been viewed 11 million times on multiple video sites as of this writing, as well as being featured on CNN, MSNBC, and the BBC.

Imagine if your Internet marketing video got half that much exposure… how much traffic could it bring to your site?

So here’s the million dollar question…

Do videos like this just take off on their own?

Or is there someone behind the scenes promoting it?

In the case of the Ray-Ban video, it was no stroke of good luck. Rather, it was strategic planning by Feed company.

According to their site, they’re responsible for the success of many of the online videos you see.

They say they will help you make videos the online community wants to watch, find the sites they’re best suited for, market them to those sites and monitor the results.

Sort of like a video agent.

Creating a viral video could explode your traffic, IF it’s a video people want to watch, and IF the video gets placed on the right sites and talked about by the right people.

Of course, if your video is good enough, you may not need any promotion at all. Videos can and do take off “by themselves.”

The hard part, it seems to me, is coming up with a great idea for an “infomercial” that people will pass on to others.

And it doesn’t hurt to have someone who can open doors for your video, either

Feed Company offers a free white paper on how to get TV commercials and videos exposed on YouTube, MySpace and other top video sharing websites. You can download at their site:
http://www.feedcompany.com

One last thing: If you think what you’re seeing in the Ray-Ban video is real, you might want to check out this YouTube Video:

It just goes to show, you don’t need to be talented if you’re clever.

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The first tool bloggers need to make money from blogging is a self hosted blog. Don’t make the mistake of thinking a free blog will do, except maybe a blogger blog can serve the purpose. But how does blogging make money? Earning an income online sounds great for many and they rush to set up a blog in the opinion that they can make money blogging.

What most bloggers fail to see is that unless they stay away from the meat blogging industry (blogs that talk about blogging) the changes of blogging and earning money are slim to none. They see top bloggers like Problogger make a lot of cash online and build a strong financial base and think - “hey, I can do this too, I can make money from blogging, it can’t be that hard”.

The things is, unless you know exactly what you are going to do to making money by blogging you will struggle to earn a decent income. The bloggers who cash in on their blogs are those who focus on the niches. Niche blogging is making it possible to earn decent money and even help to set yourself up for financial freedom.

A niche is any search term that is searched for on a search engine like Google. It could be “shoes”. Setting up a blog in a niche will allow anybody to tap into the unlimited market of blogging for money. Many bloggers see blogging as a way out of their miserable life. They might be stuck in a dreadful job, or they struggle to put enough food on the table. So they start a blog in the hopes of earning enough financial cash flow online to put an end to their misery.

Blogging for money requires a business plan, much like having a plan with a conventional business. It requires dedication and preferably a passion for the subject to make blogging and writing for your blog natural. To make money from blogging bloggers also need dedication. As with every business, blogging is a long term plan and won’t make anybody rich overnight. Even those blogging successes you hear about who made an insane amount of money within a day have spent month to build a mailing list. This is why they can generate so much cash in such a short period.

If you want to make money from blogging, be assured that it is possible if you stay away from the “make money blogging” industry. This will give you the best possible start to cash in on the Internet.

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WordPress Plugins are the equivalent of what wheels are for cars. Without wheels our cars wouldn’t do very well and the same applies for WordPress Plugins. We need Plugins to help our blog perform better and allow us ease of use.

WordPress Plugins are the WordPress insiders secret on getting better search engine positioning, making blogging easier, allow for faster admin access, better design, more choice in graphics, video, sound and enhancing our readers pleasure when they visit our blog.

Plugins are programming code that allows us to use our WordPress blog with way more functions than the traditional installation. These days there is hardly anything we can’t do via Plugins and smart developers such as Pawan make it possible for us bloggers to give our blog a shinier and more modern appearance.

I lost count on the amount of Plugins I use myself. I simply couldn’t imagine blogging without these nifty pieces of code anymore. If I had the knowledge I would actually go into Plugin development too because it is so popular and just about everybody wants them.

The great thing about WordPress Plugins is that most of them are available for free. Despite this we need to understand that some premium Plugins do cost a little money. In my eyes, this is money well spent because it helps us to personalize our blogs even more.

So lets look at what exactly we can do with WordPress Plugins:

• create a contact form
• show top commenter, recent comments
• show popular posts, related posts
• advertise our stuff (affiliate, own products, etc.)
• get paid (PayPal)
• check our stats
• get cached to take the load of traffic off the server
• incorporate videos and images from 3rd party sites
• chat with our readers
• broadcast podcasts
• format better
• personalize our admin section within WordPress
• link with dofollow, nofollow and other
• create a Google sitemap
• translate our blog into many other languages
• and so much more

When we look at the practical side of Plugins, then we will soon realize that they are very easy to install with minimal fuss. Most Plugins come with excellent documentation (often updates too).

WordPress Plugins are easy to install via FTP even for beginners. To get your WordPress Plugins you can visit the WordPress Plugins support page.

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Imagine a million or so blogs, all linked together in one big informational platform. Now imagine that every blog represents ONE keyword, and no two blogs can share the same word.

That’s MillionBlogs.org, a (somewhat) new concept that allows users to create their own fully functional website based on the word/phrase you’ve snagged for yourself.

If you’re first to apply for your word, odds are it’s yours (all applications are reviewed by hand.)

According to the FAQ, it’s free.

Once you’ve got your keyword, you can create your own fully functional WordPress website based on the word/phrase you purchased.

You’re free to promote, advertise, sell your products or services and also sell/rent advertising space for other interested webmasters. So it’s more of a website than a blog.

And the assumption is you’ll be getting at least some of your traffic from the sheer numbers Millionblogs.org is hoping to attract. We’ll see.

According to the website, this is an experiment aiming to become one of the biggest informational platforms on the Internet.

Notice the term EXPERIMENT. If this turns out to be huge, you’ll be forever thankful you grabbed your term while it was still available.

If not, you haven’t lost anything. Check it out:
http://www.millionblogs.org

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