Blogging

1. 66

   elisabeth reidposted 16 years ago

   Okay...in case I haven't made myself perfectly clear in other forum posts, I'm a technical idjit.  I'm still struggling with SEO and RSS and I haven't a clue when it comes to referrals and...and...and...the list is endless.  I can build a hub because the capsules are pretty easy to work with but when it comes to promoting it, I'm hopeless.  I'm trying, but it's slow.  So...I've been thinking that it might not be a bad idea to start a blog somewhere.   God knows I've got enough to jabber about and it could actually be useful.
   
   What's the best way to go about it?  Any suggestions with regard to hosting?  Ideas?  Things that have worked for you (and aren't too complicated...it's the idjit thing, remember?)?
   
   I've looked at Blogger.com and, while it wasn't too complicated, the ads didn't make sense and there were a few other things (like...what's an atom feed?  Is that something like an RSS?) and when I looked at other blogs, most of them weren't in English.

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   1. 81

      Princessaposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      I am relieve to see that I am not the only one NOT technically minded in here, lost everytime the 3 letters come and you suppose to know what they mean!

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2. 58

   Mark Knowlesposted 16 years ago

   The easiest way as far as I am concerned is to start with a free wordpress blog:
   
   http://wordpress.com/
   
   It has some limitations, but is an excellent way to start. Then, once you are comfortable - you can move it and host it yourself to have limitless possibilities.
   
   Wordpress, much like hubpages is very SEO, CSS friendly and the only thing you really have to worry about is URL titles, content and tags.
   
   Easy

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3. 66

   elisabeth reidposted 16 years ago

   Thanks, Mark.
   
   In case I haven't mentioned it (and I probably haven't), your advice is always helpful, whether it's a question I've asked or information I've gotten from someone else's question.
   
   Much appreciated.

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4. 75

   charlemontposted 16 years ago

   A blog at Wordpress is a good start.
   Once you have around 15-20 posts there, you can further go on with promotion using article directories. Recently I compiled a list of 25 directories which I'm using for submissions, it is a good reference for me. I don't really care about hundreds of directories I'm not aware of.
   Another way of promotion is social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and stumbleupon.com. You can use socialmarker.com for that purpose. It takes some time to create accounts on each service, but it's worth that. Than simply submit your blog posts there.
   Also, do not forget about blog listings such as technorati.
   And it's all free

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5. 68

   Hope Alexanderposted 16 years ago

   Personally I would go with a blogger blog, only because blogger enables you to add adsense to your blog, whereas a free wordpress blog won't. (Unless they changed something dramatically since I was last there.) Also, the free wordpress blogs have a great deal of restrictions on what you can and cannot customize without paying for the service, whereas blogger will let you do whatever you want with your blog for free.
   
   Wordpress is a great platform, but I think it is best when used with your own hosting, which might be something you get into later. When you have your own hosting you can customize it as you wish and make it look really slick. (I have several wordpress blogs on my own hosting platform, and they are great.)
   
   I created a fairly successful free wordpress blog, but annoyingly, could not monetize it, or really play with the appearance all that much. For income and the ability to have your blog grow with you, I would go with blogger. It's also been my experience that blogger blogs monetize faster than other blogs.

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6. 58

   Mark Knowlesposted 16 years ago

   Thanks elisabeth
   
   Hope - The good thing about the free wordpress blogs is it allows you to learn the basics and then you can move it later and host it yourself. I have a blogger blog and quite a few wordpress blogs, but for some reason I get better traffic to the wordpress blogs.
   
   I also get good referral traffic from wordpress itself.
   
   But you are right about the monetization - if that's your immediate goal, blogger is easier to add adsense to. It is possible to add affiliate banner ads to wordpress blogs though:
   
   
   http://marcus1234.wordpress.com/2007/11 … w-tequila/

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7. 87

   Marisa Wrightposted 16 years ago

   I started out with Wordpress and changed to Blogger for the reasons Hope mentions.
   
   It took me a couple of months to realise that there's not much benefit in being able to monetize your blog, if you're not getting any visitors.
   
   If I was going to get into blogging again, I think I would go with Wordpress, wait till I'd built up a bit of a readership, then arrange hosting so I could upgrade to the monetized version.

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8. 60

   larrybassposted 16 years ago

   I'm still sort of a babe in the woods over there yet but I would Highly recommend Blogger as another poster has abovel. Like you said, it's pretty easy and it works really, really well for me. Oh ya, of course it's not built for commercial purposes so I've tweaked it without a lot of the marketing pitches for all kinds of stuff showing up. I just love sharing similar stuff with others out there who care to share too...
   
   Oh ya, and another thing. If it ain't FRE$ then I don't need it or want it. Some of us Canadians are a little tight with our coinage. Now the governmutts are trying to Kill and Banish forever, the Historical Canadian one cent piece, that just celebrated it's Centennial year. One politician/dork, was very scornful and disrespectful and hateful enough (IMHO) to say "It's had it's Birthday last month, let's have it's Nuneral next month, ya, ya!" or something along those lines! ;-)  Rich guy talk or WHAT? Bet that dufuss hasn't picked up many lucky pennies off the sidewalk, in his whole life. Anyone wanna bet with this grizzled ol' bushguy? :-)  Just Kidding...
   
   Try this link to check out one of my new Blogger creations, if you'd like to get a feel for the place even more...
   
   http://larrybass.blogspot.com/LarryBass
   
   
   Later,
   
   LarryB
   
   Oh ya, here's the link to one of my blogs there. Let me know if you can dig any part of it or am I wasting my time tryin' to help unit all people, in the big picture?
   
   Or, and you could even check out this URL  http://larrybsblog.blogspot.com/  to-day. for another example. Don't be shy to let me know if you dig it to some degree or not, if you have a little virtual time to share with this ol' woodsman.
   
   Later,
   
   LarryB
   
   P.S. For any readers of this post, I hope y'all have linked your blog to Google, the King searcher, as well! Google LOVES Blogger. I rank pretty high over there already.
   
   Chow!

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9. 80

   Uninvited Writerposted 16 years ago

   Well, since Google owns Blogger I guess they do love it
   
   Mark: I have added other affiliate ads to my blogs at blogger in addition to AdSense. I couldn't find anything that told me I couldn't do that.

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10. 70

    chantelg4posted 16 years ago

    Just start you own, it's not that complicated. Get your own domain and install wordpress. There are lots of tutorials out there to help get started. I had no clue in the beginning and now I am uploading plugins and all kinds of nifty add ons.

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