Genius Types » Blogging

Blog Getting Started Checklist

GT — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:00:23 +0000

Getting Started with your New Blog

If you don’t have a blog yet, read How to Blog :: The Manual to get started. It’s not that difficult and it’s the first step to building your own online brand. In the future, your earning potential might have a lot to do with how connected you are on the internet and a blog is the networking machine to get you there.

As far as I’m concerned, WordPress is the only way to go if you’re serious about leaving your mark in cyberspace. It’s free software, so hosting space is all you’ll need to pay for. If you have the time and energy to hack around and figure it out, there are a million hosts out there that will rent space to you for under $10 a month.

If you’d rather stay away from code and server languages, you might want to check out my partner hosting company, The Genius Tree, where you can get a pre-installed blog with all plugins that you see here on Genius Types. (You would also have the added benefit of access to my team of blog experts for advice.)

Either way, there are several standard actions you’ll want to take once you’ve got it online to maximize the potential of your blog. It took me months to figure most of this stuff out, but here’s the checklist I wish I had when I was getting started:

1. Set up Akismet

Akismet is an anti-spam plugin that comes with your WordPress installation. It’s an absolute must for anyone who is serious about blogging. Comment spam is an enormous problem and this plugin all but eliminates it.

I’ve already had over 21,000 spam comments deflected by Akismet and Darren Rowse has passed the 2 million mark. If I had to spend all my time deleting spam comments, I might just consider giving up blogging all together.

Setting up Aksimet requires acquiring a WordPress API key. You get an API key after signing up for a free WordPress account. Once you have the key, activate Aksimet by clicking on “Plugins” and then “Aksimet Configuration” from your WordPress dashboard.

(Access your WordPress dashboard by going to http://yourBlogURL.com/wp-admin.)

2. Set up Feedburner

FeedBurner is absolutely necessary for any serious blogger. It’s a service that makes it easy for people to subscribe to your blog and keep track of updates.

Setting up a FeedBurner account will give you an entirely new RSS feed with all the bells and whistles that FeedBurner provides. To make sure there’s no confusion, it’s important to set up FeedBurner from the start so that none of your subscribers get left behind.

Go to FeedBurner.com to register your feed for free. Once you have the new feed, click on “Options” and then “Feedburner” from your WordPress dashboard and enter the feed address in the space provided.

(The Genius Tree Blogs come with the FeedBurner plugin installed. If you don’t have it already, get it here.)

3. Google Webmaster Tools

Your first step on the way to mastering Search Engine Optimization is to register your site with Google. Since Google gives a certain amount of credit for seniority, it’s important to make sure to alert them of your site as soon as possible.

Click here to register your site.

Once your account is set up, you must verify your blog to activate the account. The easiest way is to choose “add a meta tag” and copy the code into your header by clicking on “Presentation,” then “Theme Editor,” and then “header.” (Make sure to backup all the files in your wp-content folder before you start to modify files.) Be sure to paste the code somewhere between the head tags.

Once your site is verified, register your sitemap with Google to make it easier to index your site.

Register your sitemap with Google by clicking on the “Sitemap” option in Google Webmaster tools. Choose “add a sitemap” then “add a general sitemap.” The address of your sitemap should be http://yourblogURL/sitemap.xml.

(The Genius Tree blogs come with a sitemap and a plugin that keeps it up to date. If you don’t already have it installed, get it here.)

4. Set up Google Analytics

When I first started blogging, I used a $50 software package to track my traffic stats for three months before I figured out that Google had free software available with even more functionality. The amount of insight that Analytics provides is amazing and should keep your curiosity occupied for hours.

Set up Analytics by clicking here.

Add the code to your header by clicking on “Presentation,” then “Theme Editor,” and then “header.” Paste the code below the body tag. (Again, make sure your wp-contents folder is backed up before you modify files.)

5. Set up Google AdSense

While we’re on the Google kick, you might as well sign up for Google AdSense to start making some money. AdSense is a service that places content-specific ads on your site and pays you every time someone clicks on an ad. AdSense clicks bring in anywhere from $.05 to $.50 per click at first and increase as the demand for your ad space increases.

Click here to set up Google Adsense.

Once you have an AdSense account, you can use the “AdSense Setup” link to create the perfect ad shape to fit your site. Paste the code in your theme template by clicking on “Presentation” then “Theme Editor.”

Tinkering with different AdSense arrangements in your theme always seems to lead to missing code and jacked up themes, so be sure to backup your files before messing with your theme.

6. Register with Technorati

Technorati is the standard measuring stick for the blogosphere. They rank over 80 million blogs based on incoming links from other blogs. Each time a blog links to yours, you get one point of authority. As your blog grows, your Technorati rank will get lower and lower.

7. Start a Backup Regimen

If you become a serious blogger, you’ll spend hundreds of hours in front of your computer. To protect your investment of time, its extremely important to get on a regular backup regimen.

From your WordPress Dashboard, click “Manage” and then “Backup.” Select all tables and choose “save to server.” This creates a backup of your WordPress database onto your server.

Next, use an FTP client (Smart FTP for PC or Cyberduck for Mac) to download your wp-content folder (inside the public_html folder). Since your database backup is inside this folder, you should have all the critical files you need should anything happen

(The Genius Tree blogs come with a backup plugin installed. If you don’t have it, get it here.)

8. Become an Amazon Affiliate

The Amazon affiliate program is one of the most common affiliate programs used by bloggers. It’s easy to use and Amazon sells just about everything under the sun.

9. Sign up for Text-Link Ads and LinkWorth

Text-Link Ads and LinkWorth serve as a brokers between your blog and advertisers who wish to purchase text-links. You typically won’t be attractive to advertisers until you start generating some traffic, but it doesn’t hurt to sign up so you’re ready when the time comes.

10. Start Blogging!

Whew! Now that we’ve gotten all the busy work out of the way, it’s time to start blogging! Nothing on this checklist matters without quality content. I’ve found that the two most important factors in blogging are:

and

2. Consistent Posting

See you in the blogosphere!

It’s not Just a Blog, it’s Your Personal Brand

GT — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 11:00:04 +0000

The Birth of A Blogger

A year ago I was not a blogger. I thought blogs were for people who wanted to keep an online journal about how their day was going and how bad their ex-boyfriend sucked. I knew I needed an online presence, but I thought my needs were more advanced than a blog could provide.

I knew the name blog came from mashing together the words web and log. The idea summoned Captain Kirk’s voice in my head saying the words “star date.” I didn’t need a futuristic MySpace page, I needed a professional website to express my ideas.

I had already spent hundreds of hours trying to learn PHP. All of that time had only produced a primitive framework for what was to become GeniusTypes.com, and I decided to take a break and see what else was out there.

A few Google searches later I about fell out of my chair. The level of design and content available on the web blew my little hacked-together PHP site out of the water. These guys were either all programming geniuses or someone was helping them out.

Blogging Software

I quickly learned that a new generation of opensource blogging software, lead by a program called WordPress, was making it possible for the average person to focus on putting their ideas on the internet instead of learning how to code. The software was completely free (hosting not included), and professionally designed templates were available to make these sites look fantastic.

I was clearly wasting my time trying to learn how to code. It certainly wasn’t my strong suit, and the work had already been done by the WordPress elves in the sky. Besides, even if I could get a professional-looking site up, I could never match the ease and simplicity at which WordPress organizes content.

I learned that blogging software can create much more than just a blog. It’s an extremely powerful content management system for just about anyone and any business. Now that I know, I recommend it to just about everyone who needs a website. Why pay for an expensive design when you can just tweak a blog template to suit your needs?

No More Barriers to Entry

Now that the barriers to entry (coding and cost) have been all but eliminated, there’s no excuse not to have a website. The future value of even a lazily-kept blog is too great to pass up.

In today’s world, the chances you’ll stay in the same job for the rest of your career are slim. In fact, the chances you’ll stay in any one job for more than a few years are slim. It’s a rapidly changing world and you have to take steps to secure your future.

Every time you leave one job for the next, you have to start over again; learning a new system, gaining new seniority, and building new skills. You dust off the old resume, add a few experiences, and put it back on the shelf to collect more dust.

A Living Document

What if you could keep a living, breathing resume with you throughout your career, through several jobs, and across several experiences. What if this document could keep track of all the great learning experiences as they happen and archive them so you’ll never forget?

Better yet, what if you could express your ideas to others and build on your expertise in a forum that isn’t limited to your current work environment? Over time, as you meet more and more like-minded people, you can begin to build a powerful network.

What if, over time, this document begins to encompass all that you’re passionate about professionally; so that anyone, including potential clients, employers, and business partners can find and connect with you and your way of thinking? Wouldn’t that be powerful?

Today’s blogs can do all that and more.

Reasons to Blog

There are a lot of good reasons to start a blog today and begin archiving the important bits of information that normally enter and leave your brain.

1. Your Personal Brand

As it builds and connects you with others, your credibility and online stature grows. It becomes a representation of who you are and defines you beyond your current occupation.

If done right, your blog can be the hub for all your professional activities; including job hunting, business prospecting, idea testing, and publicity. In any situation, you can hand someone a business card with one web address that will give them all the information they need about you.

2. A Permanent Archive of Your Thoughts

Once you write a blog post, it will be available for the world to see for as long as you keep your site online. As you add more and more posts, you’re adding deeper and deeper layers to your work. A year-old blog can be packed with more information than several novels.

3. Web Traffic is The Currency of the Future

Compared to a static website, a blog is much more likely to attract visitors. Search engines are attracted to the organization and structure that blog software gives you. Blogs naturally attract links from other blogs, which is the most powerful way to generate search engine traffic.

All of this means that your blog will begin to generate a stream of traffic, and traffic is the currency of the web. Even if your stream is just at trickle, it’s much more valuable than the non-existent traffic streams of most of the people you know.

If you treat it like an investment by slowly building it over time, your stream might just grow into a river that could potentially make you independently wealthy.

Traffic is valuable in so many ways, we’re just now beginning to scratch the surface. If you already have a traffic stream as new uses are discovered, you’ll be in the perfect position to realize the value.

As of right now, Genius Types traffic is tangibly worth about $10 per 1000 page views when you count all of the income streams. That means that once I get to 100,000 page views a month, I’ll have an income stream of about $1,000 a month.

The great thing is that the $10 CPM (cost per thousand) figure I just gave you will continue to grow over time along with my overall traffic, which will increase my income exponentially.

The main reason it continues to grow is that web advertising rates are set by simple market economics. As more and more advertisers look to the web, the demand for ads increases. As I get more and more traffic, the demand for my particular advertising source increases as well.

If you can get on the leading edge of this new advertising model, you’ll be way ahead of the competition in five or ten years.

4. Your Own Private Market

Your own private market is much more likely to purchase a product that you produce or endorse than the average market. For example, you could write an e-book and sell it directly to your own market.

If you own a consulting business, you’ll be sure to find a few new clients amongst your private market. Almost anything that you create can be introduced to your market.

5. Your Affiliate Network

It’s very likely that much of your individual income in the future will be produced by your affiliate network. What if most of our purchasing decisions in the future are made on personal referrals, and each referral is worth something? People with authority in large networks will make a lot of money.

You can already see it happening. Many of the biggest internet money-makers are doing it with affiliate marketing.

To be a part of the marketing revolution, just keep track of the products you use that really impress you. See if the producer has an affiliate program and recommend it on your blog. Over time, you’ll build a base of affiliate links that might start generating an income stream. Ten years down the line, that might be all you need to do to pay your way.

6. Page Rank Power

In the future, more and more value will become of page rank.

Types of Blogs

You don’t have to be a writer to start a blog. A blog can hold any type of information that you can think of. Many of the most popular sites on the web are just collections of links. By linking to information, you provide a service to information seekers by saving them the time it took to find the information.

A blog can be a collection of pictures, or movies, or songs. No matter what it is, it’s important that you just get started with something.

Begin to carve out a tiny little corner of the internet. Plant the seed and slowly nurture it by adding information to it over time. Before long, it will grow and blossom into a tree that might shelter and protect you.

Read How to Blog :: The Manual to get started.

Should You Specialize or Generalize Your Blog?

GT — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 11:00:28 +0000

Conventional wisdom in the blogosphere says to pick a theme for your blog and stick with it. For bloggers with more than one interest, this usually means operating multiple blogs. Proponents of this theory say that too many topics will confuse your readers.

As usual, I hold the contrarian view on this topic. I think you’re better off with one blog that encapsulates all of your passions than you are with five separate ones. Here’s why:

Keeps it Interesting

To be honest, I get bored reading blogs that publish on the same topics over and over. I like to be surprised with information that I wasn’t necessarily looking for, but needed to know. When a blog gets too predictable, I tend to tune it out.

People think that my approach confuses a blog’s readership, but I find the opposite to be true. In my experience, if I have one thing in common with a person, I tend to have a lot in common with that person.

I can’t tell you how many emails I’ve received from readers who wrote to tell me how much they have in common with me. For example, they might share my love for passive income, bulk vending, guitar, and blogging. It might seem like such a coincidence to have this much in common with one person, but people of the same personality types tend to be attracted to the same activities.

If I had five different blogs, these people would never realize how much they had in common with me, and might even become disinterested.

Presents Your Full Brand

The internet has ushered in so many changes. One of my favorites is the move from company branding to individual branding.

Ten years ago, your professional identity was most likely associated with the company you worked for. When you handed out a business card, you probably gave out a card with your employer’s logo.

In today’s world, your professional identity is increasingly becoming your individual brand. As independent contracting becomes more the norm and people change careers at a faster and faster rate, the smart thing to do is to build a brand for yourself.

For example, my brand is Genius Types. When I make a business connection, I hand the person a card with a Genius Types logo and my blog address. No matter what type of business I am conducting (film, internet, vending, etc.), I send them to one place: GeniusTypes.com.

If I had to carry around five different business cards in my pocket, my brand would be diluted. I want people to see the full scope of my skills, interests, and capabilities when they look me up. If they are only seeing a fifth of my portfolio, they are not getting a clear picture of who I am.

Plus, I could be missing out on an unexpected connection. Someone might find out about me because of my interest in bulk vending, but after seeing my website, they might also learn that I’m an independent film producer. That connection could lead to an opportunity that I would have missed if my interests were spread out.

Long-Tail Marketing

Long-tail is one of the great new buzz words floating around cyberspace. It refers to the reason companies like Amazon.com and NetFlix have achieved such great success on the internet.

These companies are not making their treasure by offering the most popular books and DVD’s on the market. They get the overwhelming majority of their sales from obscure titles that no one else has. These companies are not successful because they specialize, they’re successful because they generalize.

Fortunately for us, blogs are naturally optimized for long-tail marketing because they give us the ability to constantly add new content while archiving the old. This means that every time you write about a new topic, you are opening the door to search-engine hits on that topic to add to your current arsenal of search engine keywords.

If you’re only writing about one topic, you aren’t taking advantage of this strength. If you keep hashing the same keywords over and over, you might own that keyword, but that’s all you’ll own.

I’d rather have a thousand different entry points and keywords to my site that one really strong one.

Synergy

Something happens when all of your energy is focused on one blog instead of diluted on several. The most obvious difference is that you’ll be able to post at a higher frequency.

Frequency is one of the most important factors in building an audience. You’ll be able to attract more readers to a blog that posts once a day than you will with five blogs combined that post once a week.

Plus, a certain synergy exists when all of your different writing is showcased together. The different articles are like different pieces of a puzzle that come together to reveal who you are. It’s the interaction of the articles that paints the whole picture.

Have Enough Consistency to Keep People Interested

As with most things, balance is the key. You need to be consistent enough to keep people interested. It’s probably not a good idea to write about a completely different topic every time without revisiting an old topic. The best strategy is to pick a handful of general topics and rotate your writing within each of these topics. For example, I don’t write about passive income every day, but I do about once a week.

Clean Up Links to Increase Page Rank

GT — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 13:00:23 +0000

Broken links can be silently killing your page rank if you’re not careful. It’s easier than you think to “dirty-up” your site with broken links.

Search engines see bad links as a sign of unreliability and penalize your page rank for it. If you are a blogger who constantly adds inter-site references within your posts like I do, it’s easy to let a bad link or two slip through the cracks.

Awhile back, I started making what I thought were improvements to my site. It turns out that Google didn’t see it that way. I went from a page rank of 6 to a rank of 0 in just a couple of days! It wasn’t until I spent hours and hours of my life on website surgery that I got it back, but I’ll never see those hours again.

Bad Publicity

Not only does it affect your page rank, but it turns off potential readers to your site. The last thing you want is a potential reader, excited about a link they found on someone else’s site, finding a 404 error page when they reach your site. You might not ever see that reader again.

This guide will help you to clean up your links to maintain a sparkling page rank. We’ll start with ways to avoid breaking links, and follow up with what do with ones that are already broken.

What Not to Do

As a general rule in my life, I tend to learn things the hard way. That’s good for you because you can learn from my mistakes. I paid the “stupid tax” so you don’t have to. Take it from me, don’t do the following things!

1. Never Change Your Permalinks

As soon as your site goes live on the internet, search engine crawlers are soon to find it. Once they have mapped your site, they will get angry with you if they can’t find something on their map when they return. Do yourself a favor and choose your permalink strategy before your site goes live.

This is the best possible permalink strategy in my opinion:

http://yourURL.com/postname

It’s short and sweet and easy for other people to reference. Once you start adding a bunch of forward-slashes and directories, I lose interest.

To designate this strategy in WordPress, click permalinks under the options menu. Click the custom radio button and add /%postname%/ in the text field.

You must have a .htaccess file in order for this to work. If you don’t have one, WordPress will let you know after you submit your permalink changes. Just create a blank document titled .htaccess, copy the text that WordPress gives you, and paste it into the document.

Upload the document to the directory where your blog resides. Some servers take a few minutes to recognize the new permalinks.

While you should never change your actual permalinks, there is a sneaky way around this. There’s a plugin available that will redirect visitors that were searching for your old links to your new links. It’s called Dean’s Permalinks Migration.

This is your get-out-of-jail-free card if you started with a bad permalink strategy and need to change it.

2. Never Change or Delete Categories

It may seem innocent to change your category strategy from time to time, but beware. Every category has an archive permalink which is indexed by search engines. If you don’t like a category anymore, you might consider hiding it in your category lists, but don’t delete it.

Instructions for this can be found in the Wordpess Template Tag Directory.

3. Never Delete Posts.

A blog is very much like a newspaper. Once something is published, it’s out there. The best you can do to change something you don’t like is to publish an update or correction.

What To Do

The best way to start edging up your Google page rank is to get on the inside. Set up an account with Google Webmaster Tools.

This is your direct line of communication with Google. Instead of waiting around for Google bots to index your site and hoping they get it right, you can send them where you want them.

The first thing you should do when you set up an account is show Google where your Google site map is. If you don’t have one, you can create one easily by installing this plugin.

A lot of people don’t believe in Google site maps, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Find Your Broken Links

Once your account is set up, and it has collected some data, you can check to see if Google ran into any errors while crawling your site. Just click on your website and select Not Found under Web Crawl Errors. If Google found any bad links, they will show up here.

You should also check your server logging software for the most detailed report. I use Logaholic, and it’s just okay for the price. I’m sure I could do better, but it gets the job done.

Fix Your Links

If you can isolate which link caused the mistake, you can fix it, but it isn’t always easy. The link might be out of your control, such as on someone else’s site or on a page that can’t be changed.

As a safety precaution, you should always include a 301 redirect rule in addition to fixing the link.

301 Redirects

I’m not ashamed to say it… I love 301 redirects. They are a lifesaver for constant website fiddlers.

A 301 redirect is a piece of code in your .htaccess file that redirects a user looking for one link to the link of your choice. One excellent way to use this function is to redirect people from your broken links to your good links.

Here’s how to do it:

Before you do anything, make sure to back up your entire site including your database. Take it from me, it can make your heart stop to try and access your site after you changed something, and only get an error message.

In addition to my site/database backup, I like to keep an extra copy of my .htaccess file on hand while I’m working on it for easy reference if I need to revert back to an older version.

Add this code to the beginning of your .htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On

redirect 301 /badlink http://URL/goodlink
redirect 301 /badlink2 http://URL/goodlink2
redirect 301 /badlink3 http://URL/goodlink3

Each redirect 301 gets it’s own line. If the text wraps, just make sure that each line starts with “redirect 301.”

Here is an example of a redirect I use to cover for a misspelling. I have a link to paradigm somewhere that should be paradigms.

redirect 301 /principles/paradigm http://geniustypes.com/principles/paradigms

The text wraps in this post, but is actually on one line. Try it by clicking this bad link and watch how it redirects you to the good link.

You can add as many redirects as you need to make sure you’re covered.

This should help get you on the way to page rank bliss! Now all you have to do is create some quality content.

Find Your Blog’s Compound Growth Rate

GT — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 13:00:10 +0000

This article is for any blogger, entrepreneur, or investor who is serious about analyzing their investment.

One of the most important factors of any investment is its growth rate, but calculating it can be difficult. It’s not as easy as comparing one period of production to the next. It’s important to find a sustained pattern of growth over a period of time so that you are not fooled by short-term anomalies.

If you are a blogger or small business owner, finding your compound growth rate can help you project where your business is going. It can provide necessary feedback to keep you working through what may seem like fruitless times.

When your investment compounds over time, it benefits from one of the most powerful wealth building tools in the universe: exponential growth.

Here’s the formula:

Compound Growth Rate = ((FV/PV)^1/n) – 1

FV = Future Value
PV = Present Value
n = Number of periods

Since it isn’t easy to do on the fly, I’ve included a spreadsheet that will calculate it for you. Download it here.

Genius Types’ Compound Monthly Growth Rate

I’ll use the monthly growth rate of Genius Types as an example. Here is a list of unique visitors to Genius Types over the last five months.

Unique Visitors

2,423 November
2,709 December
5,434 January
7,273 February
10,314 March

To figure the compound monthly growth rate, we plug the data into our formula:

((10,314/2,423)^1/4) – 1 = 44%

I use March’s total for the Future Value and November’s for the Present value. “n” in this case is 4 because even though we are referencing five months, the total amount of time between them is 4 months. Don’t make the mistake of counting your first period, it’s just a starting point.

According to these calculations, Genius Types is growing at the compound rate of 44% per month. Now, here’s the fun part! We can project where Genius Types will be in a year if this rate continues.

In the spreadsheet (download it here), there is an area where you can plug in the results from your most recent period and your projected growth rate and see where your data will be twelve periods from now.

According to the spreadsheet, this Genius Types is projected to attract 569,396 visitors in March of next year!

The question will be whether or not I can sustain 44% growth month over month. In most business models, the growth rate slows as the business grows. It will be interesting to see if that applies to blogging.

Why I Blog

GT — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:00:08 +0000

Gleb Reys of Personal Development Ideas tagged me today in the blog meme that is sweeping the world. Thanks Gleb! His article Why I Blog was a result of being tagged by Edward Mills from Evolving Times in his article Why I Blog.

I commented on Gleb’s post that he really took the pressure off trying to come up with a blog idea today. Whew! Thanks again, Gleb. Now I just have to figure out what I’m going to title this post. Hmmm.

Before I get started I’m just going to tag a few people right now to get it out of the way. Okay, you ready?

John Wesley at Pick the Brain Tag, you’re it. Wow, that was kind of cool.

Alright, now Nneka of Balanced Life Center. Tag, you’re it.

Who now, oh yeah… Mark McGuinness of Wishful Thinking… Tag, you’re it.

Johan Holmberg of The Probabilist. Tag, you’re it.

And last, but not least: Steve Olson. Tag, you’re it.

Alright, so here’s why I blog:

Steve Pavlina Told Me To

I didn’t even know what a blog was before I came across his article How to Make Money From your Blog. I was working day and night trying to create this website I had in my head. I had been studying code languages for months and struggling to produce my brainchild: a gathering place for people to discuss life, creativity, and entrepreneurship.

When I found Steve’s blog, I was dumbfounded. There it was: an online community with intelligent discussion and TONS of traffic. Then there was the money he was making! Unbelievable. I learned about WordPress and immediately dropped my late-night relationship with learning code languages. (Read How to Blog :: The Manual if you don’t know what WordPress is)

When I started to discover the blogosphere I was even more dumbfounded. Turns out, about 55 milllion other people read the same article I did.

Passive Income

One of the things I wanted to share with my readers is my passion for passive income. I had already been collecting passive assets in real estate, bulk candy vending, network marketing, eBay retailing, etc. To me, it looked like there was a passive component to blogging. I figured that once I wrote a post, it would continue to leverage that one time effort by bringing in a small income stream for as long as I keep my blog.

Now, I realize it’s not quite that simple. It takes an awful lot of work to keep up a regular blog. I see the passive component as a snowball that needs to be pushed a long way up the hill before it starts to roll on its own. Also, I’m not sure that I could sustain traffic forever if I just decided to stop posting.

To Connect With Human Beings

It wasn’t until I started to blog that I realized what a powerful form of expression it was. I’ve got a lot of ideas bouncing around my head, and not everyone on my block wants to be bored by them. I have a few close friends that I discuss these sorts of things with, but there’s only so many deep discussions one can have in one sitting.

Now, when I’m struck with and idea, I just hit my keyboard. I am not imposing on anyone because nobody clicks on my article unless they are interested in the topic. Not all of my readers like all of my material, and they are able to pick and choose the content they spend their time on.

It’s a really amazing experience when someone relates to something I wrote and leaves a great comment. It’s even better if they have their own blog and I’ve found a new place to hang out! It makes the world a much smaller place to know that there are many people out there who think like I do.

To Help Others

I pretty much did life the hard way. If I can share my experiences with others so that they might have an easier time of it, I’m happy.

To Learn

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was the first and best book I ever read on personal development. One of the many things it taught me was this: The best way to learn is to teach.

I am on a journey in life just like everyone else. When I learn something, sharing it with others helps me to understand it more. All of my friends in the blogosphere have so much to share. Together we form a living, learning community of minds that grow together.

Other’s Turn

I’m excited to see how this group of bloggers responds to my tags. These are a few of my friends in the blogosphere who think like I do.

How to Blog :: The Manual

GT — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 05:40:01 +0000

Everyone should have a blog. If you don’t have one you should consider getting one immediately because it’s easy to set up and extremely powerful. This post has all the information you need to get started.

A blog is the platform of choice for personal expression in the digital age. It is a way for everyone to leave some kind of mark on the world, no matter the size.

A blog can be as simple as a collection of someone’s favorite links, or as complicated as an online text book. Everyone has a need to express themselves and it has never been easier to do just that.

This post is the result of months of work gathering information to set up geniustypes.com. At the time it would have been nice to have had all of the information in one place. Wanting to help people avoid the hassle that I went though, I decided to put this post together. I will continue to update the information on this post as I find new resources, so please check back.

Here are the basic steps that this post will cover:

1. Decide what to blog about
2. Get a URL and web host
3. Choose your blogging software
4. Choose your blog layout
5. Customize your blog layout
6. Install plugins
7. Syndicate your blog
8. Learn blog etiquette
9. Monetize
10. Learn SMO and SEO
11. Get to work!

When I stumbled upon the blogging technology that is now available, I was blown away at how advanced it was. I got excited because I realized that the internet was truly starting to deliver to the individual what it has promised us from the beginning: a level playing ground.

Before I knew about blogging, I was spending a lot of time learning web-building languages to build geniustypes.com. For months, I plowed through the frustrating process of learning the basics in html, css, php, and anything else I could get my hands on.

As a creative person the design side came easy to me, however programming languages were a chore. I figured that until I could hire a programming intern I would have to bite the bullet and do it myself. I didn’t realistically foresee finishing the site for at least a year.

After several months, I had designed the core structure of the site and was very proud of my work so I decided to take a break and spend some time browsing other websites. When I saw the high level of design and functionality that existed on the web I suddenly didn’t feel as confident in my work. My site was rudimentary compared to the others I had seen.

My first instinct was that I should work harder and raise the level of my site, but as I investigated, I realized that people were using blogging software to help give them an edge. This software allowed them to leverage technology so that they could concentrate on producing content. I decided to try it out and found that this new blogging technology was user-friendly to the point that anyone could learn to use it without having to learn code; and sophisticated enough that the little guy could compete.

When I installed the software, I was able to re-create work that had taken a few months in just a few days. Not only did my site look better, but it had functionality that I had never dreamed that I would be capable of creating. From the beginning, the software did everything for me including site navigation, communication with other blogs, database backups, and even publicity. I couldn’t believe that I was able to do so much with this software, but you won’t believe the best part… (move in closer to your screen)… it’s free.

1) Decide what to blog about

Blog what you know. You don’t have to be an expert to have a blog. Think about the things you are passionate about. One clue to finding your passion is how you spend your free time. So what if you watch six hours of TV per day, maybe you could have a blog about TV programs.

If you are an information junkie, you could have a blog consisting of links to your favorite news stories each day. You don’t even have to comment if you don’t want to. People with similar interests could check your blog to see what is going on in the world.

If you are an artist, you could create blog posts showcasing your art. If you wanted to take it a step further you could also showcase the art of your peers.

If you like to crochet, you could blog about that! The beauty of the internet is that no matter how obscure your interest, you are bound to find at least some other people out of six billion on the planet to relate to.

Be true to yourself. If you blog about your passion your personality will shine through. You will attract others who want to share in your excitement. Don’t be deceptive or pretend that you are someone you’re not. People can sense when a blog is insincere.

Don’t hold back! Publish your best work for free. The old model for marketing information on the internet was to only give teaser bits of content for free so that some would be enticed to buy the premium content such as a book, cd, or movie. The introduction of affiliate programs and shared ad-space have made it possible for content authors to give their premium content away for free and still generate a stream of income. I love this concept because it allows bloggers to share information with anyone who wants it and still rewards them for their work.

Here are some links to great articles on what to blog about:

“10 Web Tools to Help Generate Blog Content Ideas” – Seomoz.org
“Blogging for Personal Growth” – Steve Pavlina

2) Get a URL and Web Host

Once you have figured out what you are going to blog about, it’s time to decide how much control you want over it. The more control, the more it will cost, and the more technical skills you will need to learn.

Free blogs. There are many sites that will give you a free blog. My favorite is wordpress.com, but many other sites exist such as blogger.com or Squidoo.com. With free blogs you give up some control of your site including the URL. Instead of having www.yoursite.com, free sites give you something like yoursite.wordpress.com. If control isn’t important to you then free blogging is a no-brainer!

Register a Domain Name and find a host. If you have decided that you want your own unique URL, the first thing to do is check to see if the name you want is available. Most services offer one stop shopping for domain names and web hosting which makes it easier to organize your site.

You can register a domain for less than $20 per year, and get hosting for under $20 per month. If the domain name you want is taken, some of these services will allow you to place bid on the name which will give you a chance to claim it when the current owner releases the name.

I tried a half dozen hosts and now I swear by The Genius Tree for my hosting. I partnered with them because they hey give me the most control of my site, have the nicest interface, include the most support documentation, and are bar-none to the fastest.

If you are serious about blogging, save yourself the hassle of having to transfer your site, (like I did), when your host doesn’t provide the services you need and start with The Genius Tree.

To make things even better, I have partnered with them to give you the expertise that has taken me thousands of hours to compile. An account with The Genius Tree includes a free WordPress Installation with all of the plugins that you see here in this site!

You may not know about plugins yet, but they expand the functionality of your site and sometimes take forever to install. Now you can have them in a fraction of the time.

I even keep an eye on the forums to make sure that you’re not left in the cold.

3) Choose your blogging software.

If you have chosen to go with a free blog service, than you have already completed this step. If you have your own domain name and host, it’s time to get some blogging software. The best software that I know of is WordPress. Not only is WordPress free, it’s an absolutely fantastic package with outstanding support documentation. There is enough information in the support pages to allow you to learn how to do just about anything to your blog.

Installation. Installing WordPress is easy; in the worst case scenario they’ll even install it for you for free. If you are serious about customizing your blog I challenge you to do it yourself to get familiar with how it works. The full installation documentation is located here

After you download WordPress you need a way to upload the file to your new server. Check out these FTP programs:

PC
Core FTP
WS FTP
Cute FTP

MAC
Fugu

The Genius Tree come with WordPress pre-installed; but if you’re with another host, you might be able to use an installer such as Fantastico to help you with the WordPress installation.

4) Choose your blog layout.

One great thing about WordPress is the ability to choose a professional looking theme to use. People from around the world have been gracious enough to design themes and make them available for us to use. You can browse the theme directory here.

When you find a theme you like, download it and upload it into the folder “wp_content/themes” located in the main WordPress folder. Go to the “presentation” tab in your WordPress admin site to change to your new theme.

5) Customize your blog layout.

If the author of the theme you choose allows it, you can customize the look of your site in the “theme editor” under the “presentation” link in your WordPress admin pages.

The “Stylesheet” controls the style of your site such as the appearance of fonts, backgrounds, and links. This file is written in CSS, which is a fairly simple coding language. Click here for a tutorial on CSS.

The “Header” and “Sidebar” files control the look of, guess what: the header and sidebar. They contain a mixture of html and WordPress “tags” written in php. Without having to learn php, you can visit this list of tags to cut and paste the ones with the functionality that you want.

The “Main Index” file controls how the content will be listed on much of your site including possibly your home page and category listings. This file has html and WordPress tags.

The “Single Post” file controls the content on single post pages.

If you have a “home.php” file it will control how your home page looks.

6. Install plugins.

Plugins are pieces of code designed by third parties that add functionality to your site. There is a list of plugins here. Plugins are downloaded and then uploaded into the wp_content/plugins folder. Make sure to read the “read me” file included with the plugin for special instructions. Some plugins are simply activated in the “plugins” section of the WordPress admin pages, and some require you to add a table to your WordPress database or a tag to your template.

Here is a list of the plugins I use for geniustypes.com:

Aksimet -saves me hours by fending off spam comments.
AdSense-Deluxe -an easy way to organize google ads.
Bookmark Me -the del.icio.us button at the bottom of my posts.
CG-SameCat -generates a list of pages in the same category.
Dean’s Permalinks Migration -get out of jail free card for changing my mind.
Exec-PHP -Lets me run PHP in posts and pages.
Feedburner Feed Replacement -directs RSS feeds to feedburner.
Get Recent Comments -generates a list of recent comments in the sidebar.
Google Sitemaps -creates a Google-friendly sitemap.
Gregarious -Digg and Reddit buttons.
Kramer -converts inbound links to pingbacks.
MyAvitars -adds MyBlogLog avatars to comments.
Popularity Contest -most popular posts.
SEO Title Tag -customizes my title tags.
Show Top Commentators -lists the top contributers to comments.
SRG Clean Archives -archives that don’t give me a headache.
Subscribe to Comments -alerts people of follow-ups to their comments.
Tags in the Head -not entirely sure what this does, but makes me feel better.
Terong Related Links -lists related links.
The Excerpt Reloaded -customizable excerpts.
Underscore Permalinks -uses _ instead of – in permalinks.
Ultimate Tag Warrior -organizes tags for each post.
Contact Form -a simple contact form.

7) Syndicate your blog.

In addition to making your content available to those who visit your website, syndication allows readers to subscribe to your blog so that they are alerted immediately when new posts are available. The most common form of syndication is RSS or “real simple syndication.” RSS feeds allow people to add your blog to their home page at Yahoo! or Google, or to a feed reader like NewsFire(mac), or to a feed organizing website such as Newsgator.

I use a service called Feed Burner to syndicate geniustypes.com. Feed Burner is a free service that organizes and simplifies the syndication process. It allows you to customize your feed and publicizes it for you. It also gives you insight into your feed traffic and subscriptions that you may not have had under your regular traffic analyzing software.

Learn blog etiquette.

In order to earn respect in the blogosphere, it is important to follow the unwritten rules of blogging. Most of it is common sense:

Don’t spam.
Don’t shamelessly promote yourself.
Communicate with your readers.
Don’t post your link indiscriminately on other blogs.
Don’t drown your content in advertising.
Be respectful.
Don’t use a snarky tone when disagreeing with other bloggers.
Be unselfish.
Offer free help to others.

The list goes on. Here are some good blog articles that discuss blog etiquette:

Introducing the “Golden Rules of Blog Etiquette” -Rohit Bhargava
About.com list of etiquette articles

9) Monetize.

Successful bloggers can make a serious living from blog advertising. Steve Pavlina has recently posted that he is making over $1000 per day from his blog. Darren Rowse is another great example.

People who are making a full time income blogging treat their blogs as a serious businesses by putting full-time hours into producing content. There is enough content on some successful blogs to fill dozens of books, so don’t quit your day job just yet.

Just as in every social aspect of life, a duality exists in the blogosphere over the legitimacy of making money from your blog. On one extreme, some people believe that no one should earn any amount of money. On the other, some people opportunistically try to extract every penny from their blogs by any means necessary.

My stance is somewhere in between. I think that it is perfectly honorable to make money for the hard work you put into your blog. Blogging is my full time job and I would not be able to share this free information if I were not earning money in some way. At the same time, I believe in a certain amount of restraint. When in doubt, I think one should err on the side of caution. My grandpa used to say that “pigs get fed, and hogs get slaughtered,” which accurately suggests that people who balance modesty with motivation tend to be the most successful.

The most common way to put advertising on your blog is Google Adsense.

Another very common advertising program is Amazon.com associates.

There are hundreds more affiliate programs available. If you are referencing products or services in your blog, make sure to find out if they have an affiliate program so that you can get credit for referring people to their site.

10) Learn SMO and SEO.

SMO stands for social media optimization and has evolved from SEO, or search engine optimization. Blogs tend to get most of their traffic from social networking, as opposed to search engine queries. If someone likes your site, they might bookmark it with a social bookmarking site. Once they bookmark it, others might take notice and visit your site also. The best articles on the net benefit from “viral” marketing, meaning that the article’s popularity spreads through the internet like a virus.

Start by registering with these social bookmarking sites to get a feel for them. There are dozens more available, but this list should get you started:

Technorati
Digg.com
Reddit.com
Ma.gnolia.com

Here are some articles about learning SMO and SEO:

Optimizing Your Blog for Search Engines -Pronet Advertising
5 Rules of Social Media Optimization -Rohit Bhargava
SEO Tips -ProBlogger.net

11) Get to work!

Once your blog is set up, it’s time to generate some content! Some people advocate posting shorter articles more frequently, and others advocate posting longer articles less frequently. No matter which style you choose, the important thing is consistency. Try to maintain the rhythm of your blog so that people can come to count on it.

I look forward to meeting you in the blogosphere!

Get started with The Genius Tree by clicking here.