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Blog Setup For Content Creators
Before we dive into the back story of modern content marketing, talk about how blogging grew up, and captivate you with some awesomely valuable insights and tips. We need to make sure we’re all on the same page, so let me quickly run you through the basics of why you should be blogging, and then how to set up a blog-for those of you that don’t currently have one.
If you don’t already have a blog, i’m not going to waste much time explaining why, and try to convince you of all the benefits and it’s purpose in your business.
If you are, or aspire to be a content creator, an information publisher, and/or information marketer, then you are almost CERTAINLY already aware that this is something you need to be actively involved with doing. and doing it consistently.
Blogging is one of the best ways to:
Prove and Demonstrate Your Expertise.
Contribute and Provide Accessible Value To People that Need It.
Effectively Position yourself as a Thought Leader and Trusted Authority in your Marketplace.
Build a global, public platform that you control and maintain.
Build an audience around any topic or subject matter that resonates with what you’re saying/doing.
Blog Setup for Content Creators
By building a blog, along with this progressing through this training series, implementing the missions at the end, (or signing up for the extended course-free of charge-bottom of post or at the top of the page) you can develop a credible, respected, and buzz-worthy web presence around your content, and build a bankable platform that will generate exponential month over month growth in traffic, opportunities, and sales of your products, events, and services.
If you are an expert, content creator, artist of any sort, comedian, business owner or entrepreneur... You should definitely build a blog to at the very least, establish a voice in the modern world.
If you do already have a blog and/or know how to set one up then you can skip this lesson today and look out for the next couple of lessons where we will be covering the real “secret“ the pro’s use and how it’s the BEST strategy to create a quality audience that knows, likes, and trusts you.
If not, what follows is a quick and practical-no fluff-training that’ll simply tell you, here’s what you need to do to get setup.
Purchase a Domain Name
The first thing you need is to get is a domain name. This is that address that you see in your browser bar. http://www.mysite.com for example.
Now, when choosing a domain name, be sure to consider the options and select the best available one.
So for example, don’t do scrantonandscrantondds.com try something like Annarbordentist.com
Again, sometimes it will not be available so you have to find a workaround by adding or removing words/letters, adding hyphens, etc...
One thing is, you should generally make sure you can get the .COM domain. Unless you have a reason for getting a .net or .tv or .whatever else, just go find an available .com first.
Its just a convenience factor. People are conditioned to the .com at the end.
Domains are also pretty cheap, so you CAN snag a few of them, if you are on the fence about a couple of options and don’t want someone else to get it before you decide whether or not to keep it.
No matter what, you should DEFINITELY buy yourname.com and any of yourbrandorproductnames.com
Try to get the best domains available with your keywords in them. (updated 2013: this is not that much of an advantage any more, if at all.) Use keywords in the sense that you are trying to make it clear what your all about, and in a way that adds to the approach you take with creating your brand.
What i’m talking about here-can go a lot of places, and we don’t have the time to discuss every aspect of branding philosophies and strategies, but basically... What I’m saying is that you are looking for an accurate, descriptive, niche keyword or phrase, that gets high searches and/OR accurately describes and represents what you do. This is something a most folks just don’t understand and consequently get one. Getting this concept NOW, will give you a leg up later and an advantage that some of your competitors may not be aware of.
So again, ADHDCoach.com for example, INSTEAD of barbaraleann867specialletters.com
BUT still get your name. (If it’s available. Aka Jamieleger.com)
One more thing. If you want to get a little bit more creative and it is something that would work well for a product, program, or even your main site...
Try GetThisResult.com or FixThisProblem.com
Good domain names to have, and can work very well for landing pages as well as full blogs and websites.
Still tracking with me? You get the hang of it.
You have to buy a domain through a registrar, which is like the phone-book of internet domains, only, there CANNOT be duplicate listings.
It typically costs around 8-12 U.S. dollars a year to maintain ownership of your virtual little listing, otherwise it can expire and either be auctioned off, or quickly snatched out from underneath you.
If you want to use a platform like Blogger, you don’t have to purchase anything, as they’ll host it and create a subdomain of your choosing.
Keep in mind it will look like this... http://mysite.blogspot.com
vs.
We’ll cover a little more on this and how to choose whats right for you in a minute... (there is a way to make it mysite.com using a platform like blogspot btw, but i would setup a self hosted wordpress website. That is my recommendation if you have any inkling of internet or tech savviness in you/care to/want flexibility and control)
Blogs vs. Websites
But first of all, understand that from your vantage point, all you really NEED to understand is that there are blogs, and there are websites, which in many cases may be the same thing.
A website could be just static offer pages, about us, and other main menu pages that don’t change or get updated often.
A Weblog or blog, which may be listed in a websites navigation menu is inherently much more dynamic and is essentially a brand or person’s worldwide “voice.“ It is there to share content, engage, and encourage discussion.
Both the frequent updates to your blog, and the social nature of a blog-being an active two way conversation, are why blogs are highly valued by google.
Now then,
The two most popular free blog publishing tools are Wordpress and Blogger. There is a self hosted (recommended route) version at wordpress.org, or a third party hosted (free and easier) wordpress.com version as well.
We personally prefer Wordpress.org (self hosted) because it is incredibly robust and is easy to use. However, without a webmaster or basic knowledge of blogging software, Wordpress may seem difficult to use. It’s not, and a few youtube videos would easily get you up to speed, but if you are the totally hands off tech person-then you can use a free tool like wordpress.com or blogger.com
So again, if you aren’t ready to work with a webmaster or you aren’t willing to learn some basic Wordpress functions, (i recommend going this route and getting familiar with Wordpress) then you can go ahead and set up a blog with Blogger.com.
You CAN transfer the entire blog and all its posts and comments to Wordpress.org later. BTW. It ain’t written in stone. ;-)
The hosting company we recommend using is called Hostgator, and the registrar we use is Godaddy or Namecheap.com
Now, I can’t speak for hosting companies i haven’t used, but Hostgator has a HUGELY useful tool called Fantastico, which automatically installs and sets up your wordpress site from a technical perspective with just a few clicks. Super simple.
I’m not a programmer, so this makes me happy... I can easily have a site up and running in about 7 minutes.
Publishing Schedule
After you’ve set up your blog, the next step is to create a publishing schedule. This doesn’t have to be formal or written, but it’s important to update your blog regularly. Consider your audience and how often they would like to see content.
A consumer audience typically prefers frequently updated content every day or every couple of days. A business audience would likely be fine with weekly updates or bi-weekly updates.
Your frequency doesn’t matter; what matters is your commitment. Be consistent in your publishing schedule, both for search rankings and for your audience.
We subconsciously like to be able to depend on people and we value routine – again, at least at a subconscious level!
Next, you want to configure your blog with certain social media widgets to increase your blog’s visibility, traffic, and your blog’s rank with the search engines.
Video blog and podcast as much as possible. I recommend having each major blog post in two or three formats: written, audio, and video. That way, your audience can read and use your content on their own terms, and in the medium they’re most comfortable with.
You also exponentially increase your ability to rank in the search engines and social networks because you can tag your post, video and podcast and distribute your video and audio content to dozens of video and podcast networks. These all equate to wider visibility and quality incoming links.
Lastly, be sure to tag all your content – your written posts, your videos, and your audio.
So in Review:
• You need a Domain Registrar, blogging platform, and a hosting provider.
• If possible, choose a domain name with relevant keywords in it.
• Make sure you are choosing the right platform for your needs.
• Get a solid web hosting provider. (Hostgator is what we use and love for a hosting company, they make installations a breeze and support is top notch.)
• Determine how often you plan to publish new content, and commit to that.
*If you want to get people over to your social profiles-make sure your site has clearly visible social media buttons ABOVE the fold. (some people opt not to have them at all because they prefer to make the only option to further connect-via email.
Nowadays, every popular web service that cares about their customers includes easy to follow instructions and tutorials.
Wordpress also includes a hosted solution at Wordpress.com, which is similar to Blogger, and is easy to use. However you lose some of the rich functionality that is only offered by Wordpress.org, which you install on your website server. More on this later. But it is very easy to setup a brand new wordpress blog on a brand new domain. It can be done in under 10 minutes.
The difference between hosted and installed is simply that a hosted blog is kept at the wordpress.com or blogger.com domain. If you decide to go with blogger com or wordpress com, your domain will look like this: www.yourblog.blogspot.com which i believe you can configure to be your own domain that you buy separately, so it would look like www.yourdomain.com instead of www.yourblog.wordpress.com.
An installed solution, on the other hand, is that you have your own website address and it will simply look like: www.yourblog.com.
Hosted solutions are simpler to use with fewer features and less functionality. Installed solutions are highly configurable, customizable, and give you more freedom. But with that comes more complexity of course.
Choose the best solution for you and your company. But again, we recommend Wordpress.org, the installed solution, as it allows you to add some nifty plugins that will help manage and promote your blog with state of the art tools, most of which are FREE.
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Mission:
So here is the EASIEST distillation of taking this ”seemingly complex“ process of setting up a new website, and simplifying it down to these steps.
1) Select and Register your domain from your favorite registrar like namecheap or godaddy, or create a new account at blogger.com and follow the instructions.
2) Signup with Hostgator (or preferred hosting provider) and change the DNS settings within Godaddy. (If you do not know what the hell that means, then just call your hosting provider or registrar, who’ll walk you through it. Very simple. Or, just google it and watch a 2 minutes youtube video. Basically you are just copying an pasting an address like http://www.websitewelcome.223 into a box at your registrar.)
3) Use Fantastico (found in your cpanel) to automatically setup a new Wordpress installation on your registered domain. (If you don’t know how to do that, call hostgator, and they will walk you through it.)
4) Make sure you have google analytics installed and working on your wordpress website. The google analyticator plugin has proven very simple to easily get analytics connected to my wordpress sites, plus it gives you a nifty little dashboard widget that shows you top traffic stats right from your wordpress admin page. (If you don’t know how get google analytics working with worpress, then to do that, search google or youtube for step by step instructions. Take you 10 minutes or so.)
Now go and get this stuff done, do it quickly, pay attention to the details while you’re doing it and you’ll be ready in no time.
Until we meet again...
Be Your Best,
Jamie
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