How To Make a Blog The Easy Way

When I talk to people about blogging, they always say they don’t know how to do it. To me setting it up is a piece of cake, but in case that’s not you, I’m going to show you how to make a blog in only a few minutes!

First, this applies to anyone with a hosting account with cPanel. While there are some ways you can get a free blog, I would recommend having your own hosting account for many reasons. You get complete control over which themes and plugins you use, and more importantly you can’t be told the content you are writing about isn’t allowed.

Back to How To Make a Blog!

This is how to make a blog, the easy way!

Once you are inside your cPanel control panel, it’s actually really easy. Simply goto Site Software, then click on WordPress. The next page has a bunch of options but the only one you have to change is the admin username, password, and email. The rest will automatically be filled for you.

Click install, and cPanel will actually make a blog for you. It will download all the necessary files, copy them appropriately, and install the database. The hard part is left up to you: writing blog posts! If you are still confused, I can make a blog for you ;-)

How To Make a Blog Look Good

I could have stopped there but then you’d have the same boring looking blog as everyone else. No worries, making a blog look good is just as easy, if not easier. Themes are located in the admin menu under Appearance. On the Themes page click Add New

How to make a blog look good

WordPress will then show you a wide variety of themes you can install just by clicking Install. You’ll even get to preview them first. Find a theme that matches your style and you’ll enjoy writing all the more!

That’s all there is to it. If I helped you make a blog please let me know below!

Updated Version of wpFutureCal

I just pushed out a new version of wpFutureCal which is sure to make at least two people happy (Justin, Patrick). The calendar now has next/previous buttons so you can just click around the months if you need to go farther than next month!

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If you already have it installed, your version of WordPress will automagically ask you to update it soon. If not, you really should it’s an amazing plugin that is so simple yet so handy. It shows you when you’ve made posts so you can visually see if you are behind or where you should publish your next one!

To download it, search for wpfuturecal inside the plugin directory, or check out it’s new official home on the Plus1Daily site!

http://plus1daily.com/plugins/wpfuturecal/

The bigger the list, the smaller the results?

We’ve been getting quite a few newbie email marketers coming into RocketResponder that have this thought that the larger their list, the better their results will be. But they are actually finding the opposite is happening.

The phenomenon actually happens because most smaller lists have a more personal approach to them. It’s true that you can be personal with a larger list, but when it’s small it tends to be a small list of people you have a stronger relationship with.

Another way to think of it is this..  If you talk to 10 people every day, how long will you talk to them for? Now if you have 100 people every day, that time shrinks. At some point when your list size gets too big you can’t keep up with the personal level.

This isn’t a reason to stop building your list, but it’s why you shouldn’t sweat having a small list now. Take the time to interact with that list in a way you couldn’t if you had a larger list. You can ask them questions and have them reply to the email, for instance.

How To Delete Thousands of Crons in WordPress

I previously posted how to fix missed scheduled posts, this time on a related but different note I’m going to show you how to delete thousands of cron jobs all at once.

Now you must be asking, how did I get thousands of cron jobs? Well, I had a defunct plugin that was adding in new cron jobs over and over. I used Improved Cron to check out why my cron jobs weren’t firing, and found that it was flooded with cron jobs.

What’s interesting to note is a lot of plugins will add a cron job, but when you remove the plugin it doesn’t remove the cron job. So over years you can start to have a ton of junky cron jobs in there slowing everything down.

Delete WordPress cron jobs with phpMyAdmin: if you are familiar with phpMyAdmin, simply goto your WordPress database and open up the wp_options table. Do a search for crons.

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Once you find the cron, simply delete it. Scary, but actually WordPress will automatically re-generate the field when necessary.

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If you don’t know how to use phpMyAdmin, or are simply too scared, a neat trick you can do is to add this one line of code to your WordPress Theme functions.php file. If it doesn’t have it, then you can add it to any of the plugins:

delete_option( 'cron' );

Once you or anyone accesses your blog, this will delete that field. Then remove the code and you’re good to go! Now after doing this my cron jobs run much smoother.

The 3 Types of PEOPLE Who Should Be Blogging

Most people I talk to are scared to blog, and they don’t think they really should be blogging. But before you decide not to, check if you fit into one of these three types of people.

People Who Like To Write

These are the people who just like to write. If you like to write, you should be blogging. It doesn’t matter what, you’re doing a disservice to the millions of people struggling to write by hiding your talents.

I am not a reader, so I don’t follow many bloggers who love to write for the simple reason, I don’t love to read. But there is a large number of readers and writers out there, so don’t hold back!

People Who Have Specific Knowledge

These are the people I honestly LOVE. These people generally aren’t “anyone special”, but they know something. They are the people that you’ll be searching the internet for a solution and bammo, their blog comes up! I love it when this happens.

Seriously, I don’t care if you post once a month. If you know how to fix things, do DIY projects, etc, these types of blogs can be life savers. There are certain posts I’ve written that have helped tons of people solve a simple problem. They might not be back ever again, but I enjoy seeing the traffic/comments knowing I’ve helped them.

People Who Want to Be a Leader

The most obvious blogger is the “authoritative” blogger. These are the people, like myself, that blog to “be a leader”. You can use a blog to make it look like you are a leader, even if you aren’t. Which is great if you’re trying to have a good online presence for a job resume or potential clients.

Most people think you have to be in that category to start a blog. But in all actuality the second group is the largest group of bloggers. And it’s the least stressful. When you are a leader in an industry there is more pressure to constantly put out new amazing content. When you do it for fun and when you have something to share, it feels more rewarding!

Blog Post Marketing in 9 Easy Steps

After you hit schedule on your blog post, most people walk away and just expect to get instant results. They don’t do any blog post marketing, and wonder why their blog isn’t growing. Just a little bit of effort can make a huge difference.

What is Blog Post Marketing?

Essentially it’s the marketing you do for each specific blog post. It’s actually not that hard to do, but most people will look at the list below and just think it’s a waste of time. But there is a reason other bloggers are getting more exposure than you. They are doing the boring marketing!

Schedule Your Blog Posts

Some people like to just post them when the idea pops out of their head. But this creates an inconsistent amount of content. It also means your posts might go out when people aren’t reading. My personal preference is to post at 8AM my time. This way there is fresh content right when my readers are waking up. But your readers might be night owls, so pick your time accordingly.

I’ve been doing this for years, and even created wpFutureCal to help me along. It’s a plugin that helps you ensure your posts are scheduled how often you want them.

Broadcast via Email

This is the most crucial step in marketing your blog posts. Most people skip it, and I think they are crazy. Sending an email to your frequent readers whenever you make a new post is crucial. It’s a jump start to all the other marketing efforts at your disposal.

I use RocketResponder to send my emails, and with unlimited subscribers you should be too. Plus I set it up so it would be very easy for you to get your blog sending out the emails automatically, so you don’t have to do anything but add your blog into the system.

Post to Facebook and Twitter

This should be a no brainer, but people still to this day don’t do it. It does two things: It increases the number of people who hear about your new post, and it creates a link pointing to the blog post. Search engines love links and they use social media as a metric to determine new hot content. Don’t skip this!

Use a pinging service

This is one of those things that seams lame and outdated, but you might as well be doing it. Simply put, you can add a list of pinging services that you’ll notify every time you make a blog post. Those then notify search engines and other blog crawling sites about your changes. It costs nothing and is a simple way to get free incoming links!

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://ping.feedburner.com/
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.twingly.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.bloglines.com/ping
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://www.octora.com/add_rss.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://www.wasalive.com/ping/
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://bblog.com/ping.php

Link from Old Posts

When you are building your entire blog content up, it’s important to interlink the content. You’ll notice I’ve already linked to different posts in this post itself. It’s a crucial step to effective long term blog post marketing. The others so far have been about the instant boost in traffic, but linking content helps in the overall marketing.

It’s simple really, just find a few old blog posts that are related, and link them to the new post. You’ll want to find phrases within your content that make sense. I think of it as “expanding thoughts”. When a user is reading my post, if they want to read more about something I wrote they can click that link to find a post with more info about that phrase.

It’s great for keeping readers engaged on your site, in addition to SEO. Both go hand in hand, you want people to stick around and not be here for one page. I’m in the process of building a plugin called uberLinks that does this for you. I’ve been using it on my blog for years, and when I showed Justin he went crazy for it and said I had to make it a plugin for everyone.

Reply to Comments

This is something that Jon excels at. I used to be good at it, and it shows. When you reply to comments, people comment more. They want to be engaged. When people are commenting more, they are more likely to tweet or share your post, and they’ll be excited when they see a new post come out. It’s an area I’m working on!

Post so Social Bookmarking Sites

This is getting a little old school, but a link is a link. There are plenty of social bookmarking sites, but the idea is if you’re sharing sites with others it’s another way of letting people know you have a new post. You’ve got to do that, and I know it can feel like pulling teeth, but you do want to be a blog post marketing ninja right?

Ask Other Bloggers to Mention Your Post

This is very important, but harder to do. You want to get other bloggers to mention your posts. I have a few people that I’m trying to mention their posts when I can, and they are trying to do the same with my posts. It’s the same concept as doing deep linking within your own blog, but including others with that strategy.

The idea is to expand and leverage your readers to help each other out. Most people get stuck on this one and think if they link to other sites they’ll lose in rankings or lose subscribers. It’s not the case. If you mention blog posts that are related to your content then your readers will stick with you more. They’ll follow you because you know where all the info is, so they don’t have to keep looking for it.

Repurpose Your Content on YouTube

Your blog is all text, but some people like watching videos and some people like listening. By rehashing your content on YouTube or other content types you’ll be able to gain a following in different markets. And, of course, remember to link to your blog post!

Blog Post Marketing Can Be Fun!

Now that you have ideas, have some fun on how you can expand them. Don’t limit yourself to what I’ve said. Share below any tips or tricks you have!