In the world of blogging it can often be assumed that people will be able to intuitively go about creating their first blog without any specific instructions on exactly how to do that. This is, or can be, a bit daunting, especially if you want to host your blog on your own domain in a specific format.
First of all where do you actually register a domain name and then how do you go about getting that domain hosted so the content in it can be published on the Internet.
You also need to decide what blogging platform to use.
The basics of blogging really refers to exactly how do you go about starting a blog. If you have never created a blog before then this is not a silly question and actually does require at least some thought and oraganization of the process.
You need to be able to go from an initial idea for a blog through the physical actions of getting your blog into a material product that is published and accessible to your target audience on the Internet.
There are literally hundreds maybe thousands of WordPress themes available on the Internet which you can download and use; often all that is required is that you leave the source information in place so that you can get and use the theme for free.
That said there is often a desire to modify the theme further, to give it your own look and style. If you have coding skills then you can access the code screens and start to make the changes you think you would like. A word of advice though make sure you have created a back up before starting (as stated in the video) so that you can revert if it all goes wrong. Also remember that some browsers will present the code differently to others, so when you are making changes ensure that you check the results in multiple browsers; IE and Mozilla Firefox as a bare minimum.
The video below describes how you go about editing the theme using the css module via the theme editor module. Read the rest of this entry »
Before we get started on this its probably a good idea to explain what viral marketing is and what viral marketing tools are available for use by everyone.
For a URL to go viral what you are looking for is for other Internet users to promote your URL on your behalf with no additional effort from yourself at an exponential rate.
One example would be to give away an ebook offering free information on your subject of choice. Included in the ebook would be links back to your chosen URL and you would make it very clear that you are happy for your ebook to be passed on to others. In truth that is the objective, to get the ebook given away to as many people as possible and as quickly and easily as possible.
There are endless ways to make money online. You can do freelance work, build adsense websites, make money through email marketing; the list just goes on and on. I like to focus on affiliate marketing and adsense for the residual income that those methods can offer. But when I was first starting off I often found myself strapped for cash and needing some immediate income.
A mentor of mine, Justin Brooke, introduced me to site flipping. Site flipping is basically building websites and selling them, either as new startup sites, or once they are ranking and making some money. If you think that sounds a bit like house flipping just with websites instead, well, its not coincidental that they happen to sound the same
This was a really interesting video which I found on a Science, Culture and Knowledge blog. I think the guy speaking in this video is right in many ways as he describes how he thinks social media is potentially going to change the way the whole world does business.
You can see how his ideas could be applied with respect to data and electronic information (including music and video). Although I am not sure how it relates to physical products, other than perhaps sharing manufacturing information. But you can see how sharing and providing information or services for free has huge potential, particularly from an advertising perspective or by then offering further services that could potentially be offered at a price.
I have been hitting the business side of blogging quite hard for a while now with posts on article submission, duplicate content, adsense revenue and affiliate relationships; naming but a few of the subjects I have touched on.
So I thought given the time of year, plus I was a Christmas baby (well nearly it was the 20th December i.e. tomorrow), that I would take a slight detour and do a post on personal blogging. Actually it is a thinly disguised post about business blogging really.
Personal blogging comes very much under the remit of reaching out to communicate with the wider world. This can be by writing a great article, producing a bit of poetry, exploring the history of our times or simply stating a point of view. The latter of course being something every human should have the right to do but is certainly not the end of the list of personal topics.
As I have been discussing this subject recently I thought it would be a good idea to publish this video which has been produced by Google who have also been discussing the same subject and advising on what to do about inadvertent production of duplicate content.
The video also covers the implementation of the new rel=canonical tag which can be used to identify content that has been duplicated deliberately on a single domain.
Most importantly though, it does confirm that the duplicate content penalty is a MYTH
The answer to the above question is relatively straight forward and is a little like cholesterol. There is good and bad duplicate content.
So if you are going to be penalised or not depends on the type of duplicate content you are involved with and is why you need to understand which is which.
In the world of blogging it can often be assumed that people will be able to intuitively go about creating their first blog without any specific instructions on exactly how to do that. This is, or can be, a bit daunting, especially if you want to host your blog on your own domain in a specific format.
I have been hitting the business side of blogging quite hard for a while now with posts on article submission, duplicate content, adsense revenue and affiliate relationships; naming but a few of the subjects I have touched on. 
The answer to the above question is relatively straight forward and is a little like cholesterol. There is good and bad duplicate content.
