I am looking for 10 other individuals to take this journey with me, your thoughts and ideas and concepts are all that will be required. The coming together of several minds and personalities will always add keen interest and variations to the though process.

The aim of “the ultimate blog” would be to showcase to anyone wanting to setup a successful blog that this is what is required, commitment , time, collection of ideas and ultimately the desire to succeed.

We will take this showcase from the very infancy of registering a domain to the fully worked and operational blog that will highlight all aspects of setting up a wordpress blog.

So hop aboard for the ultimate blog journey – ultimateblog@zoopta.com

Full Story - Problogger.net 

In this post I want to walk you through everything I know (and I mean everything) about running a successful competition on your blog - from setting objectives, finding prizes, running the competition and more.

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What is happening…

Track back through your stats to see if there is a given day or time when your traffic started to decline, if so you will normally be able to trace this to either an article or item you may have been reviewing or promoting dependant on your type of blog.

Some basic stuff to look at , check your stats to see if you have had an increase on 404 errors on your site as it may be server issue rather than a content issue. Visitors dont normally just drop off a site. You may lose visitors if they continually have a problem accessing certain pages

Check your rankings on the search engines, if most of your traffic is organic and comes from search engines then there are constant upgrading and downgrading from all the major search engines, this can have a serious effect on the amount of traffic that you are receiving

Content – make sure you have been updating your content regularly, alot of visitors

Want fresh content daily and if they dont get it, they move onto another site. Also ensure that the content you are updating your site with is current and not from years ago.

Follow the above steps and I’m sure you will stop that loss of traffic.

This article will step you thru the process of setting up wordpress on your site, following up from yesterdays article -

Step by Step tutorial on setting up your first blog

Step 1 Download Wordpress latest Version http://wordpress.org/download/
Step 2 Unzip the file to your desktop

Step 3 Log in to your hosting account via ftp – if you don’t have ftp software use

The following http://www.coreftp.com/download.html

Step 4 When you have logged into your hosting account look for the folder

Public_html – upload all wordpress files into this directory

Step 5 This is where we will need to set up the mysql database – its sounds frightening and almost too difficult to attempt but if you follow my instruction it will succeed.

Step 6 Log in to your hosting account via cpanel - www.yoursite.com/cpanel

Step 7 Find the icon mysql databases and click on this

Step 8 It will come up with a screen “Mysql Maintenance” Scroll down to add new database – type in your name this can be anything but for this demo we will use “wordpress” as the name – click on create database

Step 9 BEFORE you do anything further write down the name of the database that has been created it will be something like “wordpress_yoursite” – Make sure you write this down before going any further

Step 10 Now we are going to create a user for your database, scroll to where it says current users – type a name in for the user , this can be anything, for this demo we will use “johndoe” and a password 123456 – Before you go any further write down the password , now create user – screen will come back with the user name something like “johndoe_yoursite”.AGAIN write this down. Now we are nearly finished. We need to add this user to your database.

Step 11 Scroll down to “add user to database” make sure all privileges is ticked, find your username “johndoe_yoursite” and make sure the correct database is selected “wordpress_yoursite” Click Add user

WELL Done – we have just setup our wordpress database.

Step 12 We will now configure the wordpress installation, again using your ftp software log back into your website, change in the public_html directory, scroll down until you find the file “wp-config-sample.php”. This is the file we need to add those details that we wrote regarding the mysql database.

Double Click on the file and it will open for you as per the following

++++++++++++++

<?php

// ** MySQL settings ** //

define(’DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere‘); // The name of the database

define(’DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere‘); // Your MySQL username

define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere‘); // …and password

define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’); // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value

define(’DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);

define(’DB_COLLATE’, ”);

// You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique prefix

$table_prefix = ‘wp_’; // Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!

// Change this to localize WordPress. A corresponding MO file for the

// chosen language must be installed to wp-content/languages.

// For example, install de.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to ‘de’

// to enable German language support.

define (’WPLANG’, ”);

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

define(’ABSPATH’, dirname(__FILE__).’/');

require_once(ABSPATH.’wp-settings.php’);

?>

+++++++++++++++++++

Step 13 I have highlighted the above areas, just put your database name, username, and password into those areas – save the file, this file will then be uploaded to your host – Guess What we are nearly there one more simple process – Right click on the file that we have just altered on your hosting account – we need to rename this file to “wp-config.php”. When you have done this you are finished.

Step 14 Go to your web address www.yoursite.com/wp-admin this will complete the install of wordpress – Remember to write down the password that wordpress gives you. – That’s it,

If you follow the above steps you should have a successful wordpress installation. If you find all the above too mundane or you are time-poor like all of us, email me on wordpressinstalls@zoopta.com as I provide an installation service on wordpress for a fee.

Part 3 of our tutorial will be on using wordpress for the first time.

(By the way, if text link ads are being discouraged, why does TLA still have PR7?)

Full Story - Moneymakingblogs 

Obviously a lot of people are unhappy with their day jobs and are hoping to make money at home just writing their blogs. Maybe it’s the perception cast by some A-list make money bloggers that it’s easy and require little effort. Hey people, stop believing that. Easy isn’t going to make you a full-time income. It takes dedication and knowledge.

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One of the first  things I noticed in setting up a blog was the vast information available on this  topic. There was quantity but not necessarily quality, alot of the topics and instructions were from years ago and not as relevant as they should be in todays climate.

In the following guide I will attempt to step you through a process of getting your blog up and running with a minimum of fuss and technical know how, this will be covered in parts by the following sections

• Registering a domain name or web site name
• Finding a suitable hosting company
• Installing a blog platform – I personally use wordpress
• Creating a theme for your Blog
• Writing your first post.

 
**None of the links below are associated with affiliate marketing – I have only chosen these sites because of the ease of use that I have experiencedwith them over the past 5 years**

Part 1

Before you can jump on to the net and start blogging you must register a name for your new website. This is commonly referred to as a domain name or web name. Prices vary for this due to the fact that  you can register for  different periods of time. Because this is your first blog let’s register for only 1 year. This will keep your costs down and you may want to extend the registration once you have become comfortable with your own site.

I have always registered my domain names at http://www.godaddy.com , the price will vary from $6.95 to $8.95 depending on what specials may be running.

Once you have registered your name you will also be given the opportunity of having www.godaddy.com host your site, this is a very easy process of having your first wordpress site up and running with the minimum of fuss.

If you decide to host your site elsewhere you will receive an email from your new hosting company that will have all the relevant details that will enable you to setup your new site.

One very important item is if you have your name registered at www.godaddy.com you must change the nameservers to point to your new hosting company. The name server information would have arrived from the company that you are hosting your site on.

Log in to godaddy and follow the procedures of changing your nameservers.

Part 2 …

Have you noticed any changes?

Creative lapses are one of the biggest blog killers out there. Every blogger spends time staring at a blank screen searching for inspiration at some point, and few niches provide a steady stream of juicy news on which a blogger can instantly provide outpourings of captivating opinion.

Over time I’ve managed to develop a routine and a set of habits which seem to reliably spark my limited creative abilities and help me avoid those desperate moments of inspirational emptiness as I imagine my page hits plummeting as my blog dries up.

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