WordPress 2.7 Upgrade – It Was SCARY But It Worked

I finally decided to upgrade to WordPress 2.7. I knew I was going to have to do it someday, but I was so scared that something would go awry with my Revolution Theme.

Yeah, if you were following me on Twitter two weeks ago, that was all I was talking about. “Has anyone upgraded to WP 2.7 with a Revolution Theme?” I never got an answer.

So I was scared it would be a huge mess and I’d have to spend days and dollars fixing it.

Well, as usual, the mind imagines things much bigger than they really are and even though it was scary (especially the part in the instructions where it says to delete all your files-ahhhhh), the upgrade went smoothly and it appears everything is working properly.

The new dashboard is FABULOUS!!! So much more intuitive than the old one. I still need to spend a little time getting used to it but that’s no big deal.

So, if you still haven’t upgraded, don’t be scared. If I can do it, you can too. Just be extra careful to follow ALL the instructions step-by-step.

Here’s the link to the instructions, remember, step-by-step, each and EVERY step:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended#Step_3:_Verify_the_backups

I should talk, when I got to Step 13: Add security key definitions to the wp-config.php file, it said all versions from 2.6 up had a security key. Well, I had version 2.6 and I never added the security key! Shame on me! I added it this time, I’m now secure.

Good Luck with your upgrade! You’re going to LOVE it!

Cheers,

Reba

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Don’t Be A Blogger Victim – Use WordPress

A few weeks ago I posted an article in my Blogging For Money series called, A Guide To Choosing A Site For Your Money Making Blog. If you haven’t set up your blog yet, it is definitely worth your time to read that post before you make a decision you could possibly regret down the road.

The reason I’m posting this is because in my efforts to recommend Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick’s Become A Blogger, I got a lot of email from Yaro and Gideon about the their new product. In this morning’s email there was a story that explains why my advice on choosing a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain is the only way you should consider setting up your blog.

Here’s the story that Yaro Starak told in his email this morning:

Let me tell you a story about Steve. Steve is a niche blogger. He set up lots of little blogs on all kinds of topics (niches) aiming to make a few dollars from each blog by placing Google AdSense advertisements on them. Google pays you when someone clicks on the ads.

After a few months he did really well and built up his income. None of his blogs had a lot of traffic, but they got enough from search engines that each blog earned between $1 and $10 per day.

In total he earned over $2,000 per month from his blogs – not a bad effort.

One day he turned on his computer and all his blogs had gone. Disappeared. Vanished without a trace…

What happened?

He was using one Blogger.com account to manage his blogs and Blogger.com determined that what he was doing was violating their terms of service.

They thought all his blogs were what are called “splogs” or SPAM blogs.

Splogs are blogs set up to get traffic to other sites. They are usually automatically generated and the owners have no intention of producing a useful website – they just want to get traffic. They are the SPAM of the blogging world.

Steve contacted the support staff at Blogger.com to explain that his sites were not SPAM sites but it was difficult to convince them and he never got his blogs reactivated. Overnight he lost his regular $2,000 per month income in one hit.

Please, understand, this story is true. I had a blog on Blogger that was deactivated. It didn’t have any income stream, in fact, I didn’t even miss it when it was gone, however, it happened, Blogger just removed it. And the worst thing is that Steve’s and my blog had perfectly legitimate information but we were at Blogger’s mercy and there’s nothing we could do about it.

It’s an awful feeling of being out of control that I liken to getting laid off from a traditional job. It leaves you in a “fix” and there’s not a lot you can do about it but start over. Please do not put yourself in the that position and take Yaro and my advice, set-up your own domain with WordPress.ORG software.

If you need help setting up your own blog, you can view Yaro Starak and Gideon Shalwick’s fabulous video series about how to set-up a WordPress blog on your own domain. Here’s the link:

Become A Blogger

If you’re interested in taking your blogging to the next level, check out Yaro and Gideon’s Become A Blogger Premium Membership. Here’s the link:

Become A Blogger Premium Membership

Ciao!

Reba

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Setting-Up Your Blog Properly – Part 3

As stated in Part 1 & 2, after installing your WordPress blog on your own domain, there are 3 steps you need to take to get your blog set-up properly so it will not only be indexed by the search engines but also be easy to run and a good place for your visitors to go. I’m going to cover each step in a separate post, this is Part 3.

These steps are specific to a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain. The free or hosted services like Blogger and WordPress.com will not allow you to accomplish what is described in these articles. These are the three steps:

1. Part 1 – Add the proper plug-ins
2. Part 2 – Change the permalinks
3. Part 3 – Find a quality theme and activate the widgets

Setting up your theme

There are hundreds if not thousands of free themes and quite a few paid themes that you can use for your blog. The theme will control the look and feel of your blog.

You can find quite a few free themes at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes or just do a quick search on Google for WordPress themes.

To install a theme you first download it from the website where you found or purchased it, unzip it, and then FTP it up to wp-content/themes folder.

After logging-in to your blog click on the Design link. At the point an image of the theme you uploaded will be there for you choose. Just click on the image of the theme you uploaded.

Next you need to set the widgets. Widgets allow you to change your sidebar by clicking the ones you want.

Click the widgets and it will look like this.

This will allow you to activate and arrange your sidebar. This photo may look a bit different from your Widget page because I use the Revolution Theme and it has three sidebars, so I have an option for each sidebar. You will probably just have one.

You can use text widgets to add anything to your sidebar by just adding the code (like you get from MyBlogLog or BlogCatalog or HTML for ads or opt-in boxes). I have added Twitter Badges, links to Technorati, BlogCatalog, FeedShark and a tower of AdSense Ads.

Widgets are quite powerful in making it easy to get your blog to look the way you want without having to do any coding to the theme itself.

My next post in my Blogging For Money series will cover some quick tips for Search Engine Optimization, otherwise known as SEO.

Ciao!

Reba

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Become A Blogger – Fantastic Blogging Training Videos

If you’re reading my series on Blogging for Money, then you will probably be interested in the wonderful site I just ran across today for new bloggers. It’s called Become A Blogger and is a MUST SEE for anyone who needs help setting up their WordPress blog.

Yaro Starak, who’s blogging course “Blog Mastermind,” I recommended in a earlier post, and Gideon Shalwick, a world-renowned author of entrepreneurship books, have teamed up to bring you a fabulous series of videos that will teach you everything you need to know to get your blog up and running. And amazingly enough, these videos are FREEEEEEEE!!

When you go over to their site, you’ll find they recommend the same webhosting company I recommend, HostGator.com, however, when you get to the section on installing your WordPress blog, they do it from scratch. I explain in my article “Where Should You Host Your Money Making Blog” that HostGator uses C-Panel and they have Fantastico. Fantastico is a program that installs WordPress for you. Why do it from scratch if Fantastico will do it for you? Well, you might just want to learn how to do it, but once you’ve done that, just use Fantastico.

I put their first video in the right-hand column of the my sight, you can watch it while you’re still reading this article. If you like it just click the following link and go watch all ten videos:

Become A Blogger

Here’s a list of all ten free videos, I also gave a link to similar articles I have on this site:

1. Why You Should Use WordPress – My Post => WordPress-Simply A Necessity
2. How To Get Your Own Domain Name – My Post => Where Should You Host Your Money Making Blog?
3. How To Get A Webhost – My Post => Where Should You Host Your Money Making Blog?
4. How To Install WordPress
5. How To Upload Files To Your Webhost Using FTP
6. Choosing A WordPress Theme For Your New Blog
7. How To Install And Use WordPress Plugins – My Post => Setting Up Your Blog Properly-Part 1
8. How To Create Your First Blog Post
9. What RSS is and Why You Need It – My Post => What Is RSS & How To Use Google Reader
10. How To Use FeedBurner for Super Charging Your RSS Capabilities

Also, while I have your attention, on December 1st Yaro and Gideon are going to release a free report called “Roadmap To Become A Blogger”. When you visit their site to view the videos, you’ll see a sign-up box in the right-hand column of their site. If you go ahead and sign-up there, you will be on their early notification list for when the release occurs so you won’t forget. If you’re thinking about blogging for a living, I’m sure the report will be one you want to read, so don’t miss out and get yourself signed up.

Cheers!

Reba

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Setting-Up Your Blog Properly – Part 2

As stated in Part 1, after installing your WordPress blog on your own domain, there are 3 steps you need to take to get your blog set-up properly so it will not only be indexed by the search engines but also be easy to run and a good place for your visitors to go. I’m going to cover each step in a separate post, this is Part 2.

These steps are specific to a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain. The free or hosted services like Blogger and WordPress.com will not allow you to accomplish what is described in these articles. These are the three steps:

1. Part 1 – Add the proper plug-ins
2. Part 2 – Change the permalinks
3. Part 3 – Find a quality theme and activate the widgets

Changing Permalinks

The default setting in WordPress sets the URL of each blog post as Yourdomain.com/?p=123. If you allow your URLs to look like this, you are missing a chance to add your keywords into the URL. Having your keywords in your URL can help your post get ranked in the search engines much quicker. This can easily be corrected.

After you log-in to your blog, click on Settings – and then Permalinks. You will see the following:

Click Custom Structure and enter /%category%/%postname%

This will make the URLS for your blog posts appear in the following format:

“Yourdomain.com/category(your keyword)/postname

If you’re reading this post from its own page (not the home page or the blog page), you can look at the URL in your browser’s address field and see it’s formatted as described – http://www.internetmarketingboomer.com/hot-topics/setting-up-your-blog-properly–part-2/

This is an important step to take in making sure your blog is set-up to be indexed by the search engines and listed with the proper keywords.

My next post will cover finding a quality theme and activating widgets on your blog.

Cheers!

Reba

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Setting-Up Your Blog Properly – Part 1

After installing your WordPress blog on your own domain, there are three steps you need to take to get your blog set-up properly so it will not only be indexed by the search engines but also be easy to run and a good place for your visitors to go. I’m going to cover each step in a separate post, this is Part 1.

These steps are specific to a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain. The free or hosted services like Blogger and WordPress.com will not allow you to accomplish what is described in these articles. These are the three steps:

1. Part 1 – Add the proper plug-ins
2. Part 2 – Change the permalinks
3. Part 3 – Find a quality theme and activate the widgets

Adding the proper plug-ins

The first thing in setting up your blog is to add the proper plug-ins. Plug-ins add to the operation of your blog and some adjust how your blog operates. The proper plug-ins can make a huge difference in how the search engines treat your blog. Other plug-ins make a big difference in how your posts are presented to your visitors.

There are literally thousands of plug-ins with more being added to the selection on a daily basis. You can find a directory of available plug-ins at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ and this link can also be found on the dashboard of your WordPress blog (the first page when you log-in to your blog).  The list below is what I am using at this time.

• Akismet – Is automatically installed with WordPress; helps prevent comment spam.
• All-In-One SEO Pack – adjusts your blog so it is search engine friendly.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Creates a sitemap for your blog that is compliant with Google and others. Once your sitemap is created, you should submit it to Google Webmaster Tools.
• CommentLuv – Shows a link to the last post from the commenter’s blog in their comment. Helps promote comments.
• Sociable – Automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favorite social bookmarking sites.
• Subscribe To Comments – Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry.
• WP tags to Technorati – Automatically creates tags to link to Technorati for you
• Ultimate Google Analytics – Enables Google Analytics on your blog. Has an option to also track external links, mailto links and links to downloads on your own site.
• WordPress Duplicate Content Cure – A simple, yet effective SEO plug-in that prevents search engines from indexing WordPress pages that contain duplicate content, like archives and category pages.

Now there are plenty of others but those are the minimum I would recommend to make your blog work better and be more search engine friendly.

To install the plug-ins you will need to FTP them into the wp-content folder within your blog. Once uploaded, log-in to your blog, go to the Plug-In link in the upper right corner, then find the plug-in listed and click on the “Activate” link.

Tomorrow we’ll change the PermaLinks so they are search engine friendly.

Ciao!

Reba

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A Guide to Choosing a Site for Your Money Making Blog

When you’re first starting out and don’t want to spend a lot of money, it’s a good idea to weigh all your options. And if you’re new to blogging, you’re probably wondering which site or blogging tool is best to use when you start your blog. The most popular blogging sites that are used by most bloggers are Blogger, WordPress, and Typepad. There are other options as well, but for the purpose of this article, I’m only going to talk about these three.

Before I go any further, I do want to point out that I’m quite opinionated when it comes to this subject. I like the free script that is supplied by WordPress.org and that’s that. I wrote a post some time back stating that I like WordPress.org and I stick by my word. However, so you can see all your options (or at least the most popular), I’m going to cover more than just WordPress.org.

Anyway, here’s a short comparison of the three sites listed here to help you choose what’s best for you and your niche:

Blogger – This is usually the choice for beginners because it’s the easiest one of the three to set up. When I first started blogging several years ago, this is the blog I used. It’s super easy, all you do is sign up for an account and they take you step by step through the process of getting a blog started. When you want to make a post, you go to www.blogger.com, sign-in to your account, and make your post. The URL of your blog is www.whatever.blogspot.com.

Blogger is affiliated with Google, so even signing up for AdSense, so you can place ads on your blog, is extremely simple. They walk you through every step. Your choice of blog templates is limited but the ones they do offer are nice. After you gain more experience, you can use the option to publish your blog to your own website. I did this with my first blog and it was fairly easy to do.

Blogger is definitely recommended for those with no blogging experience who want to get launched quickly without hassle or cost. However, do be aware that your blog will be hosted by Blogger, not on your own site, and if they feel your blog consists mostly of spam, they have the right to discontinue it. Not that you’re going to be spammy with your blog but I just don’t like that another company would have that much control over the time and hard work I’ve put into writing my blog.

WordPress – WordPress has two options, WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com is much like Blogger, in that it is hosted on the WordPress.com site. You set-up an account and each time you want to make a post, you log-in to your account. Your blog URL is www.whatever.wordpress.com.

WordPress.com is a little more complicated to get started with than Blogger but they still walk you through the setting up process. WordPress, like Blogger, allows you to export your blog to your own website, so those who are ready can move their blogs when they’re comfortable doing so.

WordPress.com offers plenty of different blog templates and many people create free templates you can download as long as you give them credit somewhere on the blog.

WordPress.org is totally different from WordPress.com. With WordPress.org, you download a free blogging script and install it on your own website. I highly recommend this method as you maintain complete control over not only the look of your blog but the content as well.

Setting up a WordPress blog on your own site isn’t as difficult as it may seem. You have to sign-up for a hosting account (I recommend HostGator.com) that gives you disk space on the internet. Once you have your account set-up you can log-in to your control panel,  access a program called Fantastico that will install WordPress for you, you choose a template and your blog is ready to go.

Of course you can do much more by installing a custom theme and specialized plug-ins, but that’s a bit more detail than I want to go into in this article. I just want to say, it’s not hard and can be done by anyone, no matter how much experience you have with websites.

TypePad – TypePad is a paid service that is hosted by TypePad.com (unlike WordPress.org where you find your own hosting). TypePad is definitely a premium blogging service, however, there is a fee. They have a large selection for very professional looking themes to choose from and offer customer support 24/7 365 days a year through an extensive online knowledge base.

There are many other blogging sites out there to choose from but most require a fee if you want to utilize their best services. Choosing a free account now will help you to keep costs low and earning potential high. However, buying a domain name and a hosting account so you can set-up your own website with a WordPress.org blog, will save you from having to move your blog when you outgrow your free service.

Whether you’re a newbie starting out or an intermediate to advanced blogger, these sites give you the best opportunities to make money blogging.

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Wordpress ~ Simply A Necessity

What more can I say? Wordpress is simply the only way to run a website. Even if you don’t want a blog, you still need Wordpress for content management. I’ve been using Wordpress for years and believe me, it’s changed a lot over those years…for THE BETTER! When it comes to a content management system (affectionately referred to as CMS) you won’t find a more simple or cheaper alternative (it’s free!).

I’ll definitely be writing more about Wordpress as I think I’m going to have to do some tutorials or something but for right now I just wanted to get a post in the “Build Your Website” section of the the site to let you know where I stand and what I’ll be teaching on this site.

Also, to add to the “use Wordpress” mantra, only use Wordpress in your own hosting account, that way you own and have control of the content. There is an option to use Wordpress on a hosted site where the content is hosted by wordpress.com, don’t do it. It’s just like using a Blogger account, don’t do it. You’re at the mercy of someone else, don’t do it.

Here’s the link where you can download the most current version of Wordpress ~ and IT’S FREE!!!

http://wordpress.org/

Notice the .ORG ~ NOT .COM.

In another post I’ll give you links to two Wordpress plug-ins that are must haves.

Reba

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