Bloggers R Us

So you probably have heard a lot about the blogging craze everywhere. These days, very few people don’t have blogs. People have blogs for various reasons. To name a few: to express themselves, to give advice and counseling about certain topics, to raise awareness about a certain issue, to make money etc. Yes you heard that right, you can make some money from blogs and a lot of people are doing it!

The first step towards starting a blog is setting up the blog by itself. You can set up a blog with word press, which is the most widespread blog site, or blog spot or blogger, which both are owned by Google. There are many other smaller blogging websites, but the 3 I just mentioned are the most widely spread. Setting up the blog is easy and not that hard. It could be challenging for people who never dealt with the internet and computers before, but most blog sites have easy to follow instructions and guides. I think that no matter how hard setting up a blog could be for someone, it is really worth it.

There are 2 options when it comes to setting up a blog. One is to set it up to be hosted by the blog own server or to be hosted by the server you are using. The only difference is that if the blog is hosted by your own server, you have more freedom in terms of customizing the blog design and look. In addition, if you host the blog and connect it with a link to your website, it will help in search engine rankings.

Here are the steps you have to follow to set up the blog to be hosted by the blog own server:-

1-    Go to the blog site you want to set up the blog with.

2-    Sign up and assign a user name and a password.

3-    Chose the theme you like. These themes are ready made for you and there are so many to suit your taste and the subject of your blog. You can change the theme at any time.

4-    Choose the header. The header is the picture in the theme. You can insert your picture there or any picture relevant to your blog topic.

5-    Choose a title for the blog. This is the headline of your blog. Make it short and to the point.

6-    Set up the description of the blog. Be brief, ad use 10 to 20 words to describe what you blog is all about.

7-    Choose your keywords or tags. These are the keywords that people will find your blog with when they do a keyword search. Choose max 10 highly targeted keywords that are relevant to your blog’s topic.

If you want to set up the blog to be hosted by your own server, here are the steps:-

1-    Go to the c-panel of your hosting account.

2-    Most hosting accounts these days have blog setups with few clicks of the mouse. It is usually a button there that says quick blog setup or something close to that.

3-    Click it and it will ask you for the blog name, user name, and password.

4-    After setting up the blog, you can customize its design and look by using your own templates. You can find free blog templates online or you can buy one for better quality.

5-    Using an FTP client, upload the template to the themes folder of your blog in the same server you installed the blog in.

6-    Go to your blog admin board in the blog website. Change the theme of the blog to the one you just uploaded.

7-    While you still there in the admin board, set up the title, description and keywords of your blog.

 

For more information visit http://internet-business-and-money.com

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You know, normally you can find a definition of a word or phrase by typing “define: your phrase here” into google and come up with a lot of results. Currently there are millions of blogs and there are hundreds of people who call themselves “Blog or Blogging Consultants”, yet when you type “define: Blogging Consultant or Blogging Consultant” into google you get no definition.
That is probably a good thing for most blogging consultants because without a definition, there is no standard to hold them to. I’m not claiming to be the blogging guru of all time or anything of the sort. So before you “blogging consultants” out there start getting defensive about this, think before you write. If you get too nasty about the post I may ask you to define “blogging consultant” and without google many of you couldn’t do it.
Now that is out of the way, lets talk business. Every business should have a blog. There are so many reasons for your business to have a blog it would be hard to write them all in one blog post, so lets assume you know your company needs a blog.
So do you hire a blogging consultant? What qualifications do you look for in a blogging consultant? What does a blogging consultant look like? How much should I pay a blogging consultant?
Lets start with “Should you hire a blogging consultant?”
The quick answer is yes, but lets go into why first. There are a lot of things that go into making a blog popular. Technorati tags, submissions and pings to bloglists and blogsearch websites, learning how to get on the right blogrolls, etc.
If you are new to blogging it takes awhile to catch on to most of these things and most blogging consultants say that all of the above is necessary if you are going to have a successful blog.
There are more things to add to the list but this article isn’t about how to run a successful blog, it’s about blogging consultants. Hiring a blogging consultant can save you from making a lot of early mistakes and get your blog found a lot quicker than trying to do it on your own.
Now all the blogging consultants are liking me again. I can tell. But will it last?
What qualifications do you look for in a blogging consultant?
Here is where things get ugly between me and the blogging consultants. Most blogging consultants are . . . well . . . bloggers. Many of them have what they think is a successful blog although many bloggers have different ideas for what success is.
Some think it’s defined as how much they made on google adnonsense last month. Others count success by number of visitors to their website or the number of comments that appear on their blog. Still others measure their success by what the other bloggers think about them.
What do all of those bloggers who are blogging consultants have in common? They all think that having a successful blog automatically makes you a qualified blogging consultant. I told you it was going to get nasty. After this article if I measured my success by what the other bloggers think of me then I’m doomed!
Fortunately I don’t measure my success in terms of what the other bloggers and blogging consultants think. Lets get back to those qualifications for a blogging consultant.
First of all a blog is a website. It is a website that is updated often in most cases, but it is still a website. Each blogpost becomes a page of that website. So with a blog you are creating more webpages to your website as often as you post to your blog.
Now I have a question for you. Would you first look to hire a blogger to do search engine optimization for your website? Would you first look to hire a blogger to handle your AdWords campaign? Would you first look for a blogger to build your website for you?
The answer to all of the above is probably no, unless the blogger also has experience in those fields and not just for their blog. Actual websites they have built, optimized, and marketed for themselves and for clients.
A blogging consultant should not just be a blogger. They should also have all of the skills necessary to run a website. Now the blogging consultants are all mad at me again. But think about it. Many bloggers know how to write. They know how to get into the right circle of blogger friends who will link to them. They know about blogging.
So if all you need to know is how to write a blog, then hiring a blogger who knows how to write is the answer, but if you need someone who is going to manage your blog for you including posting to the blog, search engine optimization, link popularity, (and not just from blogrolls), and marketing, then you need to hire a webmaster who also blogs.
Okay, How much should I pay a blogging consultant?
How much do you have? Just kidding. A lot depends on the type of blog you want or have. A corporation blog has to pay more, not because they have more, but because there are all kinds of legal and policy matters that have to be considered with every single blog post and every single link to or from another blog or website. A small business blog doesn’t have many of the same issues as the corporate blog, but still has certain standards that need to be met.
If you have ever hired a webmaster, not a web designer, a webmaster, (Thats another article), or a Search Engine Optimization Company, or a Search Engine Marketer, or even just a Marketing Consultant, (The just was in there just so I could make consultants mad again.), then you have an idea of what a blogging consultant should cost.
Now keep in mind, if you are hiring a blogging consultant to strictly teach you how to blog, then it’s not worth as much money as when you hire a blogging consultant who is also going to perform all of the services a Webmaster and Internet Marketer would provide plus search engine optimization.
Ha ha! I still didn’t say how much it costs. It’s coming. Read on.
What does a Blogging Consultant look like?
He or she looks like someone who has more than just a blog or blogs. Someone who also owns and manages several websites for themselves and for clients. As I said before a blog is still a website.