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If you’re interested in blogging or know anything about blogs then you’ve probably come across WordPress. It is one of the most popular blogging platforms, and millions of people use it across the world to create and manage their blogs.

Great – but how good IS WordPress and why is it so popular?

1. First of all it’s free content management software. This has ensured its popularity with many people, especially so because it is so powerful and is very easily customized, unlike some expensive paid blogging platforms.

2. WordPress is extremely easy to install. Pretty much anyone (even ‘non-techies’) can install WordPress with the minimum of fuss, even if you’ve never done it before. There are also many tutorials available which guide you through the process, and because it is so popular there is plenty of help available online should you get stuck with anything.

3. There are thousands of themes available, so it’s very easy to make your WordPress blog look exactly the way you want it to. Choose from the thousands of free and paid themes which are available to download, or get your own custom theme created. Once you have your theme it’s an absolute doddle to install and change it.

4. You can take advantage of the thousands of widgets and plugins which are out there. You can make your blog do pretty much whatever you want it to, and again many of them are completely free.  Pst! ~ For a fantastic (paid) WordPress plugin that does a huge bundle of things check out Short Code Kid!

5. YOU own your blog. Unlike a service such as Blogger where your blog is simply hosted on someone else’s server, with WordPress you own your blog. Nobody can come along and shut it down or close your account.

6. Search engines love WordPress, and it is very easy to get your blog into the listings. There are many widgets and simple ‘tweaks’ which you can do to ensure your blog gets indexed by the search engines in a very short space of time.

WordPress is probably THE most popular blogging platform and rightly so. I love it and I wouldn’t even consider using anything else. It really is that good.

Here to Help >> Click Here to Learn Smart Blogging Skills

I wanted to let you know about a very special webinar that Robert and Lance are holding tomorrow.

1. Learn how important it is to backup your stuff, especially your membership sites and WordPress blogs

2. Be live on the call so they can show you how easy and fast it is to setup a new WordPress site (no one else has the technology to do it THIS fast)

3. They aren’t starting the call late, they’re beginning on time and ending on time, so you need to schedule to be there…

When: Thursday (tomorrow). September 1st 2011. 2PM – Eastern time (GMT-5).

Click here to sign up now

1. Not proof reading: A simple mistake but it can definitely make you look bad with tons of mistakes. Spell checking is great, but you can’t rely on just that. You have to read your blog post 2 or 3 times to make sure you catch all your grammar mistakes. It might not seem like a big deal but here is one example of a mistake I have made. I wanted to write “now four styles to choose from” and I wrote “no four styles to choose from.” Spell check didn’t catch anything, but that one sentence means a big difference to the reader. If you want to take it to the next level, get someone else to proof read your blog post. They will catch things you miss every time.

2. Plagiarism/Spun Content/PLR: Alright if you have an adsense bait autoblog, ignore this mistake. Put up whatever you want. However, if you care about your personal brand and your blog, then at all costs avoid this type of content. Creating content can be a pain, but stealing someone else’s can hurt you dearly in the end. If you get caught (and you will) you lose all credibility instantly. The same thing goes for PLR content. If you want to use PLR on your personal blog, then makes sure you rewrite them and use only quality content.

3. Not being consistent: This might be the biggest mistake. If you are committing to running a blog, then it is a commitment. Treat it as such. Don’t fire out 5 articles your first week then sit back and relax. You have to constantly create content in order to engage your visitors. Fresh content is also good in the eyes of Google. We don’t want Google unhappy do we?

4. Not marketing: I was guilty of this mistake. When I first started blogging I hid it from people! What’s the point of that? I posted away and hoped people came, but never worked at marketing it. I didn’t start to see success until I sent it out to my Facebook and Twitter lists. I began using Digg and Stumbleupon. I talked about it at social gatherings. I even got some business cards made up that had nothing but the URL of my blog. It began to work and I finally got to see some significant traffic. You can post all you want, but what use is it if no one sees it?

5. Not responding to comments: If you are fortunate enough to get comments on your blog posts, then you should reply. For one, it is the polite thing to do. Secondly, it will engage web visitors and make them more likely to come back. Also, people who haven’t commented will be more likely to comment if they see people getting responses. A blog full of active commenters is the start of a potential money making machine!

Eliminate these five mistakes and you will definitely notice a traffic increase to your blog. You will also notice that you have more interaction with your visitors, and in the long run it will offer you more chances to monetize your site. If you have to only choose a couple from the list above, please post consistently and market yourself. Curing these two mistakes alone, will mean great things for your site.

1. Develop Their Writing Skills – Some children don’t like to read and write. This might change if you help them set up their own blog. Kids seem to gravitate towards technology at an early age these days. If they don’t find traditional writing enjoyable, the added touch of technology inherent in a blog might excite them. You can help them develop their writing skills by encouraging them to post regularly to their blog.

2. Develop Technological Skills – The world we live in is becoming more and more technological everyday. Many parents feel overwhelmed themselves. You do not want your child falling behind. Having them regularly using a blog will introduce them to the internet, computers, typing and email. All of these skills are pretty much essential, especially for the next generation. There are a lot of pitfalls and dangers incorporated with these technologies so teaching your child how to avoid these early will be tremendously helpful.

3. Develop Social Skills – Having a blog will allow your child to get more comfortable expressing his/her feelings. Responding to comments can also help them develop their social skills. Some kids are shy and might be able to express themselves more fully online. Eventually those skills can translate to the real world.

These three reasons alone should be good enough for any parent who has thought about allowing their children to blog. You need to help them navigate the internet pitfalls, but it will all be a learning experience.

Make sure you monitor your children’s online activities and blog. You also need to talk to your child and explain the dangers of giving out personal information online. Once you have done that, and considering the vast benefits, I think your child having a blog is a wonderful idea.

Internet Safety…

You have to be careful because blogging by children can be dangerous. Follow these four tips and you will make blogging a safe and fun activity for your children.

1. Make Rules: You need to sit down with your child and set up some rules. Whatever rules you decide on you should explain them clearly to your child and explain why they are important. Set some consequences as well, let them know what will happen if they break any of the rules. You don’t want to be lackadaisical when it comes to online rules. Stay firm and your children will understand.

2. Strong Passwords: Make sure that your children’s accounts are all protected by good passwords. “12345″ is not a good password. You should use number, letters and symbols. It might be impossible for them to remember, but if it means you have to log on for them – even better.

3. Screen the Content: Encourage your child to create their blog posts on the computer before they go live. This way you can check them out and ensure they don’t give away any sensitive information, or have any objectionable content. Another bonus with this method is you can help your child get used to word processing software. You can also teach them about grammar and spelling with this method.

4. Monitor their Blog: Check your child’s blog everyday and make sure they haven’t tried to sneak any objectionable content on to it. Also make sure no one has been leaving weird comments. Even some spam comments can have dangerous links so make sure you have access to delete these. Install Akismet if you use WordPress and most of them should be caught. Also check out any links your child puts up, who knows where they could be linking to.

If you follow these four tips you will ensure that your child’s blog will be a great learning experience and not a potential danger. Commit to strong passwords, screening and monitoring and your child can benefit from blog ownership!

First you have to get the video into your post. You go to Youtube, click embed (under video), choose your options and copy the code.  You then take that code and paste it into the WordPress HTML editor. Remember you have to set to HTML, using the button in top right corner.  Then you simply paste in your Youtube embed code. Now you have the video in your post or page.

Once you have that done you can switch back to the visual tab on the WordPress editor.  You will see your video (or object) as a large yellow box.  Ideally, you could simply click on that box and click the center button on the editor.  That doesn’t work.  I am not sure exactly why, but it is probably because the center command in WordPress inserts html code that the object doesn’t recognize.  Even if you wrap the object yourself in < center > tags it won’t work.

The fix is pretty simple though. You just have to navigate back to the html part of your editor.  You won’t see the yellow box now you will see the embed code for the video.  Right before the embed code, enter:

div style=”text-algin:center;” (in between html brackets of course)

And then after the end of the embed code:

/div (also in html brackets)

When you switch back to your visual editor you will notice the yellow box is centered!  Now that you have learned this code you can center any youtube video or other object in each of your posts.  Use it often enough and it won’t be long until you have the code memorized. Try it on your next blog post and let me know how it works.

These terms must work because the big names use them. Money is being made by people who use these terms so who am I to hate them? Well, I think there is room for more transparent and honest online marketing.

The first step for me is to not use the following terms:

1. Guru – There is already a growing resentment to this word in the online marketing community. I think it comes down to over saturation. Everyone is now a “guru”. Oh they may not have results, and they might be new to the field but hey, they are a Guru so they must be good!

I was contacted by a man who was new to online marketing.  He wanted a WordPress website built. One of his specific requests was to have Guru in his header. I did it — no problem, but I have to admit that I found it rather hilarious. This guy was new to online marketing, was into like seven MLMs and was making no money. What exactly is he going to teach anyone?  Wait a second, who am I to question a Guru! It is in his header after all – must be true.

If someone is claiming to be a Guru do your research – and if you are going to buy something off a “Guru” ask them about their results. There are some truly knowledgeable “Gurus” out there – but be aware that anyone can call themselves a Guru and at the end of the day it means nothing.

2. No Brainer – I hate when someone tells me their service or product is a no brainer. Unless I am handing you $1000 and you instantly hand me back $1500 then I can’t envision any deal being a “no brainer”. It is almost offensive in a way, too. Do I look like some rube who is buying snake oil off the back of a van? Do you really expect me to not think about my forthcoming purchase? Oh it is a no brainer? Give me seven!

I am not the type of person who tosses my money at a product without doing research. I would suggest anyone looking at online marketing programs do the same. I have seen a lot of product launches come and go over the years and I can say without a doubt there has never been a “no brainer” product.

3. Newbie – This word is a bit different than the others on the list. It is different because I know it works and is effective. New people love to see this word and it makes them feel like “Hey I’m new I can do this!”. The reason it bothers me is purely saturation. Everyone has their newbie product. Overkill.

I will take it easy on this word because I understand it’s power. But in general – UGH. To me it is a warning sign that someone might be trying to take advantage of people new to the industry.

These words are never going to disappear from internet marketing. They worked at one time and probably still do. Even if they aren’t nearly as effective as they once were, people will still use them because people like to follow. That may seem harsh but anytime something has worked online it is almost always ran into the ground. If you are like me and can’t stand these words you better learn to live with them.

If you are using these words and not making money then maybe you should change it up. Try transparent and honest..I heard that sometimes works.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Use Ideas Instantly – Whenever you have an idea use it instantly. This doesn’t seem like much of a strategy but it has helped me explode my blog traffic. There will be days when you can’t think of what to post at all. If you jump when you have an idea then you won’t have this worry. Be prepared to at least jot down any ideas that come to you. Carry a notepad, or an audio recorder to get your thoughts down as soon as you think of them. You don’t want to make a mental note, because those aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. You don’t have to post your ideas instantly, but keeping running notes about all your ideas will make content creation a snap.

2. Update Often – Oh great strategy right? Well it is actually. This might not seem like it has to be said but if you are starting to blog make sure you are consistent. There is nothing worse than a blog that is never updated. Those blogs have no real chance of building a fan base. Besides your live visitors, Google likes to see updated content as well. Updating your content might seem obvious but if that is the case why do so many people ignore it? Once you decide on blogging, one of your first strategies better be how to update regularly.

3. Spread The Word – This is a really important strategy that all good bloggers know. You have to actively market your blog online and offline. A lot of people start a blog and then post like a mad person, only to wonder why no one comes to their site. People have to know it exists. You have to combine online and offline marketing.

First off, make sure your blog can be found and is optimized for search engines. Then make sure you share it everywhere you can online. This means social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. It also means social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon. As for offline, you can add your blog to any of your pre-existing marketing material, in fact I suggest you do. You can also create cheap offline marketing tools. I had business cards made up with only the url of my blog on it. I gave it to people I met when they asked how they could contact me. It cost me $25 bucks and I still get traffic from those cards circulating.

These above strategies have been used and proven to stimulate your blog traffic and overall exposure. If you act on your ideas right away, update often and market your blog offline AND online you will notice your traffic increase. You will also gain valuable backlinks and begin branding yourself as an expert. Who could ask for anything more?

He is not a very technical guy so he asked me about a website. I told him he should blog and he replied with laughter. I took the time to break down how easy it would be using a platform like WordPress. That intrigued him. When I broke down how WordPress would let him have a blog and a traditional site wrapped in one – he was almost sold. I eventually convinced him by offering to do the initial set up. The next day I easily set up his blog and it was up to him to provide content. Provide content, he did! He was a voracious blogger. He actually posted twice a day. He posted once in each of his categories: starting a home business and another category related to to his product.

It didn’t take long for him to call me. Just about 2 weeks later he was excitedly telling me about a guy that contacted him wondering about a custom project. I would classify the blog as a success at that point. Over the next year we documented the advantages the home based business blog had meant for his business.

Here is a list of some of the real life tangible benefits of the blog:

-He sold the custom project mentioned above
-A local newspaper got word of his blog on twitter and did a story on him
-A related industry quarterly asked him to contribute – getting his name out to thousands of potential customers
-He met 2 local (relatively speaking) tradesman who were in his field and offered him great advice and opportunities for collaboration
-He ranked on Google for a number of long tail keywords that eventually meant he was getting substantial traffic to his site that even led to some sales
-The home business category was great for motivation – it kept all of his triumphs and mistakes in a neatly ordered online diary that allowed him to reflect. It also helped him make sure he didn’t make a mistake twice.

A home based business is the perfect match with a blog. As you can see above, it is a great networking tool that you can be used for personal motivation as well. If you want to give your home based business a jolt, harness the power of the internet and blogging.

1. Write Like You Talk: This is not advice that you will hear in Journalism 101, but when it comes to blogging it is an entirely different story. If you write like you talk you can engage readers quickly, because they will feel connected with you. It also helps for editing purposes, when you read over your blog post, do it out loud and you can hear if it flows naturally.

2. Edit, Edit, Edit: This goes well with the above point – read over your blog post at least three times before you publish. Yes, spellchecking software is great, but it won’t catch all the mistakes. It will miss grammar mistakes, punctuation and words that are spelled properly but used wrong. If you value your readers then you will want to make sure you present your best possible work.

3. Avoid Overkill: For the most part, I don’t think people are into 9000 word blog posts. A lot of people will scan a blog post without really reading it, if your post is short and simple it is more likely to grab their attention.

4. Don’t Be A Wimp: Do not be a wimp – stand up for what you believe in. Take a controversial stand or two, yes some people might get angry, but they also might send the link around in their anger. Getting people talking and engaging you (even negatively) can help your blog’s exposure. For every person you anger, there will be someone who agrees with you. Stick to your guns in comments as well. I used to dread negative comments, but now I view it as a way to interact with my readers.

5. Your Work Isn’t Over When You Hit Publish: You can write as much as you want but if people don’t read it, who cares? Market your posts every time you make one. The average person has a couple hundred friends on Facebook so share it on there. Share it on Twitter if you use it. Email it to your friends if you don’t use social media. You can also send it out to bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit. None of these strategies cost you anything!

Now that you have these five tips to work with you should be able to consistently create quality content. Remember to use each tip every time you write a post and you will undoubtedly notice your comments, traffic and opt-ins climb steadily!