This is a Complete guide to starting a WordPress Blog and earning money from it..
Written by Kristin Stone…

Here are the topics that will be covered:

Create Blog File
Picking a Domain Name
Sign Up with a Web Host:
Point Domain to Web Host.
Install WordPress
Login to WordPress
Install WordPress Theme
Set Up Permalinks
Install Plugins
Set Up RSS with FeedBurner
Set Up Google Analytics
Making Money – Set Up Advertising
Getting Traffic to Your Blog
Learning More
Can Someone Do This For Me? Yes!
What Is a Blog?

A blog is a website that has some automatic organizing features included in it. Your theme, the look and feel of your website, will be consistent on every page. Your readers will find navigating your website very easy if it is in the blog format. They can browse by category, tags, or date. And you can make money all while offering your content free to your readers. How?

How Blogs Make Money

Blogs make money through having advertisements on them and also by selling products or services. I will cover all of this in detail in Step 12 below. For now, know that if you are persistent in building your blog, your content, and your readership, over time you will have the potential to make good money. How much?

Some people make very little and give up. Don’t do that! When starting out, you might only make a few dollars a month while you are building your readership. Over time you could quite easily earn an extra $1000 per month from advertising revenues. Some top bloggers make a full living off their blog earning 5 or 6 figure incomes. And their are the tippity top blogs that earn in the millions. Your income potential is only limited by your belief and the work you put in.

Of course you will need to be persistent and stick with it even when it seems like things are going nowhere. Build your network of blogging friends over time and compare notes, ask for feedback and share learnings with each other. And, of course, continually provide great content for your readers and they will reward you with loyalty and referrals.

Complete Guide to Setting Up a WordPress Blog

There is a ton of information available on making money through blogging. This post will give you the steps for setting up a WordPress blog, customizing it, getting traffic to your blog, and how to make money from your blog. I promise to offer details where it is necessary and help make things simpler where there is already a lot of complexity and confusion. There are other blogging platforms out there, but none compares to WordPress. It is the most popular and the easiest to use. It is also free. (Your only costs will be domain registration – about $10/year and web hosting – about $6.95/month.)

I’ll guide you to getting the most important things done so you’ll get off to the right start. Then once your blog is up and running, you will have enough knowledge and experience to search the internet for information that will allow you to hone your blog even further. For now, this guide will be all you need.

There are many steps, but with this post and the free Blog Setup Checklist (free excel download), you can complete this quickly, in a day or two working full time, or you can spread it out over as much time as you need. The Blog Setup Checklist will help you keep track of where you left off and a place to write down notes or questions to follow up on at a later time.

The Best Way to Use this Guide

Bookmark this page. Download the WordPress Blog SetUp Checklist (free excel document). Check off your progress and follow the steps one by one right online with this post.

The Steps to Setting Up a WordPress Blog, (more…)

A Guest post by Celestine Chua from The Personal Excellence Blog.

Ever wondered what are the traits of the top, successful and excellent bloggers?

I have. Since I started my blog, The Personal Excellence Blog, in 2008, I have studied top bloggers extensively. I read many articles on how to build a great blog. I listened to different bloggers say their piece. Through personal experimentation, I learned what works and what doesn’t work, and integrated them as blogging habits. It has given me great results. After a lot of hard work in the past 1.5 years, The Personal Excellence Blog has grown into an well trusted and established resource on how to achieve excellence in life.  It has 3,500 subscribers, 5,000 readers a day, 110,000 page views a month, over 160 articles, a bundle of free ebooks and has been (more…)

11 Online Reputation Management Tools You Need For Your  Business

People from all walks of life have two lives –online and offline. Companies and organizations are not exempt from these two lives and to make sure that their identities are managed well, online reputation management tools have become more and more important.

The emphasis on reputation is not a matter to neglect, whether your company is big or small –a good reputation is vital for its growth. To make sure that no one is using your log-ins (more…)

<a href=”http://budurl.com/wordpressaudio4u“>Click here to listen to Cathy Perkins
talk about BLOGGING…
She’s selling a seminar at the end — but the content is excellent

Practical Social Marketing Tips – How to Avoid 3 Really Bad Blogging Mistakes in Social Media
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Herring]Jeff Herring

Social Marketing is a powerful force for traffic generation, list building and creating online visibility. And your blog is a powerful part of your social media system. It seems like some people forget that their blog is a significant part of their Social Marketing.

Even when online marketers get how important their blog is, unfortunately many bloggers consistently make 3 really bad blogging mistakes. Let’s take a closer look at these 3 mistakes and what to do instead.

Mistake 1 – Failure to make your blog the hub of your system – Many people neglect the power of their blog in Social Marketing. This is a big mistake because your blog should be the hub of your system. You can communicate more clearly and you can communicate longer on your blog, and thus people spend more time on your blog.

What to do instead – Use a WordPress Blog and hook it up to the rest of your Social Marketing System. For example, each time I create a new blog post, it is automatically announced on Twitter and Facebook. You can also set it up so that all your articles from EzineArticles and all your tweets from Twitter show up on your blog.

Mistake 2 – Failure to post often to your blog – I see so many people set up a blog and then rarely update it with new posts. When someone goes to your blog and you have not posted in a month, you are communicating that your blog is not important or relevant. It’s not likely they will be back.

What to do instead – There is just no excuse to post at least 3 times a week to your blog, and more would be better. There is just so much you can post: your tip of the week or day, recent articles or turn an article into a several post series, your own videos or ones you find valuable from others, invite guest bloggers. Get in the habit of posting new content at least 3 times a week.

Mistake 3 – Failure to “seed the tip jar” – Part of the lifeblood of your blog is the comments shared by readers. This is how your readers “share in the conversation.” If you don’t have discussions going on in the comments section of your blog then something is wrong.

What to do instead – First of all, invite readers to comment. Invite them right in the blog post. When you email your list or announce your new blog post on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere, invite people to “share their comments and join in the conversation.”

Then “seed the tip jar” in your blog. You know how you will see a tip jar at a coffee house or a bar? Have you ever seen the tip jar empty? I bet not, because the owners have learned to put a bit of money in the jar to “seed the tip jar.” They are using social proof to get the behavior they want.

You can do the same thing by “seeding your blog comments with your own comments on your blog post. This one little strategy encourages others to begin commenting and join in the conversation.

And to learn more about how to leverage the Social Networks for waves of traffic and more, get your FREE Instant Access to our Social Marketing Video Training Series when you visit http://SocialMarketingBlueprint.com/7laws

You’ll get a series of videos, audios and pdfs all about Social Media Traffic & Profits

From Jeff Herring and the SocialMarketingBlueprint.com

Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Practical-Social-Marketing-Tips---How-to-Avoid-3-Really-Bad-Blogging-Mistakes-in-Social-Media&id=3448543] Practical Social Marketing Tips – How to Avoid 3 Really Bad Blogging Mistakes in Social Media

Now that your blog is live you really want to start concentrating
of pumping really great quality content for your blog. After all,
the essence of a blog is the blog posts. This course will go into
depth about all aspects of blogging such as traffic, social media,
link building, monetization etc but none of that stuff will matter
if your content is no good!

First Of All, Be Authentic
————————–

Now before you start obsessing over what is good content and what
is not let me give you the number one most important element to any
piece of content – authenticity! Just be yourself, whatever that
happens to be. I briefly mentioned this before in an earlier lesson
but I see so many bloggers struggling to find their groove because
they are trying to emulate somebody else.

What does being authentic mean? First of all it means being true to
yourself in what you write. Don’t be afraid to voice your own
opinions even if they fly in the face of the masses in your niche.
I have gathered quite a good following on my Internet marketing
blog purely because I do not hold back on my opinion of many
Internet Marketing tactics which I find distasteful.

Authenticity means honesty. Never lie on your blog – when you write
about products (I’ll talk about doing ‘money posts’ in a separate
lesson) always tell the trust and be honest. If you post any kind
of statistics on your blog such as subscriber numbers, income etc
always make sure you are honest to a tee because if you are not you
will be caught out and it will destroy your credibility.

If you’re looking to build your blog into a solid income stream and
use it to launch products and services then honesty and
authenticity are key. Over time your blog readers learn to trust
you and see you as a real person and this really helps when it
comes to selling something!

Authenticity means just being yourself in every way – in your style
of writing, in the choice of words you use, in your posting
frequency, the length of your posts and every detail you can think
of. I will give you basic guidelines to follow within these lessons
but always inject your own wisdom and ideas into everything you read.

Pay Attention To, But Don’t Obsess Over Spelling & Grammar
———————————————————-

Most blogging software including WordPress has a built-in spell
checker which will highlight miss-spelled words so get into the
habit of using it. If your software does not then write your post
in some kind of tool which does. In other words, make sure you have
used some kind of basic spell checker before you hit publish on any
post.

Spellcheckers only go so far – most of them do not pick up
grammatical errors so also read your post through before publishing
to make sure that it reads right.

Now having said all that, don’t obsess over it. There will always
be the odd member of the grammar police lurking about that might
want to pick up on your typos but the vast majority of your readers
simply won’t care or even notice if you spell something wrong or
you use ‘there’ instead of ‘their’ for instance.

People read your blog because they are interested in what you have
to say, and not because they are looking for an education on
writing. Well, that’s assuming your blog is not about writing

Create an About Page
====================

In a later lesson I’m going to break down some specific ideas for
types of posts you can use to stand out above the crowd but before
I get to that there is one piece of content that you should make
sure your blog contains – an about page.

If you are using WordPress and created a default installation then
it will most probably have created a page for you. If not create
one. The about page should be displayed prominently on your blog
theme so that anybody new who comes to your blog will see the link
easily.

When people arrive at your blog they may have arrived from all
manner of sources. They might have come from a search engine, from
a social media site, from another blog, or from any number of other
inbound links that I will be discussing later in the course. Most
people that arrive at your blog will not know who you are or what
your blog is about so your about page is a good place to tell them.

The first thing that should go into it is a short explanation of
what your blog is about and if appropriate, what benefits you
provide for the reader. This will be particularly important if you
later want to sell something from your blog.

Also say something about yourself. Unless you have a particularly
good reason to be anonymous, say your name and where in the world
you are based. Readers like to put a name to a blogger. I have seen
quite a few bloggers that brand themselves as some kind of
pseudonym and never use their real name but it is not easy to pull
this off. One example was ‘The Cow’ behind the blog, johncow.com.

There is lots you can do with your about page and it will become
more valuable as your blog improves. You can use it to highlight
some of your very best work, you can showcase some of your
achievements and if you are selling anything then mention that here
also.

In short your about page should be an at-a-glance overview of you,
your blog and what you offer to your readers.

Today, there are almost constant references to social media tools like Twitter and Facebook in everyday culture. If you’re not already using them, chances are that you’re wondering if you should be. If you’re already using them and not seeing any positive business results, below are some very helpful ideas.

Some business owners are resistant to embracing these tools, believing that:

a) They don’t have the time for them, and
b) These tools are little more than time wasters.

But beyond being a source of entertainment, social media sites can be used as marketing tools that can do plenty to help you increase the success of your business. They can help you build brand recognition for yourself and your business, establish you as an industry expert, increase your website traffic, and increase your sales.

Build brand recognition

When you build a following online, more people will become aware of who you are and what you do. People searching for your company will also obtain more information about you because they will be directed to profiles.

By socializing in online circles, you can build recognition—not only can you talk about your expertise and your company’s offerings but you can share links, add your URL to your profile, and also directly converse with clients and prospects.

Establish yourself as an expert

The social aspect of many of the popular social media tools allows you to establish yourself as an expert in your niche, and this helps drive traffic to your website or online profile. These tools enable you to answer questions and point people to links to your website, articles, and blogs, as well as business profiles where you can begin to work at converting them into a customer.

Increase website traffic

Social media tools allow you to bring traffic to your website both directly and indirectly. Search engines crawl link-rich sites regularly—this works to your advantage, giving you more organic search engine traffic. Organic traffic is known for high rates of visitor conversion, and because prospects find your site naturally instead of via paid advertising campaigns, this saves you money.
Beyond the search engine optimization (SEO) power of these sites, people will click on your links. Those who follow you or subscribe to your updates could also share your links with their own online social circles. The viral aspect of social marketing is one of the things that make it so powerful.

Increase sales (and profit!)

There are different ways you can use social media tools to your advantage with prospects and clients. Not only will you have more links pointing to your website, which increases your search engine popularity, but your online activities could intrigue prospects who will visit your profile or website. Your winning sales techniques can take things from there.

Here are some of the social media tools you can use to your business’s advantage:

Twitter

This micro-blogging tool allows users to post updates in 140 characters or less that answer the question, “What are you doing?” Entire books are devoted to the e-commerce possibilities with this increasingly popular platform.

Updates by you could include links to your website or blog, promotions and news about your products and services, and other info. This can pique the interest of readers who may visit your site, click your link, or re-tweet (post your update in their timeline to their followers, who may decide to “follow” your updates as well). Twittering can be addictive, but it can also prove to be quite lucrative.

Facebook

Facebook is a popular tool used socially, but you can also use it for the purpose of networking with potential and existing customers. Create profiles and fan pages, and join interest groups that allow you to talk to prospects. Announce promotions, business developments, and more.

With Facebook you can also create targeted advertising campaigns that serve ads to your customer demographic. Contextual advertising targets particular age groups, geographical areas, hobbies, and interests, and displays ads when specific keywords are present in conversations.

MySpace

MySpace, like Facebook, provides a status update which points people to your website through discussions, direct links, and MySpace blog entries. Friend lists can build very quickly on these busy sites.

Digg

Digg, a popular news-sharing site, lists links in order of popularity. Submit blog posts, URLs, and videos that are categorized for others who may be searching on that topic. Submissions are given a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” by users, and more “thumbs up” equals more positive exposure. Digg can bring website traffic via search engines, also.

Where do you start?

There are many different tools that can cater to particular businesses. Once you decide to give one a try (consider trying the sites listed here), you’ll undoubtedly hear about other sites that also may or may not be useful for you. It could take time, experimentation, and analysis of results to help you determine where you should spend the time you’ve allocated to social marketing.

Because of the interactive personality of today’s average consumer, the right mixture of socializing and promotional techniques could serve you and your business quite well. –D.P.

Suggested rules in social marketing

There are dos and don’ts in being a social media success. Here are tips to help you maximize the use of these tools and increase your chances of success:

• Do take time to learn the rules and etiquette of each social site you join.

• Don’t be a spammer (someone who overdoes promotion and provides little value). Watch your self-serving to helpful-participation ratio.

• Do interact with others and contribute value.

• Don’t get involved in conflicts or debates.

• Don’t overdo it and make social networking counter-productive.

• Do gauge success from these sites so you can determine where to spend your energy.

By Ali Brown