Chapter 8 – Navigating Your Blogger or WordPress Blog
Now that you have setup your blog as outlined in my previous article you are ready to get familiar with all of the functions of your blog.
As I mentioned before, it doesn’t hurt to write a “Hello World” post explaining who you are and what your blog is about. This is good so you can learn by doing and you can always delete the post later if you are unhappy with it.
Whether you have already written a post or not, the following article will walk you through the various menus and options available in your blog. I am breaking this article into two parts for those using Blogger and those using WordPress.
For those using WordPress blogs there is one additional step to finalize your setup. Please check out my guide on The Final Step of the WordPress Setup Process to complete your new installation.
If you are already familiar with the options available in your blog and would like to move onto the next training guide, I would recommend checking out Writing Your First Money Making Blog Post.
Chapter 7 – The Final Steps of the WordPress Setup Process
As I mentioned in my previous article about using Dreamhost one-click installs to setup your blog, you will need to receive a confirmation email from Dreamhost to let you know the blog installation has been completed.
Once you have received this email you will want to open it and click on the link provided to finalize your new WordPress installation.
When you click the link in the email from Dreamhost it will take you to the blog “Setup” screen.
The first screen will ask you the name of your blog and an email address you would like associated with it.
Chances are you have already setup a name that you used with the domain you created for the new blog. Type the name in as you would like it to be displayed on your blog.
For example:
makemoneylife.com
I would type in as: Make Money Life. This way it’s easier for people to read.
Most WordPress themes will also display this name at the top of your blog, so that is where I get a little additional keyword bonus from the considerations I made when creating a name for my site.
The next thing you need to enter is an email address that will be associated with the blog.
Once you have the required information filled out click the next button. This will take you to a setup screen that displays the login and password for admin on your blog.
I would recommend doing three things here.
01. First write down the information on the screen so you have a backup of it incase you forget it.
02. Then hit the “Print Screen” (PrtScn) button on your keyboard. (It is usually located near the “Backspace”, “Insert”, and “F12” keys on most keyboards. Once you have done this click the “Start” menu and select “Run”.
Type: MSPAINT and hit enter.
This will open MS Paint. Now click “Edit” > “Paste” and you will have a screenshot of the login information that was displayed for you incase you forget it. Click “File” > “Save” and save the screenshot somewhere on your computer or back up drive for safekeeping.
03. Once you have written down your login information, highlight the password with your mouse, and “right click” to bring up the options menu. Select “Copy” from the options menu and then go ahead and click the “Log In” button.
When you click “Login” it will take you to the WordPress admin login screen for your new site. Type in “admin” for your username and then “right click” in the password field and select “Paste” from the menu.
Once you have done this click the “Log in” button. You will now log into your new blog for the first time.
Create a New User Account
I recommend creating a new user account right away so it is easy to login next time.
01. To do this, go to: “Users” (located in the upper right-hand corner of the screen).
02. In the “Users” screen you will see a section of fields labeled “Add New User”.
Choose a username you would like for logging into the site. The user name is case sensitive so if you choose Paul or paul, they are considered two different logins. Be sure to make a mental note if you used capital letters or not.
Once you have your username you need to enter your first and last name. I usually enter Paul and the first letter of my last name. This doesn’t need to be extremely official.
Then it will ask for an email address. I recommend using the one you setup above for your blog. For mine it was paul@makemoneylife.com.
Then it asks for your “Website”. You can leave this blank or you can enter the address of your blog. I usually add the address just because I always like to make use of promotional mechanisms on sites.
Now you will want to create a password that is easy to remember. Type it in twice to confirm your new password.
Then from the “role” drop down menu I would suggest setting yourself up as “Administrator”. You can choose other options but you want to make sure that you have full control over your site.
The other options are useful for when you are setting up an account for a friend or partner on the site and you want to allow them to be an author, without administrator rights to the blog.
Now that you have setup the final options for your blog and created a new user account so it will be easy to login, you are ready to get started learning the ins and outs of WordPress. Click the link below to get started with my guide Options and Menus Available in a WordPress Blog.
If you have already installed WordPress and are interested in setting up a second domain to run another site you will want to checkout my guide on “Adding a New Domain to Your Hosting” to make sure that everything is in place to setup another blog.
If you have taken care of the prerequisites you are ready to move on to the actual installation of the new blog with WordPress publishing software.
Go to Dreamhost.com and log into your account. Once you are at the account control panel you will need to follow the steps listed below to setup your new blog installation.
The video above walks you through adding an additional domain to your hosting and then setting up your blog using the Dreamhost one click install process. If you have registered a second domain this video will walk you through everything you need to know.
If you are setting up your domain and hosting for the first time you can watch from the 4:40 mark to get a good idea of what you need to do.
01. First, click on the “Goodies” link in the navigational menu to the left. It is located under the “Mail” link and above the “Status” link in the navigation menu.
02. This will open a drop down menu with several options. We want to select the option near the bottom of the list called “One-Click Installs”
03. Once you have selected this option you will be taken to a new page called One-Click Installs.
The page gives you three options for how you would like to manage the one click install process. The options are:
Install new website software – Easy mode
Install new website software – Advanced mode
Upgrade or remove previously installed software – Advanced mode
You can choose the option that best suits your needs but I would recommend going with the “Install new website software – Advanced mode” option.
The reason being is that you want to have as much control over your site as possible. That’s why you went with web hosting in the first place, right? I will walk you through everything in the advanced menu, so you will know what options you need to choose.
If you are 04. Once you have clicked the “Install – Advanced” option a drop down will open and you will need to select the software you would like to use. In this case, since we are installing a new blog you would want to select the “WordPress” option.
There are several options available including:
WordPress
Gallery
ZenCart
PhpGed View
OpenX
Pligg
dotProject
Moodle
Joomla
Phpbb
MediaWiki
WebCalendar
For the sake of this article we are going to focus on the “WordPress” option.
05. Down below this make sure you select the proper option. You do not want to mess up a blog you have already created if you have more than one domain setup. (If this is your first blog installation then you don’t need to worry about this.)
It is going to ask you: “Install to?”
Make sure you select your new domain from the drop down list. (If you only have one domain it should default to the proper one.)
Once you have selected your new domain, if you leave the box blank after the domain name WordPress will be installed to the root directory of your domain. This is most likely what you want.
If you want to install WordPress into a directory other than root, most people enter “Blog” for this section. (This is mainly done when people are building a site and want to have a blog hosted on the website also. They may also do this if they are building a website around the blog.)
06. Once you have selected your new domain from the drop down menu you need to specify a name for the new blog’s database. You can go with anything here. If your site name is CoolBlogInfo, you might want to choose something like “cbiblog” for your database name.
(If you get a message that the database name is already in use just try again until you find one that is available.)
07. For the section asking “Use Existing Hostname,” I recommend keeping this separate from your original blog. (This only applies if you have more than one blog setup on your domain. If not, disregard this.) It is probably set to your original information by default.
To change this, toggle the drop down menu and select “Create a new hostname now.”
Once you have done this, the Create a New Hostname box will become available and you can enter a new name. The default “mysql” label is fine but toggle the drop down after this to associate the mysql sub-domain with your new domain name. (By default this will be set to your original blog information.)
08. The next section asks you the “First User” for this database. I recommend creating something easy to remember here. You can go with the default, which should be setup from your original blog, but to keep things separate I created an easy to recall user name and wrote the info down so I wouldn’t forget it.
(If this is your first blog just choose a name that will be easy to remember and go with that. This will be your login and password for your database should you ever need it.)
09. Once you have entered all the information, double check this page to make sure everything is correct. Once you have determined all the information is how you want it and the WordPress installation is pointing to the correct domain, you can go ahead and press the “Install it for me now!” button.
Once you have done this you will be taken to the “Success” screen!
Fantastico, shmantastico!
You will now see a message about your new blog being setup within the next 10 minutes.
After all the hard work you have done you deserve a coffee (or beer). Get up, fix yourself a drink, and once you come back to your computer your new blog should be setup and ready to go.
Congratulations, you have now mastered the Dreamhost One-Click Install program. You can see how useful this can be for quickly setting up multiple domains with their own blogs.
Now that you have setup your first (or second) blog, you will want to login and make sure everything is setup correctly. Check my guide entitled “Options and Menus Available in a WordPress Blog” to learn all the details of configuring your blog software.
Chapter 5 – How to Setup the Initial Installation and Configure Your Blog
In our last guide I discussed considerations to make when setting your blog for the first time. Now I would actually like to cover how to setup your blog.
As I mentioned in previous articles, Make Money Life is geared towards teaching anyone how to get started making money online. I do not want to assume that someone already knows one area or another.
While doing a lot of my research, I came across sites with great information that left out key points, because the author assumed people knew about these things already. This created a lot of unneeded research time for me that could have been spent setting up my site. If you come across information like this on my site please let me know so I can revise articles and help better answer your questions.
I will always address questions or feedback if they are in the form of comments on the blog.
Blogging Hardware and Software Requirements
I’m sure you will be glad to hear that blogging it not a very intense operation for a computer. Because of this, you can probably get by with almost any computer you currently own. In some rare exceptions you may notice slower performance on very old systems, but most PCs out there will work fine.
The software you use for your blog is dependant on your preferences and hosting service. I would highly recommend using WordPress software to maintain your blog.
WordPress is completely free to download and use, is widely supported, and has a very helpful community of users. It also has a lot of extended functionality through the use of free plugins and themes that people make for it.
There are other software alternatives but for the scope of this article and providing support to my readers, I am going to focus mainly on WordPress.
Now as I mentioned, sometimes the software you are able to run with your host may limit you to a specific application. A good example was setting up a blog for my company through their hosting service, which only supported “Movable Type” blogging software.
If a host tells you that you can only use one type of software it is a potential red flag for future support issues. I prefer a company that accommodates my needs instead of the other way around.
As I mentioned in a previous article, I am very happy with Dreamhost web hosting. I have sites on several hosts and out of all of these services Dreamhost has the best track record for uptime and helpful support.
You can save $10 signing up with Dreamhost by using the coupon code: MMLSavings
WordPress vs. Blogger
In my previous article Setup a Blog to Start Making Money Online I covered the pros and cons of using free blog services vs. WordPress software and web hosting. I will cover setting up both in the sections below.
How to Setup Your Blog on Blogger.com
To create a blog on blogger.com all you need to do is signup for a Google account. If you have a Google or Gmail account already you are one step ahead of the game. If not, you can do this right through the blogger website.
01. First go to blogger.com. You can either sign-in with your existing Google account or click on the orange “Create Your Blog Now” link.
02. Fill out the information on the following page and click the “Continue” button.
03. Once you have your account setup, you should be taken to “Step #2 – Name Blog” which is the blog creation section. (If you signed in with an existing Google account you will see a “Create a Blog” link at the top of the page.)
04. On the Name Your Blog screen you need to decide on two very important bits of information. A blog title and blog address.
“Take your time and choose wisely. This is a very important consideration for the future of your site.”
05. Once you have decided on a name, fill in the required information for the blog title and address. Then click the “next” button.
06. You will now be taken to a screen that will allow you to “Choose a Template” to customize the look for your blog. Choose a template that best suits your tastes and click the “next” button.
07. You are now at the final screen “Your blog has been created!” You have successfully created your first blog and can now add your first post by clicking the “Start Blogging” button.
You might want to do this and write a quick Hello World post explaining to people who you are and what your blog is about. This can be done as a practice post and you can always go back and delete it if you don’t like it.
Congratulations on setting up your first blog! Now you know how easy it is to setup a free blog with blogger.com (blogspot).
I am also happy to tell you it is just as easy to setup your first blog using web hosting with a service like Dreamhost.
I will cover this type of setup in the section below. If you are setting up your blog with Dreamhost checkout the following instructions for everything you need to know to easily get started.
How to Setup Your Blog with a Hosting Service
To setup a blog on a hosting service like Dreamhost there are a few more steps involved, but it can be just as easy as setting up a free blog. Don’t worry; I will walk you through everything you need to know to setup a blog with a professional appearance.
The first thing you need to do is register for a hosting account. As I have mentioned before I think Dreamhost is a great option for bloggers because they cater to WordPress and their “one click install” service makes it easy for even a beginner to get their first blog up and running in minutes.
When you sign up for your hosting you will need to register a web address if you do not already have one. I am guessing most people reading this article do not already own a web address so you will need to think of a name for your blog if you have not done this already.
I have a great guide on the site that will walk you through all the considerations to make when choosing a name for your site and web address.
Once you have your name picked out you are ready to complete the signup process.
01. The first screen you will come to says “Signup – Let’s Get Started”. Here you will need to select the type of hosting you want, or decide if you only want a web address.
You will need hosting for setting up your blog on a web host.
02. The next choice asks if you need extra features for your site. They offer Unique IPs, Premium phone support, VPN Access, SSL Secure certificates, and Google Apps.
I feel that most of these extra features are unneeded. If this is your first site, you do not need a lot of fancy services you are not going to use.
The premium phone support is expensive in the event that you don’t use it, and the Dreamhost support staff responds to email requests in a VERY timely manner. I recommend using email for any support questions you may have, because it’s quick and free.
The Google Apps option is worth leaving checked because it’s free. I left it checked when I signed up for my account. I haven’t used it to date, but the price is right.
03. The next step will instruct you to “Please configure your first hosted domain now.” Here you have a couple options.
Register a new .com/net/org/info domain for me. (Free with hosting!)
I already own a domain, I just want to host it with you (you can still register a free domain later)!
I already own a domain, I want to host it AND transfer the registration for free!
Just a dreamhosters.com sub-domain for now (you can still register a free domain later)!
You are probably going to want to go with the first option here. When you sign up for hosting you get to pick a free domain name so you can setup your web address now by choosing this option.
The second and third options apply if you already own a web address (domain). If this is the case you probably know which option best suits your needs.
The last option allows you to setup a sub domain with Dreamhost. Since the whole point of signing up for hosting is that you can have a unique site name and address I recommend registering the free domain that is offered to you in the first option.
04. Once you have made your selection you need to complete the registration form. This is standard information you would need to provide for any type of subscription-based service.
Once you have filled in the required information you can move onto the next section.
05. In the “Finally” section you will want to make sure to use the MMLSavings coupon code to get your $10 discount on hosting. You can use the money you save to register a second domain if you would like to setup a second website down the road.
Once you have entered the coupon code click the “Continue to Secure Payment” button to finalize your registration.
06. On the next page it will give you a couple options for how to pay for your hosting. The two main options are by PayPal or Credit Card.
If you read the fine print you can see that only Credit Card payments are eligible for refunds so this is the option I went with to be safe. It’s also nice because not everyone has a PayPal account.
07. Once you have filled in your billing information click the “Charge this card now” button and you will be taken to the “Let’s Get Started” screen.
“Welcome to Dreamhost”
This screen tells you that your payment has been accepted and that your account will be setup as soon as it is approved. (It only takes about five to ten minutes to approve your account.)
I recommend printing this page out for your records. You will also receive the same confirmation to your email so if you prefer to save it as an email you can do that too.
From here click the “Continue to your web panel” button. This will allow you to login to your new account for the first time.
When you click this button it will take you to the “Current Users: Log In” screen. You will be required to enter your Web ID and password to login into your new account. Your Web ID is the email address you provided during registration. Your Web Panel password is the password you setup when you registered.
Once you have entered this information press the “Log In” button and you will be taken to your account control panel.
Congratulations. You have just finished setting up your first web hosting account. From here you can install WordPress using the Dreamhost “one click install” service. For more information on this, checkout my next article about Using Dreamhost One Click Installs to Setup Your New Blog.
Blog Setup Overview
You have now learned how to setup a blog on a free host like blogger or on a web host like Dreamhost. You are finally ready to start writing your first blog posts.
At this point feel free to log-in to your blog and explore. Don’t be afraid to write some test posts to get a feel for your blog and the publishing process. Keep in mind that anything you create can always be deleted later so have fun and try things out.
Chapter 4 – A Great Site Name and Address is Important for Long Term Success
What’s in a name?
A website name is a very important decision. Because we are utilizing the blogging medium to create a money making website you want to look at the name or title as your brand.
Far too often people are in the process of filling out a form, and put in a name that they give no thought to what so ever. They figure, it doesn’t matter because the content is what’s important right? Wrong. While the content is very important a name cane be equally as important.
One example that comes to mind is when people use slang, or terminology that does not apply to their niche. I came across a site one time that was supposedly about making money and the author had used the word “Noob” as part of the title.
The problem here is that you are trying to “sell” a website as being a credible source of information. You need to establish yourself as an authority in your niche. This becomes much harder to do when you use a word like “Noob” which means someone who is unaware of how things work.
Aside from the obvious implications of certain terms, there is also the professionalism associated with the name. I find something simple, yet memorable is a great way to go if you would like to be taken seriously.
The Importance of Choosing a Good Name
Choosing a good name can be hard. Let me rephrase that… Choosing a good name can be really, REALLY hard. It’s well worth taking the extra time to come up with a good name as it will stick with you for the life of your site.
If you are creating a fly by night money making venture then this may not be as important to you but if you are creating something that you plan to stick with for a long time you really need to put a good amount of thought in what you decide to go with.
When I was deciding on a name for Make Money Life it actually took me about 10-12 hours of brainstorming over the course of three days. I kept several things in mind when trying to decide on what would work.
The name needed to explain to people what the site was about.
It needed to be easy to remember.
It had to be original without sounding spammy.
The name would need to also be available as a dot com.
I wanted the potential for good anchor text right in the name.
The Power of Anchor Text
“Anchor text” is the text people use to describe your site in a link. Since Google bases so much of your sites popularity on inbound links and the terms those links use to describe your site, having keywords show up in that anchor text is very desirable.
A lot of the time you do not actually have control over the anchor text someone uses to link to your site. Because of this having keywords you want to rank well for in your name can be advantageous.
When people post to my site, if they just posted my site name in the link it could commonly be formatted two ways.
makemoneylife.com
or
Make Money Life
The first link would be fine because any back links to your site are good news. But the second version would be even better because it would contain anchor text using the keywords “Make” “Money” and “Life”.
This means whenever someone linked to my site using the second variation my site would build more authority for the term “Make Money” which was one consideration I had when deciding on the name.
The reason the first variation of the link would not been seen as a keyword is because the three words do not have a space between them. This means that Google only sees it as “one” word. There is a way to overcome this though.
To Hyphen or not to Hyphen?
When you use hyphens in your websites name it lends itself to more potential for anchor text when people link to you.
So in our example:
makemoneylife.com
now becomes
make-money-life.com
Because the name now has hyphens in it Google will see the words as separate keywords in the same way it would if there were spaces there.
The only drawback is we are now creating a name that is much harder for people to remember so word of mouth advertising will not work as well for you. And word of mouth is the “Anchor Text” of the real world.
Most SEO experts and people who maintain credible money making websites will tell you the advantage you gain with the search engines from having a hyphenated site name is not that great.
You would mainly be doing it to try and get the benefit from the anchor text keywords when people link to you. In any case, it is usually agreed that having a memorable site name out weighs the benefit of using hyphens in your address.
It seems more professional if you do not, and your site will be easier to remember and seem less spammy. You can’t control how people are going to link to you so the benefit you would get from this is minimal in most people’s opinions, but your site name is completely up to you.
All the Good Names are Taken!
The name game can be a double edged sword because just when you think you have come up with something good you find out the dot com for it has already been registered.
Yeah that’s always a big downer. Because coming up with a name can be time consuming and difficult it really sucks when you find out the perfect name you just created belongs to someone else.
I have several suggestions that will help you avoid this problem, and ensure you can come up with a creative name that you will be happy with.
01. Availability – To ensure you original name is not in use from the start always use All Whois when coming up with name possibilities. You can type each name you are planning into the search field and know immediately if that name is available or not.
02. Description – Think of words that describe what your site is about and try to incorporate them into your name. This will give people an idea of what the site is about before they even see it. In some cases bloggers have been very successful at building their own brands (Shoemoney) but this is time consuming and expensive so it may not be the perfect choice for someone that is new to blogging.
03. Length – Competition for keywords is fierce. When you plan out keywords for your site, keep in mind that most webmasters do better optimizing for 3 to 5 word terms as opposed to 1 or 2 word terms. Although most people will recommend that your site name is no longer than 3 words long. From this we can guess that you probably have a better chance of obtaining a site name that has 2 – 3 words, than a site name that is 1 or 2.
04. Originality – Not only is making up words fun, it can create a unique name for a site that others may not have thought of yet. You could either make a name completely from scratch like some of the popular social book-marking sites, or create a new word by combining parts of two other words.
05. Variation – Using a Thesaurus to find variations of words you like can help you find a creative name. It can also help you discover a name you might not have thought of otherwise. When I plan out names I am always using a thesaurus and synonyms to come up with unique ideas.
I Have a Name! What Now??
Congratulations. You have just crossed one of the first major bridges for building your site. I know how hard it can be to come up with something you like, so if you are ready to put your idea into motion your next step would be registering your dot com so no one else can take it from you.
I would recommend using a service like Dreamhost as they can setup your address and provide you with hosting for your site. They also provide a nice “one click install” feature which setups your blog so you can easily get started.
Make Money Life readers can save $10 dollars signing up by using the coupon code:
Now that you have setup your blog as outlined in my previous article you are ready to get familiar with all of the functions of your blog.
As I mentioned in my previous article about 
I recommend creating a new user account right away so it is easy to login next time.
Now that you have setup a new domain you probably want to get it up and running with WordPress so you can start making the most out of your new site.
You will now see a message about your new blog being setup within the next 10 minutes.
In our last guide I discussed considerations to make when setting your blog for the first time. Now I would actually like to cover how to setup your blog.
This screen tells you that your payment has been accepted and that your account will be setup as soon as it is approved. (It only takes about five to ten minutes to approve your account.)
A website name is a very important decision. Because we are utilizing the blogging medium to create a money making website you want to look at the name or title as your brand.
“
The name game can be a double edged sword because just when you think you have come up with something good you find out the dot com for it has already been registered.