If you’ve got a website (or even if you haven’t!) there are a lot of advantages to having a WordPress blog as your content management system (CMS). Many of the top Internet marketers are doing just that and their lead is now being followed by business start-ups and budding entrepreneurs.

Here are the top five reasons for using WordPress as your web platform:

1. It’s the lowest cost way to get a web presence. You only have to spend a few bucks on a domain and get a hosting account and you’re in business. The WordPress software is free, the blog themes (design templates) are free and the plugins are free. And you don’t have to pay a web designer to get it up and running for you.
2. It’s the quickest way to get a web presence. The design work has been done for you, the coding’s been done for you and all you’ve got to do is to get typing.
3. A WordPress blog doesn’t have to look like a blog. If you want to have what looks like a conventional website, that’s easy. You can make a WordPress blog have a static front page and have your other pages accessible from navbars down the sides or across the top or down the bottom (or all of the above!)
4. WordPress is flexible. If your needs change or you fall out of love with your blog’s design you can easily change it. Your precious content will be preserved. You can move your content around, delete pages without leaving broken links, or add or remove widgets at will.
5. The search engines love WordPress blogs. Put up a few pages of content and keep building out your blog and you’ll get indexed in Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Search (and all the others) in no time.

In fact, it won’t take you months or cost you megabucks to get your business online. You can do it in a few days, all by yourself, with WordPress!

WordPress is the #1 blogging platform that virtually all the experts advise you to use. When you look at some of the most successful blogs on the Internet they invariably display ‘powered by WordPress’ at the bottom of the page.

But, if you’re not a techie, and you’ve ever tried to begin with WordPress, you’ll maybe find it difficult to get started. Here’s what I recommend:

1. Educate yourself first. If you’re new to WordPress, start at the beginning. Begin by starting a free wordpress.com blog as a training exercise. Download my free tutorial at
   http://wordpress2go.com/wordpress-tutorial/ to show you how.
2. Use your free blog as a prototype. Explore and experiment with themes, colors, layouts. Don’t worry if you make mistakes. It’s only a trial!
3. Create a few posts and pages and see how it’s shaping up. Do you want your blog to eventually work like this? If not, poke around the dashboard and find different ways of doing things. Change your theme, if necessary.
4. Compare your blog with others in the field. What have they got that you haven’t? Find out how to do the things they’re doing. Maybe you find things that you can’t do on a free blog (like plugins), in which case just make a list of the things you’d like to do.
5. Decide whether you want to stay with your free wordpress.com blog or whether you want to upgrade to the more functional wordpress.org platform. If you upgrade, you can have all the bells and whistles of a fully functioning WordPress blog, just like the experts whose blogs you’ve been admiring. But, if you’re happy with your wordpress.com blog, fine, you’ve got started in 5 steps!
6. When you’re reading to upgrade, get my ‘WordPress In 1 Day‘ video tutorial and I’ll show you how. In the 12 lessons of the tutorial I build an actual blog on a domain and you can follow along step by step as I do it. This isn’t free but it doesn’t cost megabucks. What I can promise you is that it will be a fine investment in your skills base and a lot cheaper than hiring a webmaster to do it for you!

Once you get started with WordPress you’ll discover that it’s not that scary. Why not get started on step 1 today?

Blogging is simple but it isn’t easy. If you learn a few winning habits it becomes a breeze. So, here are the seven habits of highly effective bloggers:

1. Have something to say
The best blogs are those where the blogger has something attention-grabbing to say, whether it be about potty training a puppy, supporting a baseball team or electing a president. Say it with vim, say it with sentiment and above all say something different.

Make it a habit always to put a novel angle on a topic and you’ll attract readers like flies to a dung heap.

2. Project your personality
It’s about you, stupid. Have an attractive, enticing ‘About’ page.

If you’re going to have a photo of yourself don’t just use a mugshot: you’ll look much more intriguing if it’s a picture of you actually doing something. What you want people to do is talk not just about your blog, but about you.

Get into the habit of being a character.

3. Post regularly
The most booming bloggers have sticky blogs. That means you want regular readers who come back because they need your content. And so you must continually gratify this craving with a constant stream of dazzling content.

One easy trick is to find a big theme that you can break down into a succession of posts. Post as ‘Part 1′, ‘Part 2′ etc (for example ‘20 Tips On Training Your Puppy’). Make the sequence addictive: hold back just enough information to have them howling for more.

If you can get this right, you’ll become their habit.

4. Engage with your readers
Blog with a smile on your face but aspire to be an authority. What you want your readers, and other bloggers, to do is to like you, trust you and give you their esteem.

And don’t be afraid to be contentious: being opinionated will stir up their responses and get them to comment.

Comment generously on other blogs. Give and leave trackbacks. Bond with your blogging community. The idea is to get them hooked. Which is where you want to be.

Be in the habit of being addictive.

5. Optimize with titles, keywords, categories
Every post title should start with the words of explicitly what your post is about. The title of your blog post is what your human readers, and the search engine spiders, see first. ‘My Puppy Peed On The Carpet’ rather than ‘Oh No Not Again’.

Scatter relevant keywords all through your post. Use tags, categories and slugs to explicitly spell out what your post is about.

Optimization doesn’t seem very sexy but it’s a great habit to get into.

6. Harness the power of RSS
Many bloggers are neurotic about design of their blogs and pay little attention to their words. This is a mistake. RSS will syndicate your content around the globe in seconds but what gets displayed in the feed? Words, words, words - not pictures. Words speak louder than pictures.

Be smart with syndication: practice the habit of loving RSS.

7. Keep on blogging
Winning bloggers find their voice and this voice matches their character. When you are comfortable in the skin of your personality it’s not too difficult to find something new to say. So keep on blogging. The most effective, original, expansive bloggers are the most gripping bloggers. Blog every day, or at least three times a week.

Get into the habit of fluency and both you and your blog will thrive.

Help! Now that I’ve got a blog, what do I write about?

When you get the urge to go blogging you might find yourself unable to find something to blog about.

If you have a big need for self-expression but no immediate inspiration, here are eight great blogging topics to consider:

1. Save the world: global warming, energy crisis, world poverty.
2. Have a rant: vent your spleen, get angry, talk straight.
3. Elect a president: get political, inflate your candidate, deflate your opponent.
4. Uncover a scandal: spread gossip, make mischief, whistleblow.
5. Revenge: don’t get mad, get even. Expose your ex.
6. Keep a journal: growing your garden, bringing up your baby, training your puppy.
7. Publish your writing: funky poetry, racy novels, ravishing recipes.
8. Live vicariously: don’t get a life - invent a life, be who you’d rather be.

Most of the great blogs of the world are variations of at least one of these eight themes. There’s got to be at least one reason here why you should join the bloggerati!

How can I make money with my blog?

First, get traffic to your blog. You won’t make a cent until you’ve got visitors. Then, do two or three things from this list:

1. Google Adsense

Sign up for an account at Google Adsense and place ad blocks in your sidebars and/or in your pages and posts. The ads that show will reflect what Google’s bot ‘reads’ as being what your blog post is all about. So make sure to stuff your post with high-earning keywords. You get paid when a visitor clicks on an ad.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Sell other people’s stuff by reviewing or advertising products from networks such as Commission Junction, ClickBank, LinkShare.com, MoreNiche, MarketHealth.com, etc, etc. You could use banners, buttons and text links to drive visitors to cash earning sites.

3. Amazon

Sign up as an Associate of Amazon and use their amazing widget tools to display colorful little ads, search boxes and even videos. If you’re going to let Amazon share your valuable blog space, pick item with higher prices than books!

4. eBay

If you are an eBay seller, promote your own auctions. Every eBay seller should have a blog! Alternatively, promote other people’s auctions. Sign up to the eBay Partner Network and get paid commissions on eBay auctions that you promote AND for introducing new, active eBay users.

5. Pay per play

Play Net Audio Ads on your blog and get paid every time your blog is viewed! The visitor doesn’t have to click on anything: you get paid regardless.

6. Pay per post

You can get paid for writing articles on your blog reviewing other people’s stuff. You need a good writing style and an established blog but the money can be very good. Check out Pay Per Post.

7. Sell your own product

If you’ve already got a business, promote your goods and services via your blog. If you haven’t got a product (yet), why not sell your old stuff that you don’t want anymore on eBay? Could give you a little bit of investment capital to get going…

8. Text Link Ads

Another way to earn revenue is Text Link Ads.  A lot of the high-powered bloggers use these. Check them out!

9. Network Marketing

In the olden days, to succeed at network marketing (and MLM) you needed to recruit an ever-expanding ‘warm market’ in your area. These days the Internet can deliver that via a blog. Choose a company that is Internet-savvy and create a great blog to find warm prospects around the world. Check out One Group who have a great website.

My advice is to check out all these opportunities, brainstorm how each could fit into your blog’s style and topic and pick one, two or three that you could run with. Oh, and don’t forget to work on getting more traffic

How do I get people to visit my blog? How can my blog get noticed?

This is the number one question all new bloggers ask, for without visitors you’ll just be sitting there, day after day, blogging to yourself.

Here is my list of 10 things to do that will get your blog noticed. When you first start, you should do all of them. Yes, it’s a slog, but it’s the only way to break through and get people to find you.

1. Post on other blogs

Search on Google Blogs for other blogs in your niche. Add a nice helpful comment that adds something to the post. Don’t just say ‘great post - look at me’ - contribute a genuine comment that the blog owner will approve of. Include your URL in the post if you are allowed to do so.

2. Post on forums

As above - don’t spam, don’t pitch, just add useful, helpful, constructive comment. Include your URL in your signature. If the forum doesn’t allow signatures on posts then don’t bother with that forum.

3. Yahoo Answers

Search for people asking questions about your niche in Yahoo Answers. Provide helpful answers, quoting your appropriate blog post URL in the link box at the bottom of your answer. If you don’t have an appropriate blog post, write one that answers their question first and then post your answer quoting the post you just wrote.

4. PPC

Buy traffic on a pay-per-click basis: Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, etc.

5. Join Blogrush

Blogrush is John Reese’s network of blogs. But don’t join until you have your blog fully set up with at least 5-6 posts/pages. Each blog is manually approved and they might reject you if your blog is too thin.

6. Keep on blogging

Bigger blogs tend to get higher rankings in the search engines. Just keep on adding posts naturally over time with the aim of becoming an authority blog in your niche.

7. Make friends on Facebook

Join Facebook and find friends to network with. Don’t spam, don’t pitch - just be natural.

8. Squidoo lens

Create a Squidoo lens in your niche. Have your blog’s RSS feed on your lens. Contact other lensmasters in your niche, sign their guestbooks and work to get your lens ranked. Squidoo is great for getting indexed fast.

9. Write articles

Write articles about your topic and send them to ezarticles.com, isnare.com, goarticles.com etc. Have your blog URL in your resource box.

10. Blog carnivals

Join in a blog carnival at blogcarnival.com. A great way to plug into other people’s traffic!

Then rinse and repeat. Keep doing this, day after day, and gradually you’ll get traction. Above all, don’t give up!

WordPress version 2.5 has received a lot of press around the blogosphere, not always very positive.

However, I’ve just upgraded this blog to 2.5 and it seems to have gone very smoothly. All my posts and pages survived and I have successfully reactivated all my plugins. So far so good.

As you can see, I’ve made the start of this post red(!) which is one of the new features in the Visual tab. But another welcome addition is the ability to add media files.

You can now easily add video, audio and other media to your posts and pages.  And your videos don’t have to be played via Youtube (although you can if you want) - you can upload a video to WordPress and embed it into a post or page. I’ve played around with this and it works fine.

WordPress is, basically, a very basic blogging system.

To create a successful blog there is no need to get complicated. Some of the most powerful and popular WordPress blogs have very few bells and whistles. These simple, basic blogs have maybe four or five static pages which provide the background to what the blog is all about, and maybe why the blogger blogs. Then they have the posts which broadcast to the world what the blogger has to say. The blogger posts regularly, has built up a loyal and expanding readership who provide an interesting stream of comments, and that’s about that. There will be few (or no) extras or ads or distracting links away from the blog.

But what if you do want to have a more complicated blog? What if you want to take advantage of all the add-ons and graphics and interactive goo-gaws that characterize the phenomenon loosely known as Web 2.0?

Well, this is basic Wordpress’s strength. If you want, you can have a very robust, basic blog but you can bolt on a huge array of add-ons known as themes, widgets and plugins which slot into the WordPress engine to provide a very powerful and distinctive web presence. Each blogger can choose their particular combination of add-ons to make their blog unique.

With WordPress you can be as simple or as sophisticated as you want!

What’s the best way to learn WordPress?

As with anything unfamiliar, the best way to start learning WordPress is to start simple.

If you are starting from absolutely Square One then don’t expect to leap straight into Square Nine! On the contrary, start at the beginning and progress step by step, one step at a time.

If you are a newbie, or you have no prior blogging experience, you might find the first two or three steps to be quite a steep learning curve. But the good news is that the curve soon flattens out and you begin, quite quickly, to ‘get it’. Just stick with the first few unfamiliar steps and you’ll soon be up and running.

Trust me, once you become familiar with the WordPress environment you’ll find it easy to explore and experiment and find your own way round.

If you have big ambitions about your blog, particularly if you want to use your blog to make money, you should be planning to go the WordPress.org route where you hang your blog on your own domain.

But, use the WordPress.com free blogging option as your practice ground. Learn the ropes first: practice, experiment and learn. Then when you’re comfortable with WordPress.com, then you can upgrade to WordPress.org.

Ready to begin? Check out my free WordPress tutorial to get you started on WordPress.com now!

What are widgets?

Widgets are the add-on accessories to a blog that make it more interesting.

Widgets can:

• provide extra functionality
• offer individuality
• make money
• and do a lot of other things

So what are widgets? Well, have a look over to the right. See those two columns stuffed with little boxes? They’re WordPress widgets.

Some are the standard stuff of WordPress blogs and are there to aid navigation: Recent Posts, Pages, Blogroll. You’ll see these on most blogs but maybe in a different place, depending on the whim of the blogger.

Other widgets are more particular. The picture of my free WordPress tutorial is a widget. I designed it and stuck it up there to get the visitor’s attention. It acts as a link for the visitor get find more details.

And below that there’s a box headed ‘From the Blogosphere’. That’s a widget. That’s ‘BlogRush‘: John Reese’s famous intitiative to get all the blogs in the world (well, the ones they approve) talking together. If you’re a serious blogger, check it out.

Widgets are wizard. Widgets are wonderful. WordPress widgets are great!