I am new to this board. I understand in very general terms what blogs are and most importantly how they can help your sites link popularity. I'm a moron. So can someone please explain to me the precise steps as in do this first, second and so on, EXACTLY how do you go about setting up a blog?!? Being totally honest, I only want the blog so that I can improve my SERPS, specifically in Google and to a somewhat lesser degree in Yahoo Search and MSN search. Main questions I have are: 1) Should I host this blog on "my" server and on my website? Or should it be hosted elsewhere? Keeping in mind I want one way external inbound links. 2) My website sells satellite tv service. Should my blog then be about satellite tv or could it be about a somewhat related field, say like home electronics or can it be about a totally different subject altogether like Britney Spears for instance. In other words some really hot topic that is searched for a ton everyday. 3) Are there blogger templates I can use? 4) How does one get their blogging site "off the ground" - I mean is it like getting your website ranked highly on the search engines. Because that is why I want to start a blog in the first place. Maybe I'll need another blog promoting the main blog??? 5) When I 'blog', do I just type anything that comes to mind, I mean is it like having a diary or keeping a daily journal? Should I mention industry (satellite tv) important keywords/phrases in my blogs? 6) How long does any given post/blog stay listed in your backllinks? Two months? How long? And how often should I post each day, I mean is there some limit that once crossed gets into the area of spam? Someone PLEASE help! Clueless Blogger Wannebe - a.k.a. sportsguru
Me tooooo .... I also am totally clueless. I realise I should know what they are but have frankly been too busy to bother with it and I thought it was a passing fad. Obviously they're not so any info will be much appreciated. Also, what is the point of them ?. Is this like personal web sites ? Thanks
Blogs are fun. There are so many different ways to answer your questions. Check out www.Blogger.com it is very simple and easy to setup a blog and they have some good info here in their tour ... http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g There are also other software options like Movable Type, and there are countless others that I'm sure people here will mention. I'd opt to host it on your own server, this gives you the most flexibility down the road. I think most would agree on this. If you blog page is on your satallite TV domain, then it's probably a better idea to keep it in the same theme. But if it's just a personal blog and on a different domain all together, be creative and blog about whatever the eff you want! Of course a good plan might be to make it about electronics and have a satallite TV themed post once a week, or month and link to your satallite tv domain. Yep. Search for them .. they are easy to find. blogger templates or movable type templates First create the blog, then make a post, then promote it. Like here you can put your latest blog post under your username. thanks to the master of the universe. It can be either of these options. They can range from words only, pictures only, audio blogs, multimedia blogs, etc. It's totally up to you. This depends on many factors. But in general if you make each post from your blog into a seperate page then the backlinks can be permanent. You post as much as you like. Once a month, or 3 times a day, it doesn't matter. Hope this helps.
Guys, the simplest solution, IMHO, and the one I use is blogger.com. Go there, sign up and you can start blogging in about one minute. I would recommend you host your blog on your server (which you can do via blogger.com) in a sub-directory, ie: www.yoursite .com/blog/ You can publish it via ftp and is very easy to set up with the blogger directions (if you have trouble, post here or PM me and I can help you out). You can use Blogger.com's interface to publish your blog(s)...and that is the coolest part about their service...you can run multiple blogs and manage them in one window in blogger.com's dashboard. As for your topic, I would stay on topic if you can. Blog about Satellite technology, installation, benefits, packages, specials, updates, etc. I like to go through the logs on my sites, find a popular keyword people are using on searches to find my site, and then use that as the post title. If you have no traffic, then use the keyword suggestion tool here, at Overture or in Adwords (Google) to get some suggestions. <edit>Guess that is why his name is Such Great Heights </edit>
Yep, some good advice there I started with Blogger and will continue to use it for my personal blog. It was hosted in a folder of my automotive site, but I recently moved my blog to its own domain and server because it felt better to seperate the random personal crap away from talk of cars. Athough I've not had the opportunity to set up a themed blog the advantages are clear. Plus, if a main site is very formal, a blog can be the folder with a different personality, a "human touch" if you will.
I started my first blog yesterday - using movable type on one of my servers. Install was crazy simple, and the integration point here was pretty simple too... just enter the url of the rss and boom, my latest blog entry shows up by my name. I kind of wish more of my friends did this, because I'm having fun just putting up whatever I happen to be thinking about - like my own personal message board.
Me too, me too... I was halfway through making a thread titled something like "Clueless blogger wannabe" when look and behold, all my answers are right here. Thanks a lot guys. I have only one question right now before I try to start one... Does anyone have good succes in terms of visitors to their blog? (Please brag a little, Shawn or whom ever think they have the record number of blog-visitors or the coolest blog by whatever standard)
blogs can be a huge success. but blogs can also be updated too infrequently and people loose interest. or if you are careful about it you can get all your visitors from search engines instead of regulars who stop by because they are your friends. it really all depends. even Google's got a blog. http://www.google.com/googleblog/
Nothing to brag about here, miko67, just a few hundred page impressions a day, and that's good enough for me, only into blogging for the fun of it Cash & kudos are just nice bonuses.
I recomend blogger as well, especially if you intend to do links back to your site. Google owns it, and I can tell you that if you start a blog at blogger it will most definitly get indexed fast. I'm actually using a blogger blog with my shopping site and its working out pretty well. The only problem I have is google won't index my pages. I'm not sure, but I think somewhere along the way I pissed them off or something. In any case that's just me. Just remember to update the thing regularly. It's not necessary to blog every day, but if you don't do something at least two or three times a week it's going to start getting "unnoticed" fairly quickly. Being up-to-date is what blogging is all about.