Michaela Cernescu’s Blog

What is a Blog we already know, but why are Blogs so popular nowadays? A Blog is a Journal. A place where you put your personal thoughts, ideas, knowledge, in a conversational mode, as you sit across the table with an old friend and just tell him what you have in mind.

Blogs are:

• Perfect tools for blooming your creativity
• They act as communication tools connecting, educating, and influencing people
• All of them but especial WordPress has a multitude of functionality
• Professional Bloggers build a business, an on-line asset which produces a full-time income from their Blog(s), and they manage their Blog(s) like a business.

What makes Blogs different from any websites of Web 1.0 generation? It is important to know as it helps you to develop the right mindset about Blogging:

• Posts on Blogs are listed chronologically, last in the top, in a journalistic style. They are also store by categories which make them very easy to retrieve
• In Blogs is easy to add new content, if you can write a letter using Word, you can Blog, cannot get simpler than that
• Being easy to add content is easy to update frequently, Blogs are more up-to-date vs. Web 1.0 websites which are static
• On Blogs interaction is a breath as they allow people to leave comments
• The conversational nature of Blogs make people trust Blogs more than old type websites
• Blogs in your domains allow affiliate links, which are not welcome in a lot of sites and environments as forum, ezine, even some websites

WordPress is a Blogging platform and a Content Management System (CMS).
It is not the single Blogging Platform or CMS, but the huge popularity of WordPress is coming from the following features:

• It is FREE
• It is Open Source, people as you and me can add functionality to WordPress adding our themes, plug-ins, widgets
• It contains over 4,400 plug-ins, they add a huge functionality, flexibility, and creativity
• Now Multiple Users extension (MU); is relatively new but is adding even more Web 2.0 functionality. We go now from individual users to:
  o   niche groups
  o   tribes which are communities with same interests
  o   companies as well
• It is a platform easy to use with the low level of restrictions
• WP is the single Blog Platform which let you create Blogs on your own domain. This is huge advantage for Affiliate Marketing.

The success fires up the imaginations of entrepreneurs. There are other platform easy to use but the difference is the number of restrictions on those platforms. Some of them are good for a non-technical person or a limited purposes, but a solid technical individual always closes WordPress and/or WP-MU.

What I notice in the last 2 years is the multitude of ways people start to use WordPress.

1. We use WP as a Blogging Platform
2. Some uses WP to create Websites, if you block the comment feature, and use your own domain, you really have a Website. Why people will use WP to create Websites? The answer:
   o   WP is a great system of organizing data for a Website
   o   The plug-ins which provide a huge functionality. The work behind the scene which is already done, tested, and implemented for you is a big plus of WordPress
3. Create Membership sites – this is again a great advantage of WP functionality, it is a little more work up front but is possible to do it and the easy maintenance will compensate you for the hard work at the set up point
4. Now we have an extension of WP which let us create communities, it is called WordPress Multiple Users (WP-MU). This is an example of MU: http://crabbysbeach.com/blogs/

The conclusion is people started to use WordPress Platform for almost everything. Blogs now can be almost anything you want them to be.

Welcome to the wonderful world of WordPress. In future posts I’ll take one of this functionality at a time and give you details.

I think the new functionality is more likely to interest my readers, but I always look to the comments to make my mind about what is important for you.

I’ll come back soon with new products, surprises, and more posts to keep you up-to-date.

To your success
Michaela
http://michey.crabbysbeach.com/blogs/
http://www.mc-ecovers.com

Popularity: 14% [?]

Hi! Valentin,
Welcome to my blog. I respond with a post, it is too much to write on comment, and other people can read as well.

Sorry, you do work a little backwards.

First:
You have to start with a Blog. Create your Blog with WordPress but in your own domain, not as a subpage of WordPress domain.
You already have a domain, valentinmarketing, it is empty, and you can use it for a blog.

To be easy for you to build a blog, you need a host that gives you a cPanel which has Fantastico. This is a utility not all hosts have.
If you need the right hosting, I recommend Host Gator (this is what I am using):
http://www.mc-ebay-resources.com/recommends/HostG

From Host Gator take baby crock plan, is in not expensive and is enough for the beginning, you can upgrade later if you need, the first 1-2 years you will be just fine.
You can move your existing domain on Host Gator, they have a great support and they can help.

If you have cPanel with Fantastico, to create a Blog is just a matter of a couple of clicks and fill in screens info, choose a theme (a FREE one), and you will create your first Blog, in 5-10 min.
How to do it?

• Get on cPanel and click on Fantastico icon
• In the left menu, click on the WordPress
• Click on New Installation
• Now you have a screen to fill in, choose the right domain, if you have many, and let “Install in Directory” blank,  fill in the rest of requested info

At this point you have a Blog with WordPress on your domain, but with a default WordPress theme. Now you have to choose a theme:

• Browse WordPress theme directory, choose a free one
• Download the Theme, and unzip the file
• Go to FTP and  upload the unzip folder on  …/wp-content/themes folder of  your domain
• Go back to WordPress admin, click on Design
• Choose Theme button, and click the theme you loaded

This is it, entire process is max. 10 minutes, but you need a cPanel with Fantastico on it.

Now start to add content to your blog, put an opt-in list on a site bar, but give the people a reason to sign in (give away a free digital product: report, eBook etc), and start to build credibility for your self.

Of course you need an autoresponder, I recommend aweber:
http://www.mc-ebay-resources.com/recommends/aweber
 
But I presume you already have one, because you already have a squeeze page with an opt-in list on it. Aweber is the best autoresponder.

This must be the first step, you create trust and respect and a list in the same time and you start the process of pre-selling your future product(s) on the blog.

The truth of the matter is you can choose the trial and error method, but you will spend a lot of time until you will realize that the people don’t buy from a person they don’t know and trust.

This is way we do pre-sell first to warm up potential customers from the list.

Second:
You have to work a little more on your squeeze page, give benefits not features, create a landing page as well, and use the autoresponder to set up the automatic procedure of delivering your product.
At this point I presume you already have a product to sell, if you don’t you create one.

Third:
Only now drive traffic to your squeeze page using: your Blog, Articles, Forums, Squidoo lenses, HubPages, Stumbleupon, digg, Twitter, you name it, use as many Web 2.0 Applications as you can.
This is a huge subject in itself; the products I am working on now will be a good guide for driving traffic.

All I told you up till now is not expensive:

• You need a domain – but you already have one 
• You need a host with Fantastico, if you don’t have one, you can buy a baby crock on Host Gator and move your domain on that host
• You create your own blog, not outsourcing at this point.

However there are some rules to cover before you get going:

• Start setting up your goals, you want to sell one digital product on Internet or you want to build an on-line business that will be with you years to come. If you want an on-line business you have to start doing some thinking up front, and take the right decisions from the start
• Learn the online business from the right people, this is really hard for beginners in this information overload era 
• From the beginning learn and do a lot yourself, it is cheaper and later when you will outsource work you will know what to request from others
• Take action and be consistent with your work
• Build trust, honorable relationship with the people from your list; consider from the start that they will be your future business partners. Some members from the list will buy some products from you, but they can be affiliates, join venture partners, a huge potential for business trends and ideas for your business
• Be patience and never give up. If a niche you are working on now is not a success story, you are not married with the niche, you jump on the next one, and some point in time you will succeed. It is important not to consider a failure as a waist of time because you learn a lot in the process. Actually we learn more from failures then we learn from successes, it is our human nature, we have the tendency to take the success from granted. Some good Internet marketers will tell you – the sooner you fail the sooner you succeed!

My recommendation for quality FREE training is Eric’s tips:
http://www.ericstips.com
He has a free course of 100 lessons, he is now at lesson #27, it is still possible to fill in the gap, and continue to listen to his Videos which are remarkable.

If you consider that you learn from my answer to your question, get on side bar, sign in and I’ll keep you posted with my work.

Until next time all the best
Michaela

Popularity: 47% [?]