Category: WordPress
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![How To Start A Blog In Just 5 Steps [Infographic]](https://www.reginaldchan.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/How-To-Start-A-Blog-In-Just-5-Steps.jpg)
How To Start A Blog In Just 5 Steps [Infographic]
You heard that you can make money with a blog and you are inching to start a blog. There are way too many guides out there on ‘how to start a blog‘ but you want just the facts.
Yes, you want a complete blogging tutorial that teaches you how to create a blog from scratch. You have no time to waste and certainly, you don’t want to waste money buying web hosting and domain names just to become another failed blogger.
You want to start a blog and start making money from blogging. I feel you –and that’s why I created this post for you; How To Start A Blog In Just 5 Simple Steps.
If you are the type that read, bookmark this post for future reference and if you’re a graphic-type of person, there’s an infographic right at the bottom of this post. And if you find this post useful, I would appreciate it if you can share this around or use the infographic in your blog post!
Step 1: Start a blog by choosing a domain name
A domain name is like your brand and it matters even more especially when your blog get traction and more visibility. Most bloggers find it really challenging to find a blog name and allow me to hep you out on this.
There are several rules of thumb when it comes to choosing a domain name:
- Always go for dot com (.com) followed by dot net (.net) and dot co (.co) – Avoid others forms of Top Level Domains (TLD’s) regardless how interesting they sound like
- Domain name should be short and in most cases, under 20 characters
- Choose a domain name the represents your brand and make sense for reading (higher readability = easier remembrance)
- Avoid hypes and numbers whenever possible
- Have the keyword embedded in the domain for some search engine advantage in the future
Domain usually costs anywhere from $0.99 to under $10 per year. There are many domain registrars out there such as GoDaddy and NameCheap which sells at super low prices.
Want to save money in domain name and get a free one? Continue reading Step 2!
To be included in you reading list: ProBlogger Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
Step 2: Choosing a reliable web hosting company
Web hosting is like the power company that lights up your home (in this case, home is your domain). One of the biggest mistakes done by bloggers is choosing really, really cheap web hosting companies due to the obvious reason; dirt cheap cost.
The results? Tons of downtime and even possibility of hacking which leads to angry visitors and lost of revenue for you. If you think about it, this isn’t the reason of you starting a blog. You want to make money or passive income from blogging!
So, here are some guidelines you need to know when choosing a web hosting company:
- Reliable uptime for web hosting performance
- Proven track record in this industry
- Support consists of live chat, phone, email and forum
- Money back guarantee
Since you are starting out in blogging, you should be getting shared web hosting as this is the most affordable one. While there are higher end ones like WP Engine, you’re still in good hands especially when your blog is hosted with a professional web hosting company with affordable prices.
Why? Because it doesn’t burn a hole in your pocket.
If you need recommendations, I recommend using BlueHost (read my review on Bluehost) because it costs only $3.95 per month and all the goodies such as free domain name, free site builder, professional support and money back guarantee under one roof. Of course, you only get this deal when you use this link (original price is $5.99 per month).
Step 3: Installing a blogging platform
In the 3rd step on how to start a blog, you need to install a blogging platform. Here, I would recommend you to install WordPress as it is one of the most flexible blogging platforms for both beginners and businesses.
Big brands such as Tech Crunch, The New Yorker and Sony Music use WordPress for their websites.
By default, most shared hosting service providers would have cPanel system which you can use to install WordPress. If you slightly geeky, here’s the real definition of cPanel credits to Wikipedia:
cPanel is a Linux based web hosting control panel that provides a graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a web site.
If you are wondering if you could create a blog without WordPress, yes you could — but would you? Millions of blogs out there are powered by WordPress because it is flexible and super scalable. As a matter of fact, WordPress allows you to change every expect of your blog (with some coding knowledge).
Right now, you may be thinking, “Hey Reginald, this is just too much for me. I am working/studying and I have absolutely no time to spare. I demand to know how to start a blog fast!”
Yes sir! Pardon me for all the jargons I said in the past few paragraph. You want an easy way out? Signup for BlueHost web hosting and they will give you a free domain. Then the magic happens. BlueHost has 1-click install for WordPress. All you need to do is to click and wait.
Now you are all set … under 5 minutes. Yes, sign up for BlueHost here (If you cancel within 30 days, you receive a full refund on your hosting service and if you cancel after 30 days, you receive a prorated refund for the remainder of your hosting term).
Step 4: Setting up your blog
Yes, you just started a blog. Pretty simple right?
No, it’s no over yet! There’re two more steps and the next step (really simple one, I promise) is setting the blog up.
On your dashboard (accessible through http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin), head over the left panel and click on Settings > General as seen on the image below:
Once the page is refreshed, you will see a new page and this is the main switch box for your blog. See the options in the image below? Fill the details according to the details of your blog.
Once everything is done, click on the Save button.
Important note: Tagline should be no longer than 160 characters.
Bonus offer: See why over 164,000 website owners trust StudioPress Themes!
Step 5: Installing plugins to your blog
What are WordPress plugins?
WordPress plugins are bits of software that can be uploaded to to extend and expand the functionality of your WordPress site.
In short, plugins help you to do wonders with your blog (even when you have no knowledge about) and it increases productivity.
Plugins can be installed directly from your blog’s dashboard. Click on the left panel and select Plugins.
A new page will be visible and you can search dozens of plugins directly from the WordPress repository. As of this point of writing, there are over 37,900 plugins available for download to your blog.
Here are some important plugins you need to have when you first start a blog:
- JetPack (utility plugin)
- Akismet (plugin to manage spam comments)
- Contact Form 7 (plugin to create contact forms)
- W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache (helps to reduce blog loading speed and improve web performance)
- WordPress SEO by Yoast (improves your blog SEO markups)
Alternative plugins for advanced bloggers:
- Thrive Leads (plugin to build email list)
- Easy Social Sharing Buttons (create custom social sharing buttons)
- Scribe Content (advanced SEO and analytics tool for bloggers)
WordPress comes with some beautifully made themes which you can use for free. But if you would want a more custom look and feel, there are tools such as Thrive Theme Builder that allows you to create custom custom blog templates without a single line of code. Besides that, you have StudioPress who offers dozens of professional made blog templates ready for download at very reasonable prices.
So, what’s next after starting a blog?
Did you know that you have finish all the 5 steps in ‘how to start a blog‘?
Yes, give yourself a pat on the back and maybe some beer. You have successfully create a blog from scratch (and without pulling a single strain of hair). Well, that’s awesome right?
Of course, starting a blog is just the first step in your blogging journey. What’s coming up next is how to make money with a blog (subscribe here to be kept updated)!
Bonus: How To Start A Blog [Infographic]
![How To Start A Blog [Infographic]](https://www.reginaldchan.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/How-To-Start-A-Blog-Infographic.jpg)
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CDN77 – Content Delivery Network That Accelerates Website Loading Speed
Recent years have brought few new players into the content delivery field of business. We decided to have a look at one of the most promising – CDN77. A London based company of 30 people seems to be an interesting disruption amongst the IT giants on the market.
What it promises
As a content delivery network, CDN77 takes care of the heavy-lifting of your internet traffic. Whether you have few large files or a ton of small support ones like Javascript or CSS, your own server will thank you for unloading the burden to multiple different machines. Not only will you be able to serve as many customers as you would like to, but with nodes all around the world, you will be able to serve them significantly faster than you would with your one-machine webhosting.
The Techcrunch effect
Being covered and linked by just one ‘big’ website can generate so much traffic to your own web that it is enough to eventually overload it and take it down. CDNs can usually handle millions of requests per second and therefore make your site effectively immune to this spike-traffic problem.
How it works
When setting up a CDN for your website, you usually create a subdomain and dedicate it to caching all its content via CDN. For ilustration, if you had a domain of example.com, then you create a new subdomain cdn.example.com and let the CDN service cache everything on it. Then whenever someone comes to cdn.example.com, despite having example.com in the address, he will be served cached data from the content delivery network service and your sever can calmly sleep in the background.
Without a CDN, your sites is bothered with every request that comes to it – and loading one page by one visitor can produce dozens of these. With caching implemented, though, the page is saved with CDN and your server does not even have to know someone has loaded it – the cache does all the work (except for the very first request where the page is not in the cache yet).
What is the improvement
Some webmasters implement content delivery networks to save money on webhosting services as they only need to use much cheaper plans then. For others, however, the main purpose is to make the site load faster all around the world. Hosting companies will usually grant you a part of a server in one location. If you physically host your site in New York datacenter, for example, requests from your customers in India will have to ‘hop’ many times before being routed to their destination. Each hop adds a little lag and you might end up with a page that is being loaded several long seconds.
CDN edge servers, on the other way, are spread all around the world. In CDN77’s case, there are 27 datacentres across 5 continents. Even if your own hosting is in New York, requests from users in India will not have to travel that far. They will be routed to the closest location (in this case that would be New Delhi) and local cache will take care of it. Together with a very promising specifications about the cache hardware, this gives a chance to speed up the page loading time rapidly. We decided to test it for ourselves.
We loaded the page 50 times in the ‘normal’ configuration and 50 times with the CDN implemented. It can be safely expected that with longer distance from the origin server, the measured difference would be even more significant.
Setup process
We were quite surprised how easy it was to set up an account. You don’t have to be an engineer to get started and even though we had a little bump on the way, the chat support was helpful and we were up and running in few minutes.
If you can change your DNS entries yourself, setting up a CDN is a matter of minutes.
The result
CDN77 proved to be worth the hype it causes on the market. With a very easy setup and evidently powerful hardware, we can recommend it as a provider of choice for speeding up the website and relieving your potentially stressed hosting server.
Now, it’s over to you!
If you are looking for a good CDN, CDN77 may just be the best option for you and your website. Have you considered taking it for a trial run? Click here to start your 14 days free trial!
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Why Mobile Marketing Is A Must For Your Business?
This article is contributed by Alexandra Nicola. She is the Chief Content Writer at Squirrly.co. She enjoys helping people with their SEO problems and loves reading S.F. novels.
Smart-phones, tablets and laptops! That’s what people use nowadays in researching interesting topics, checking their email and deciding what brand of beverage they want to buy. It’s clear that in digital marketing word of mouth is one aspect you always need to keep in mind. Now we’re actually taking one step forward with mobile marketing. Not only can we make the message available on-line, but we can also find out how the users receive the message by taking a look at the device they use.
Why is mobile marketing important?
If you are going to take an afternoon to study the average person’s behaviour in your community, you will see the following: people using their phones in their cars, not just for talking over Bluetooth, but also for searching the internet to find nearby specific locations.Moms check their grocery list on their IPhone. Teenagers surf the web on their smartphone trying to find the best deals online for that product found at the mall which their parents won’t buy them.
[ Credits: Julian Bleecker ]
These are most probably the habits of your targeted audience as well. So, how can you determine them to stay focused on your message while all of this is happening? Simple, through mobile marketing.
You need to take the message where they are. You are probably going to tell me you already are there. Most of this devices are used on the internet and you are already there. But that isn’t enough. Because users are usually highly critical. If it’s not convenient for them to use your site, they will probably leave and find an app for the same task; an app one of your competitors has made, one that enables them to digest content easily on their 7″ or less screen.
How you can adapt for mobile marketing benefits?
The great part is that you don’t actually need to start from scratch if you have a standing digital marketing strategy. But you need to take into consideration two aspects :
- How user experience feels on a mobile device
- The behaviour pattern when getting in contact with mobile marketing strategy
How user experience feels on a mobile device?
The first observation is linked to the screen size. The elements of your site need to adapt to that. There is the viewport meta tag that will make your site take over the full width of the device and nothing more. This simple fix might actually be all the work you need done, if you have a very simple design on your site.
Most times that isn’t the case. That’s where responsive design comes into mobile marketing. In this type of design, not just the width taken up by the page is changed, but also each element of design adapts. This means columns, banners, images, pop-ups, and any other element you might think of.
Making sure that the font size is appropriate and that the spacing gives the user the chance to skim and scan your content is also important.
However, there is another aspect of the user experience you need to consider. Mobile devices are used differently. You don’t simply open pages on the web and read their content as you usually do on a laptop. Users want to be engaged by content, so they choose to use apps. This is a solution for your site that needs to be at least taken into discussion.
The advantages of an app is that you can keep the user more to yourself, offer more personalised content and have more appealing design elements that determine them to return more often than a bookmark does. Plus, you can easily collect feedback and see whether the user is engaged by your content. Apps demand more calls to action and buttons to click, which is in your best interest, in the end.
The behaviour pattern when getting in contact with mobile marketing strategy
Now you decided what you are going to do to make it more appealing. The next step is to consider in which way the content you’ve created especially for mobile is different. People that are looking through your content from mobile devices are not necessarily sitting on a chair in front of the device. They might be pushing a cart, in a bus or walking down the street.
Research or consider the most frequent scenarios in which your user is checking your app. If he/she is checking products, consider that he/she would want to compare prices while in a store, or to get more details on the item than the label offers.
My advice is to make sure that the mobile marketing content is actionable. Tell your user what to do in that particular situation. If there is an offer just that day, make him/her aware of it. Have a short and clear purpose for each piece. The question “Why am I here ?” should be answered at any given time.
Also remind him/her to come back to your app. Email marketing might be efficient, but Facebook’s app showing the latest updates on the icon is more convincing in mobile marketing.
Going the extra mile pays off
It always does. When you’ve invested in digital marketing, you saw the same thing. People mention you or your product on social media, to their friends. They share your relevant content, comment and ask for your opinion because they trust you. The same behaviour will come with mobile marketing.
Your audience will turn into loyal users, who incorporate your app in their daily lives. Checking for your information not just when they need to, but also when they have spare time as well. Why? Because you give them valuable information and, more so, you make it easier for them to access it.
So take the time to consider investing in mobile marketing. There are products out there that can give you a preview of how your site looks at this moment on different devices. Contentlook can also tell you if you have any improvements to make and how to implement them. Take the step forward and implement the strategy for the benefit of your customers as well as your business.
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Revolutionary and Affordable Content Delivery Network – KeyCDN
I can’t bear the thoughts of a slow loading website. Being in the WordPress sphere for some solid years, I’m always looking for better solutions to speed up my website. Down my blogging path, I have written about MaxCDN and content delivery networks which I used so dearly in my daily content marketing life.
Recently, I came across Jonas Krummenacher, Co-Founder of KeyCDN and it was long for me to take a look at KeyCDN. After all, I consider myself a huge WordPress geek and there is absolutely no risk when it comes to checking out a new toy.
In this article, you’ll find informations you need to know about KeyCDN and how it could literally speed up your website loading speed.
What is KeyCDN?
Taken directly from its official website, KeyCDN is a service of Proinity LLC.
We are a Swiss registered company headquartered in Winterthur, Switzerland. The company is privately funded. We’re a passionate team operating a high-performance content delivery network (CDN). We make content delivery smarter and less expensive.
KeyCDN practices 4 core values which are professional, passionate, skilled and proactive. Being in the customer service industry for some years, these are definitely 4 important core features any companies would need to get more loyal customers and as well as sales.
Features offered by KeyCDN
Make no mistake; KeyCDN provides several top features of any other content delivery network providers do such as:
- Pull and push functionality
- Video hosting features
- RTMP streaming features
- Security
- Management dashboard
- Super affordable prices and plans
The descriptions of the features are as follow below.
1. Pull and push functionality
With KeyCDN, you can create as many zones that you require and it would only take a few minutes for the configurations to be activated globally. You can then upload your files directly using FTP, SSH or even integrating with cache plugins like W3 Total Cache and Super Cache.
2. Video hosting capabilities
Do you think tools like Wistia is just too pricey and YouTube being too risky? You easily host all your videos using KeyCDN.
Bloggers, you can even monetize your videos using the KeyCDN ads enabled video player which is really cool!
3. Easy RTMP streaming
KeyCDN offers Video on Demand (VOD) and Live Streaming based on RTMP, RTMPT and RTSP. Well, this simply means that you can easily accelerate your streaming across the globe real, real fast.
KeyCDN supports several file formats for VoD such as:
- FLV
- MP4
- .ismv, .isma
- MP3
4. Security features
In today’s world, security is a huge concern for many (including me). With KeyCDN, you can rest assured security is taken into serious consideration.
KeyCDN has several features which takes security to the next level such as:
- Secure token
- Shared SSL
- Custom SSL
SSL certificate can be integrated and configured with just a few clicks, plus for those who require additional support and assistance, access tokens can be created for more advance usages (e.g. management access etc).
5. Powerful management dashboard
KeyCDN dashboard provides a detailed overlook on the credit amount, zones available and used storage (to name a few).
Navigations are pretty easy and no-brainer even for an absolute newbie. The below are some features you can find on the management dashboard:
- Close to real-time reporting
- Account usage and statistics
- Beautiful user interface
- Accessible via mobile and tablets (huge plus point)
- Available invoices for viewing
- API’s
Reginald, what makes KeyCDN really powerful?
For me, it must be the integration with WordPress. Regardless if you are using W3 Total Cache (W3TC) or Super Cache, integration can be done under one minute.
KeyCDN users are able to access the knowledge library which has a full list of questions and answers which is really useful. And, trust me — the knowledge library is really well-equipped with information.
To show the ease of using KeyCDN, this is the only CDN service provider that I had used (and did not require any support assistance). So yes, a huge kudos to the team for that.
Need another plus point for using KeyCDN? The pricing structure of Pay Per Use if really good for those who have very limited budget.
The traffic pricing (as seen below) is really affordable even for the lowest budget and personally, I don’t believe there is any other services that can match the features and benefits provided by KeyCDN.
Getting started with KeyCDN
Are you looking for a good content delivery network service provider? You should (definitely) give KeyCDN a try and get a free trial using this link: Sign up for a free trial account with KeyCDN
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How To Spy On Competitors Keywords With SEMrush?
You stare blankly on your WordPress blog for over 30 minutes and you have absolutely no idea which keyword you should be using to crush your competitors. They are making tons of money (and traffic) and you are dying for that.
Yes, I have been there before one too many times. I tried to use the same keywords that my competitors are using but honestly, I’m no where near their success. I probably do more backlinks and wrote better than most of them but I’m struggling hard to hit the first page of Google, what else about the top 3 spot.
The biggest question is “What had you done wrong?”
Today, you are going to learn exactly how to spy on your competitors keywords and literally crush them (yes, you hear me out loud).
Tools you need:
- SEMrush (register for free here)
- Excel sheet or blank paper
Why on Earth should I be choosing SEMrush?
There are a zillion keyword tools out there including Long Tail Pro which I highly recommend. Why I would go for SEMrush this time?
The answer is really, really simple. SEMrush provides more information than any other tool out there. In the hands of a beginner, the tool is useless but imagine the power it holds when it is used by an advanced user.
Yes, it is like calling a knight in shining armor cook a full 5-course meals.
I use SEMrush for several reasons:
- Advanced keyword research
- Analyzing competitors keywords
- Determine the keyword difficulties
Advanced keyword research using SEMrush
Let’s assume that you’re a complete newbie … and you hate Google Keyword Planner until death makes you apart. This is where SEMrush comes into play.
On SEMrush search box, fill in the keywords you are interested in and within seconds, SEMrush would provide you a list of advanced data which includes:
- Keyword summary
- CPC distribution
- Trend
- Phrase match report
- Related keyword report
- SE keywords
- Ads
- Ads history
Take a moment and compare to any keyword research tool out there. I don’t think any of those can match what SEMrush can offer. Period.
Here’s a little summary of the important functions only.
Keyword summary (importance: 6/10)
Providing a general outlook on the keyword you are searching for. The report is based on exact keyword search.
CPC distribution (importance: 2/10)
If you are not an Adword publisher, this is pretty useless for you. It gives you an idea on one thing and one thing only which is CPC.
Trend (importance: 7/10)
The chart will show you how that specific keyword is trending during a 12 months duration. I mark this 7/10 due to the fact that we need to know what’s trending and what’s not for better control and monetization.
Phrase match report (importance: 5/10)
Okay, this is important but due to the fact that the information is all about the number of phrase matches search based on per month basis, I give it a 5/10.
Related keywords report (importance: 8/10)
Love this. It gives you a detailed rundown on the keywords you can use to further enrich your blog post. By default, SEMrush will show only the top 10 keywords. Click on the Full Report button to see the full list or Export button to download the list.
SE keywords (importance: 9/10)
This is a simple chart that shows who is ranking for that keyword (root and article domain). Want to spy on your competitors or simply knowing who are your targets is extremely vital in this business.
I got eyes on you!
Ads & Ads history (importance: 1/10)
Another feature for Adwords publisher. Since I’m not using it, I would skip this part.
Here’s an example of what SEMrush looks like when you search for keywords. Detailed reports are what you’ll 100% get.
Analyzing competitors keywords with SEMrush
This is probably the juiciest part of SEMrush which I got to admit, I’m in love with it.
For any blogging business, you need to know your competitors and I would be assuming you know that too. Well if you don’t, just refer back to the SE keywords by SEMrush and you get the top 10 and even top 20 results. Those are your competitors.
To kick start, fill in the domain URL (you can ignore the ‘www’) on SEMrush search bar and hit search.
And the magic happens. You will be spoilt with a HUGE report about the site you had chosen which includes:
- Organic search
- Paid search
- Backlinks
- Top keywords
- Keyword position
- Main competitors
- Backlink data
And those are just the icing of the cake. You can further check on each categories and further analyze from it. For your information, it would easily take you a few hours to completely analyze your competitors.
How do you spy on competitors’ keywords with SEMrush?
- List down at least 3 competitor websites
- Use SEMrush to determine the exact keywords they are ranking for ~ I focus on the top 10 keywords
- Check on the Keyword Difficulties (more on this below)
With SEMrush, you are going to see what your competitors are doing exactly and how you can monetize them.
- Let’s take an example that you know your competitors are ranking on ‘spy on competitors keywords’ term.
- Focus on how they are ranking this keywords (where they get the backlink from, what anchor texts are used etc)
- Replicate (yes, copy them) and improve by further enriching them (build more backlinks, improve anchor text, using long tail keywords etc)
Now tell me. Do you think you can crush your competitors while they are sleeping? Yes, you certainly do thanks to SEMrush.
Determine the keyword difficulties with SEMrush
This is another good add-on for SEMrush; keyword difficulties.
For those who are wondering, this feature compliments the above (competitors keywords research) perfectly.
- On the sidebar panel of SEMrush, search for Tools > Keyword Difficulty.
- Fill in the keywords (one per line and max 100 keywords per time) and click Show difficulty.
You will a report like this:
SEMrush keyword difficulty is shown in percentage where bigger percentage would be harder to compete compared to smaller percentage.
At the same time, you will also see the number of searches (volume tab), number of results, trends and SERP results.
Personally, my rule of difficulty recommendations would be anything below 70% (competition is tough with anything above 50%).
SEMrush in a nutshell
In short, I can’t imagine life without SEMrush. It is probably one of the most comprehensive SEO keyword research tool I ever seen until date.
You can grab a free SEMrush account here which will give you limited access for life and you find this useful, you can easily upgrade to Pro plan which costs $69.95 per month or Guru plan which costs $149.95 per month.
There you go, my summary wrap up on how to spy on competitors keywords using SEMrush. Tell me what you think using the comment form below and feel free to share this around with your friend!
Want to give SEMrush a run? Click on the banner below and create your free account today!
