25 Steps to Launching Your Blog and Making money blogging.

This is a compilation post of the 25 best tips and steps I have ever seen for creating your blog, getting it set up right and launching it.

The sources of these are: Aviva directory 21 surefire tips for a successful blog launch

And upstart blogger 25 steps to launch your blog and making a 100+ a month in 30 days

What I did with these posts was put them in  an order, they both cover the same or similar ground work for getting your blog set up so you can start making money blogging. Right from Choosing the type of blogging platform. To how to monetize your blog.. As well I have included some of my tips and tricks for how to traffic to your blog, which is of course very important, setting up your rss feeds and which plug-ins to use, provided your going the Wordpress route. This blog post is going to be full of links and jam packed with value added information.

This is a very long post but one I hope will answer many of your questions.

Enjoy!

First Things First:

How to choose the right blogging system

1. Choose Your Blog System

There are hosted systems, like Blogger, TypePad, and WordPress.com, but I don’t recommend them. Some hosted services are free, but others (like TypePad) can cost as much as hosting your own site. If you’re serious about making money with your blog, you’ll want to have your own domain name. I recommend using free software like Textpattern or WordPress (you can research and demo a number of systems at opensourceCMS). Since I use WordPress, I’ll be talking about how to launch a WordPress blog.

2. Register Your Domain

Don’t put this off; you’ll be amazed at how many of the ingenious names you come up with are already taken. I register my domains with GoDaddy, and that’s as good a place as any to do your research. But don’t register your name yet; many hosts offer one free domain registration.

3. Find a Host

I’ve already written about this elsewhere. Be sure to get a host with a good affiliate program. I personally use Host Gator. They’re inexpensive and offer generous storage and bandwidth, 24/7 phone support, online chat support. Host gator provides excellent customer service and answer each and every question I have ever had and believe me I have had a few questions!!

Your web host will offer statistics packages, but you’re better off with one of the free services. I use AddFreeStats and StatCounter on my blogger blogs to get a quick overview on what’s happening with the blog traffic but I rely more on Google Analytics for an in-depth view. I recommend you go the Google analytics route along with your Cpanel stats to get very detailed reports on your blog traffic. This is a very important thing to keep up on and will be covered a little more in-depth later on in the post

4. Get Statistics

Getting Started With Wordpress

5. Install Wordpress

It only takes 5 minutes. Here’s a link to a post I did a while back about how to install wordpress. You should also refer to the wordpress site for installation instructions

6. Find a Theme

WordPress makes it easy to change the look of your template; just upload and select a WordPress theme. Thousands of free themes are available. Start at the wordpress theme viewer. Here are a few other places to get some very slick, cool and web 2.0 based wordpress themes.

wpdesigner.com (free wordpress themes)

My wordpress themes of choice come from Pearsonified.com here’s a link to his wordpress themes. Pearsonified is the guy who designed the copyblogger theme. I am using  pearsonifieds 3 column copyblogger theme

7. Edit Your Theme

Most themes work fine out-of-the-box, but you’ll probably want to make a few minor tweaks. Instructions are usually included with a theme. WordPress is fairly easy to learn, and the documentation is excellent.

8. Install Your Statistics Tracking Code

To use stats like Google Analytics, you’ll need to paste a snippet of code into your template. depending on the theme you go with. Google analytics will tell you to put the tracking code just before the </body> of your blog. Which in my case is to be found in the footer.

9. Install Your Plugins

Plugins extend the functionality of your basic WordPress installation. You’ll find more information about plugins at the Codex Plugin List. Here’s a list of plugins that I would consider essential for almost any WordPress blog:

• Admin Drop Down Menu Adds a menu bar to the WordPress admin menu, saving you lots of clicks.
• Ad Rotator Lets you randomly rotate ads or other text from a text file.
• Akismet Spam blocker. Included in the WordPress install, but don’t forget to turn it on.
• Digg Defender Caches pages to buffer hits from sites like Digg, helping your server avoid a meltdown.
• Digg This Adds a Digg button to your dugg posts.
• External Links Opens outbound links in a new window.
• Get Recent Comments Lets you display the most recent comments or trackbacks.
• Related Posts Displays a list of related entries.
• Social Bookmark Creator Adds social bookmark links to your entries.
• the_excerpt Reloaded Gives you more flexibility over how WordPress displays excerpts.
• Ultimate Tag Warrior If you want to use tags, this is the ultimate tagging plugin.
• WordPress Database Backup On-demand backup of your WordPress database. Included with the WordPress install. Don’t forget to use it; it can be a lifesaver.
• WP-Amazon If you’re going to add Amazon items to your blog, this is a great timesaver.
  

The First Impression

Connecting with your readers through an about page and welcome message. One of the best ways to make a lasting impact is to connect on a personal level with your readers. That means letting them know who you are and what your background is. Darren from ProBlogger does this well by including an image of his ugly mug and an ‘about page’ link above the fold. He also has an excellent post about how to write an “about me ” page. You don’t necessarily need an author pic to relate to your readers, but you should find some way to allow readers to connect with you on a personal as well as a professional level to develop some rapport.

Don’t get seen naked: Never launch a blog with fewer than 5 posts. In the blogosphere you typically get just one shot at impressing a visitor or fellow blogger. Too many new bloggers throw up two posts and then start working on promotion. In the world of blogging, you are selling yourself and your writing. If you can’t give people a fully dressed picture of what your blog is all about and what type of writing will be on it, then why should they throw a link your way, or subscribe to your RSS feed? When someone links to you or subscribes they’re giving a vote of confidence that your site is worthwhile, so give them something to grab on to, and let them know your space won’t be “just another abandoned blog.”

10. Start Posting

Brainstorm a list of possible topics (see 10 + 9 Ways to Find Great Post Ideas for Your Blog) and hit the keyboard. Post at least 25 entries before you begin to promote your site. Here are step by step instructions. If you’re new to posting, use the visual rich editor (enabled on the Options » Writing page in the WordPress admin), which lets you add basic formatting without knowing any HTML. Note: The visual rich editor doesn’t work with Safari.

A popular form of posts is the list posts, people love lists and respond well to them. Copyblogger has a great series of posts on the power of the list type posts. 7 things you need to know about writing lists that work



11. Focus on a Niche

If you’re blogging with the intention of making money, focus on a niche. It will boost your search engine rankings, make it easier to target an audience, and make your advertising more effective. There are lots of bloggers that write about anything that catches their interest (I’m one of them), but if you want to make money you’ll be better off splitting your interests into individual blogs. This blog for instance focuses more on the beginner end of blogging, its the niche I chose to get into. There are as many types of niches as there are people on the planet so the choice of interests and demand for them is literally endless. 9 basic and easy steps to building a niche blog

12. Post Regularly

Whether you plan on posting every day or a couple of times a week, determine a posting schedule and stick with it. When you post regularly, you’ll notice a slow, but steady increase in your traffic and subscriptions.

Submit guest posts at other blogs. Few experienced bloggers can resist the appeal of good free content. But most new bloggers simply don’t take advantage of this, because the first few weeks after the launch of their blog are so hectic that they don’t have time to write additional posts for someone else’s blog. With a little planning, however, you can overcome the time crunch and pick up some great links. Save up a half dozen good posts before you launch, and submit them to related blogs as a way to introduce yourself and your blog to their audience. (It’s usually better to only do this when the blogger is actively seeking submissions; you probably shouldn’t submit posts unasked-for.) Of course, link back to your own blog in the “author’s bio” at the bottom of the post. It’s not good form to submit the same article to multiple sites, so don’t cut corners here; instead create a good unique post for each submission you make.

Flagship content and pillar articles 

An additional point I should add to this is, that your blog should have what is known as Flagship content. It’s the content that your blog is based on and like any good business or house for that matter it should have a solid foundation. This type of content is also known as pillar article content. Want to know how to write great flagship content?, then I recommend you visit Chrisg.com and download his free e-book killer flagship content.

From yaro starak on pillar articles:

Pillar articles on the surface appear to be standard blog articles, but for some special reasons they become the main drivers of traffic to your blog.

They form the foundations - the pillars - of your blog.

SPECIAL OUTCOMES

There is no one particular reason that an article becomes a Pillar, rather it’s the results you get from the article that qualify it as a Pillar. 

A Pillar article will perform the following key functions for your blog - 

1. Bring in a flood of traffic when first released. 

This is often the result people linking to or trackbacking your article and generating a little bit of “buzz” around the blogosphere (other blogs). 

2. Provide a definition of a key term, an answer to a commonly asked question, or a brief how-to tutorial. 

The article’s value is not time dependent, you can refer to it in future blog posts, other bloggers will link to it and refer people to it over and over again. It’s timeless information, not news or personal blogging - it’s relevant to a wide audience for a long period of time.

3. The traffic keeps coming long after the article is archived deep within your blog. 

Often because of reason one above (lots of incoming links to the article) a Pillar article will rank well in search engines and consequently show up on the first page of searches, directing brand new readers to your blog long after you first published the article.

4. Provides a reason to bookmark and/or subscribe to your blog (and RSS feed). 

When a first time reader comes to your blog and they see all the fantastic content they are much more likely to bookmark your site for further reading later. They will start monitoring your blog regularly, transforming from casual random surfer into loyal reader because they can see the quality of your previous work.

SPIKE ARTICLES

Don’t get confused between a Pillar and a Spike article. A Spike article is all about a quick rush of traffic that often disappears within a day or two and has very little long lasting impact. Pillars are timeless, Spikes are temporary. One of the tricks is knowing how to convert a Spike into a Pillar.

Without Pillar articles most other traffic building techniques fail. If you don’t have Pillars in place most traffic techniques you implement will be Spikes, maybe generating a rush

of traffic for brief bursts but very quickly dropping back to where you were previously. You won’t convert first time visitors into regular readers.

FOLLOW A BLOG TRAFFIC METHODOLOGY

A well constructed blog, one that follows a traffic building methodology, will retain an audience long after the blogger stops writing. 

This has many positive outcomes, including -

A) You can stop blogging for a week or two without worrying about losing your audience. This means less stress and a more solid blog foundation.

B) The resale value of your blog will be higher because it’s value and popularity are based on the existing content, not the potential future content that evaporates when the blogger stops blogging after the sale. It’s more about the blog and less about the personality behind the blog.

Here’s to your blogging success,

Yaro Starak also has a great e-book you can download if you want some pro-blogging tips to help you make money blogging.

Do you want to make blogging your ticket to freedom?

Join the only mentoring program that teaches

anyone how to make REAL money from a blog

Blogmaster mind mentorship program

13. Write Good Titles

The best known blog philosophy is: The better the headline title, the more likely a post is to be read. Be sure to read the following articles:

• How to Write Headlines
• How to Get 53% More Readers for Every Blog Post You Write
• Using Titles Effectively on Blogs

14. Write for the Computer Screen

With few exceptions (the occasional roundup, or how to piece like this one), you’ll want to keep your posts short. Most people will find you through a search engine. They’re looking for specific information and if they don’t find it, they’ll be gone in a second. Literally. When you write for the web: Shorter is better. Keep it short. Be brief.

Here are some other resources on writing for the web:

• Writing for the Web
• A List Apart: 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web
• A List Apart: How to Write a Better Weblog
• Do You Make These Mistakes With Your Blog?
• 9 + 1 Things Every Reader Wants from a Writer
  

Marketing Your Site

15. Submitting Your blog to the Search Engines

The big search engines, like Google, MSN, and Yahoo!, will find you eventually, but that’s no reason not to submit your new blog. You’ll get most of your traffic from the major search engines, but don’t stop there. And be sure to claim your blog at Technorati. For more information, check these resources:

• My site in the Google index
• How do I add my site to Google’s search results?
• Live Search URL Submission
• Submit Your Site to Yahoo!
• Major Search Engines and Directories
• Search Engine Ranking Factors.
  

Link Building

Submit your blog to blog directories. Incoming links help your site to get spidered, indexed and ranked better by search engines. Conveniently, there are many blog directories that specialize in categorizing and linking to quality blogs. You can find a comprehensive list of them at the RSSTop55.

Submit your blog to general web directories such as DMOZ and Aviva. Links from DMOZ (The Open Directory), Yahoo! Directory, Aviva Directory and other quality general web directories provide you with what are considered “trusted links” by the search engines, a key to ranking well. Search engines value links from quality web directories because it means that your site has been checked and selected by a human being.

But not all web directories are equal, and you want to be careful when submitting your site to not just throw good money after bad links. Another nice thing about the top web directories is that they will send you relevant traffic, just like a search engine.

Myspace or Facebook members: Put a link in your profile. Putting a link in your Myspace or Facebook account (see my post How to Leverage the Viral Power of Facebook) is a nearly effortless way to market your site. Again, the response won’t be hundreds of new readers, but picking up a few dozen new readers here and there (even just your friends) never hurts. Also, consider sending out a bulletin (bulk mail) announcing the blog to all of your Myspace and Facebook friends. Even if just a couple of your friends drop you a free link on their own pages or blogs, it’s worth the two minutes it takes.

16. Offer Feeds and Email Subscriptions

WordPress will automatically generate RSS feeds for your posts and comments, but use FeedBurner for your feeds. FeedBurner lets you track your subscribers, offers various tools to control and promote your feeds, and lets you offer email subscriptions. There’s even a Quick Start Guide for WordPress users.

RSS & Subscriptions

Make sure a link to your RSS feed is available above the fold. Though they won’t help your AdSense revenues much, subscribers are the lifeblood of any successful blog. These devotees are often the ones providing you with regular comments, and are far more likely to be webmasters themselves (meaning more links). It should be obvious to anyone launching a blog, but its amazing how many new bloggers do not make a link to their RSS feed readily available. New bloggers often don’t want to devote space on their site to an RSS feed when they could squeeze in a bit more AdSense. While this thinking is understandable, it is simply wrong. The returns of having subscribers are much more valuable because subscribers drive long-term traffic organically, while an additional AdSense block provides at best a marginal short-term gain.

Make RSS easier still: Add subscribe links to the most popular newsreaders. Again: we want to make it easy for people to subscribe. No one reads RSS raw. Provide readers with above the fold access to some of the most popular newsreaders such as Bloglines, MyYahoo!, Google Reader, and MyMSN.

Offer an email version of your RSS feed. According to Copyblogger, offering an email version of your RSS feed can as much as double your subscribers. We have already covered the reasons why subscribers are essential to a healthy blog (links, comments, buzz). Feedblitz offers this service for free, as does Feedburner. But beyond simply offering the email RSS feed, you need to make sure that signing up for it is easy. A study by Marketing Experiments reveals that reducing the steps to signing up for both your RSS feed and your email subscription will increase signups by over 700%. That means more than 7x the number of repeat readers and over 7x the benefits that subscribers provide to your blog.

17. Add Social Bookmarking to Your Entries

Social Bookmarking (aka Going Viral)

Put chicklets in your template. Chicklets are ugly, and having too many “If you liked this story, submit it to Delicious” lines in a post looks plain spammy. That said, when you have a top-notch post that you hope is going to go viral, there is no better way to boost your votes than to add the Delicious link and Digg button right onto the post. When used correctly, chicklets can get you the coveted ‘double vote’ (when visitors who came to your post via Delicious, for example, then drop you a Digg vote once they are on the site). When you consider the tens of thousands of visitors that visit a good linkbait, those ‘double votes’ can be enough to carry you to the popular page of a second site, just by leveraging the traffic of the first. Remember that Social Bookmark Creator plugin for WordPress? Use it, or something like it, to make it easy for visitors to submit entries to their favorite bookmarking sites.

Viral Marketing your blog

If you have something to give, give it away! Give people a reason to visit your site which goes beyond the typical content. If you’re a designer, give away a free HTML design or Wordpress skin. Are you a programmer? Make a cool FireFox plugin. Are you an expert at XX? Give away a free 8-page report, in PDF style, called “Secrets of XX Revealed”. The point is, by giving away something, even something small, you can create buzz.  A great way to promote your viral e-book is by offering it up in your rss feed using this great Wordpress plugin that Chrisg developed. What would Chrisg Do

Reload quickly: Take advantage of your initial launch buzz. A successful blog launch will give you two or three days of buzz (yes, that’s all you’ll get in the blogosphere). During that window, other bloggers in your niche will be checking out your site. Take advantage of those extra visitors by putting up some top-notch content within the first couple of days and updating your site frequently. Many webmasters will stop by during the first week to check out the ‘new kid on the block,’ so make sure they see you at your best. Launch buzz is a unique opportunity to gain easy links with no real extra marketing work, and it will not happen a second time. So don’t waste the opportunity by putting up garbage or sporadic content during your first week.

18. Join Social Bookmarking Services and Submit Your Posts

Be your own promoter: Seed your best posts.

Hundreds of thousands of content hungry readers are using social bookmarking sites every day, and many track specific keywords. By seeding your best articles, and by using a mixture of both popular and specific keywords as tags, you can bring a new crop of readers to your site on a weekly basis. The best way to select the tags for your article is to think of social bookmarking sites as a form of search engine. By including both broad keywords and narrower keywords you are certain to get a blend of both low quality/high volume readers (AdSense baby!) and high quality/low volume readers (links). The following is a list of the top 10 bookmarking sites which you should submit your top articles to:

1.Digg: Mammoth traffic; tech-focused; savvy users

2.Delicious: Pretty big traffic; somewhat tech/design-focused; a lot of bloggers browse Delicious for “things to link to”

3.Netscape: Pretty big traffic; a mix of topics; less savvy users

4.Stumbleupon: Medium traffic; weird stuff/literary articles; normal users.

5.Yahoo MyWeb: Medium traffic; general interest; normal users

6.Reddit: Lower traffic; politics/random stuff; normal users.

7.Furl: Lower traffic; tech-focused/some random stuff; normal users

8.Newsvine: Lower traffic; politics and news; normal users.

9.Lookmarks: Low traffic; gets spammed a lot; less savvy users

Blinklist: Low traffic; gets spammed a lot; less savvy users There are dozens of these services, with new ones popping up all the time (here’s a comprehensive list). If you write a Digg worthy post, submit it yourself (but be selective). And be sure to check the Social Bookmarking popup menu at the bottom of this post and submit it to your favorite sites.

19. Post Comments on Other Sites

Getting networked

Leave highly valuable comments on other blogs in your niche. Every niche within the blogosphere is made up of a few tightly knit communities. Like all communities, so much of what is actually going on (passing links, giving tips, etc.) is all done behind the scenes through email and IM. As a result, getting integrated into some of the communities in your niche is essential to growing your blog. New bloggers often try to integrate themselves through email solicitations, “Hi my name is Newbie, will you be my friend?…” This rarely works. You need to first make a name for yourself and make yourself valuable to the community. One way is to start commenting on the sites of community members within your niche. By being an initiator of, or contributor to, good conversations on other blogs, other webmasters will come to recognize your name. Note: This takes a bit of finesse, so don’t go around dropping your blog’s URL in the comments themselves. Rather, just type your URL in the URL field and let your ideas speak for the quality of your writing and your site.Find blogs that share your interests and post meaningful comments there. Include your URL. Each comment is a link back to your site, which helps your search engine ranking. More importantly, if you have something worthwhile to contribute, people will want to visit your site.

Start real relationships with bloggers in your niche.

One of the biggest misconceptions new bloggers have is that because you are online, somehow the way business is conducted has changed. It hasn’t. Just as in the offline business world, much of what is really going on in the blogging world takes place between colleagues. That means that the most helpful tips, links, assistance, and so on are given on the basis of a preexisting friendship or relationship between you and another blogger. So after spending some time getting a lay of the land within your blogging niche, send a few relevant emails out to other bloggers within your community. Let them know that you are an avid reader of their site (and actually be one), and then ask advice, suggest something, etc. The key is to: 1) Not ask for a link, and 2) Have something interesting to say. Networking (which is just a fancy way of saying making friends) is maybe the single most important difference between an average and a successful blog. So do it.

Dress up your comments. Even if you don’t have any readers, you can be assured that comment spammers will find you. Comment spammers are the guys dropping off-topic advertisements for Viagra and weight loss pills in the comments of your blog. Nothing kills the ability of a blog to attract new links like a spammy site. And nothing says ’spammy site’ like a comments page full of irrelevant comments and links. So monitor and delete spammy comments on a regular basis. In addition to deleting the garbage comments, you need to foster a positive community. People want to participate in and link to a vibrant site. So create one by encouraging your friends to comment on your blog. The key is that you want to create the impression of an energetic and participatory group of readers. Nobody wants to be the first guy to comment on a post, but everyone wants to chime in on a hot debate.

The bottom line: if you follow the preceding tips, you’re not guaranteed to have a successful blog, but you are guaranteed to have a strong launch, and a fighting chance to make it big in the blogosphere.

20. Participate in Forums

Leave your blog’s URL as your signature when you participate in forums. When you make a good comment on a forum, people will not only remember your URL and begin to associate it with quality information, but also a number of forum readers looking for more information will click the link and visit your site.Find forums that share your interests and post actively. Always include your URL in your signature.

Use your URL in your email signature. If you’re like most new webmasters, you will be writing hundreds of emails in your first few months of blogging. You can easily and subtly convert these emails into marketing efforts for your blog by simply including your URL below your name in your signature line. The setup takes only a minute, and once it’s done you won’t ever have to think about it again.

21. Link Generously

Include tons of outbound links in your posts.

As a new blogger, your target audience is other bloggers. They have the links that you need to get to the top of the search engines and to get in front of other readers. So a big key is getting other bloggers in your niche to notice you. A good trick is to use website referrals to your advantage. Almost every blogger checks their site referrals list on a daily or weekly basis (which tells them the last page a visitor was on before they landed on their site). They use this list both to track new links and to see who is talking about their site. By putting a lot of outbound links in your posts to other blogs in your niche, you can start to raise your profile. When your readers click on those links your site will appear in the referrals list of the bloggers you link to. This is free marketing for you. When other bloggers see your site in their referrals list they will often visit your site and are also much more likely to return a link to you.Include links to other sites in your posts. Include a blogroll or list of links to interesting sites on your blog. Why? High quality links are valuable to your visitors and some of the people you link to will link back to you.

22. Monitor Your Site

Pay attention to your referrer logs. When you see traffic from another blog, website, or forum, pay a visit. Post a comment or forum post. And keep tabs on how effectively you’re promoting your site. UrlTrends lets you monitor several different ranking and link popularity trends at a glance. You can also keep tabs on how much your blog is worth, relatively speaking.

Making Money

23. Join Advertising Programs

The biggest of these is Google AdSense, but there are a number of competitors. Most of these generate contextual ads (ads based on keywords in your posts) and limit you to displaying ads from only one advertising company on a page. But remember the Ad Rotator plugin for WordPress? You can use it to display ads from only one source at a time, letting you test multiple advertising programs simultaneously.

Here are some advertising programs to consider:

AdBrite

Adknowledge

Chitika

Kontera (ContentLink)

Google AdSense

Performancing Partners

Text Link Ads

Yahoo! Publisher Network

24. Join Affiliate Programs

A good affiliate program can be worth much more than advertising dollars. Start with your web host (put a small notice about your web host somewhere on your site). Then, think about where you spend money on the web. Many sites, like Amazon, have their own affiliate program. But you’ll want to join the big affiliate networks to get quick and easy access and comprehensive reporting for multiple companies. Here are some of the biggies:

Affiliate Fuel

Commission Junction

Kolimbo

LinkShare.com

25. Consider Asking for Donations

If your content is valuable enough, your readers might be willing to donate, especially if you have minimal advertising on your blog. Two easy ways to accept donations on your site are Amazon Honor System, and PayPal.

Finishing touches

Ask friends for feedback on your site. Ask some of your webmaster friends to review/critique your site a few days before its official launch. The blogging world is largely comprised people who consider themselves somewhat entrepreneurial, and as a result, bloggers tend to respect (and want to help) people who are out there trying to start up their own site. By asking other bloggers to give you feedback, you put them in the role of expert and create in them a sense of ownership in your site (which means they will be more likely to give you a hand when you need it). Not surprisingly, this technique usually does provide some valuable feedback from people who have experience, if not expertise, in running a blog. But in addition, by putting your peers in the position of expert, you dramatically increase the chance that they will follow your launch and drop you a link once you get off the ground.

Go ‘Real-World’ with other bloggers. If you live in a major city (or visit one occasionally), invite other bloggers to join you for a drink or dinner. While friendships can be developed in cyberspace, the most fruitful business relationships, even in the world of blogging, tend to flourish only after face-to-face interaction. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just send a few individualized emails to some specific bloggers in your city asking them to meet up. You can frame it as an opportunity to learn from their wisdom (bloggers love to consider themselves experts), or simply a meeting of the minds. Either way, having a relationship bolstered by face-to-face contact can provide countless benefits over one maintained entirely online.