Blogging software & tools

Now that you know what a blog is, and how it can benefit your business, let’s look at some of the most commonly used ways to get your blog up and running.

WordPress Blogging software and blogging tools

WordPress is the most popular blogging software used online today. This is because it is not only free to use, but has a huge support community that helps new and veteran users alike.

The biggest advantage to using WordPress, is that it is constantly being updated and improved upon. In fact, because it is open source software, there are hundreds, if not thousands of programmers constantly creating WordPress plugins.

These plugins are basically like bonus features you can use with the software, to upgrade its functionality (Making your life much, much easier).

You can view a list of these plugins at:

http://wiki.wordpress.org/?pagename=Plugin

One major feature of the software, is that it automatically creates a RSS feed for your blog.

Each time you post to your blog, the software automatically updates your feed. This is a dynamic feature that will help expose your blog to a wider audience, and best of all, requires no extra work on your part.

Installing WordPress

The first step you will need to take, is to download WordPress here: http://wordpress.org/download/

You can then follow the detailed installation instructions. Should you run into any problems, don’t hesitate to use the support forum at: http://wordpress.org/support/

After you have installed the software, you will want to change your theme. The theme is simply the layout/design of your blog. You can make it look as simple, or as creative as you wish.

Wordpress themes

To choose a theme for your WordPress blog, visit: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

Once you have chosen your preferred theme, simply download the file to your hard drive. The zip file should contain easy installation instructions for changing your theme in a few simple steps.

These are just the basics you need to get started using WordPress to power your blog. As you become more familiar with the software, you can slowly begin to use more of the advanced features and plugins.

Follow the Installing wordpress tutorial I did a while back

Popular WordPress Plugins

As we discussed earlier, there are a vast amount of helpful plugins you can use for WordPress.

Here are five of the most popular plugins available:

Spam Karma 2.0 – One of the most frustrating obstacles to running your own blog, is automatic comment spam. This is an underhanded tactic that unscrupulous marketers use to get free advertising on your blog.

Spam Karma 2.0 is the best anti-spam plugin available. Without getting too technical, this plugin will run all comments through a series of spam tests before posting them to your blog.

Click here to download this plugin

WP-Contact Form – This plugin allows you to add a contact form to your blog in two easy steps.

Click here to download this plugin

One Click Backup v. 1.3 – Quickly and easily backup your blog using this plugin.

Click here to download this plugin

Google Sitemap Generator – One of the hottest ways to get your Website/blog pages listed on Google is by using a Google Sitemap.

Use this plugin to instantly generate your own Google Sitemap, and you should see a dramatic increase in the pages Google indexes from your blog.

Click here to download this plugin

WP Subscribe To Comments – This plugin will give your readers instant email notifications when there are new comments to your posts.

This is a great way to keep your visitors coming back to read your blog!

You can download it here:

Click here to download this plugin

Hope these little blogging software and tool goodies are helpful

Heat Map track your visitors actions on your blog

A while back I was curious about heat map and tracking visitors actions. SO I could test the blog theme and its general layout SO hopefully I would be able to see where and on what people are clicking.

Yes yes I know that my stats package shows me exit links and the likes, but I wanted to see if there was a way to get a heat map for the blog. So off to google I went in search of heat map information. And much to my surprise (well not really) There is just such a website. Crazy Egg

Crazyegg is a tool that allows you to make your blog navigation better by telling you what people are clicking on.

It has a superb heatmap generation feature. Let me show you a cropped heatmap their test site blog.

The whole reason and purpose I want to know this is

A.) I am or was considering a blog template change

B.) I want to test this blog template

C.) I have been reading about 3 column vs 2 column Blog templates and fixed width versus fluid width templates.

D.) I want to make my blog more useful for you my readers.

I have just signed up with Crazy egg today and am running a 5 day test.

It’s free to do it and no there isn’t an aff link involved just some useful information for you. There is an option for you to pay to get more detailed reports and depending on the test I get I may just consider paying for the “pro version”

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them.

People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet. Sharing links and videos is what I want to focus on here.

This can benefit you in a number of ways. Just a few of which I’m going to talk about here today.

Adding your blog or website to Facebook  leverages Facebook’s viral nature and can exponentially increase the visibility of your blog or website.

You can do this in a few ways.

1.) add your blog or website to your profile.

(View the images )

What You can see here  is my website Make money blogging

in my facebook account.

As I mentioned in my prior post How To use Face book to get your new blog or website indexed and crawled

Facebook has a High PR and it gets crawled frequently, and you can leverage this very easily.

Follow the steps in picture format and you can start using Facebook to its full viral effect.

The next few screen captures I’m going to show you are how to get your website blog to appear in your facebook account

Im going to assume for a moment that you have a facebook account. If not go get one NOW!!

Then what you want to do after your account has been activated is scroll down to the section of the page where you see information. Above picture. And click edit.

This will take you to you basic information page. (below)

The do as the picture says and click contact.

This is your Facebook personal contact page

You can all sorts of information about yourself that will allows others in your personal network to contact you, so they and YOU can share information, share pictures, share videos, Share feeds and anything else that you wish.

Most importantly for the sake of this demonstration is to get your website or blog listed on facebook.

The Website form box is on the bottom of that page. Just type in your blog url address or website url address and you’re up and running.

Shortly after that probably within a few days the Search engines will drop by Facebook and see that you have updated your facebook account. They see your link and drop by your website or blog and in turn crawl it as well.

What great about this is at this time Facebook doesn’t have the no follow attribute attached to these links. So this means its a free for all for those who want a high PR backlink courtesy of facebook and want their newest projct , be it a blog or a website indexed quickly from a site that is well  trafficked by the Search Bots.

I just wish I could remember when I opened my facebook account. So I could provide with a better indication as to how quick the BOTs came to my site from Facebook. I know it was in may. And the screen capture I have on my prior post from my stats was from may. So I am going to assume it was within a few days to a week.

The facebook back link itself shows as may 5 th. So in any event it was fairly quick to appear.

Hope this was helpful !! 

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Part 2 How to make money with facebook 

Part 3 How to promote your product or an affiliate program with facebook

Part 4  How To use Face book to get your new blog or website indexed and crawled

Part 5 Use facebook to increase your rss feed