I’ve been trying to get back to writing Part 3 of my “Blogging For Cash” series to help you get your cash making blog  up and running as soon as possible, but as usual there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done! I’m not just copying and pasting the content of each of these post, I’m writing them as I have time. Eventually, I will be creating an ebook with all parts into one.

So let’s get right into Part 3 - “Setting Up Your Cash Blog”.  This section of getting your blog up and running is quite lengthy, but bear in mind you only have to set this up once. You can set up a blog very quickly and not have to do any changes. That is… if you already have a ready made list of readers and don’t care about people finding you from the search engines. If you don’t have that list of readers and you want to get people coming to your blog through search engines, then you need to follow these steps. They are essential steps if you are going to have a good working blog that draws in visitors, makes money and creates a blog to fit your personality and your niche. None of it’s difficult, it just that each step needs to be completed one at a time.

Before I continue, Michael Cheney has a great set of blogging videos that will take you through all the steps that I’m outlining here - you can get them at this link:  ~ Start Your Profits Today ~

Okay, onto the steps that you’ll need to do to get set up. You shouldn’t have any problems at all setting up your WordPress (highly recommended) blog, if you are using a web hosting service with CPanel and Fantastico. Again, this is the easiest and fastest way to set up a blog and in this training I’m going to assume that you have used WordPress. The reason I’m pushing WordPress is that it’s a much more search engine friendly platform than some of the others out on the market.  

Let’s get started!

Let’s get started!

If you are installing WordPress yourself, you will need to go to www.wordpress.org and download the latest version to your computer. Just remember where you downloaded it to (I suggest your desktop), so you can find it later when you upload it to your hosting site.

(Note: In Part 1, I suggested that you get a domain name for your blog. If this is the domain that you used when you signed up for a host account, you will need to upload all your WordPress files to the root directory)

WordPress also has a “5 minute installation” link on their site that will guide you through getting it installed on your hosting site. I’m not going to go through the step-by-step instructions here, because they have a very good tutorial on the download site.

Once the blog is installed, there are a few details that you must take care of.

Choosing your Theme 

This is a source of great debate. There are experts that say, that any entrepreneurial presence online must have a professional look to it. If you have a regular business website, I agree. But in our case, yours is an interest blog. Therefore you should choose a template that works with the topic of your blog.

For example, if I were creating a blog about gardening, I would want a garden type of theme. If you were going to be blogging about parents, you might want a baby theme. Forget the professional, make your theme interesting and about your topic.

Initially when you set up WordPress, you will have two themes to choose from. I would not use either of these because everybody including their brother is using them. You want yours to be unique. One of the best places to find WordPress Themes is http://themes.wordpress.net/. You could also create a new theme or have one created for you at any of the free lance sites. In my opinion, you don’t need to. WordPress has many to choose from, they work great and I’m sure you can find one that fits your topic.

Once you select your theme, download it to your computer. This will be a .zip file so you’ll need a program such as www.WinZip.com to unzip it. It’s a free program and once you have it unzipped you should then have a new theme folder on your desktop. Then, you will need to upload the entire theme folder to your hosting site  (i.e. /public_html/wp-content/themes/).

Now when you go back to your WordPress blog, you will need to go and click on the Design tab, then Themes tab and your new theme will be there along with the two basics themes that WordPress provides. Click on your new theme and it will automatically open as your default theme. 

Once you have your theme up and running and you’re logged in we need to do some editing.

Step 1 - Adding Pages (Click on Manage, then Pages)

Most of the WordPress themes have an “About Me” page already setup. You can go in and edit this page with your bio or anything else you want. This is a static page that once set up you shouldn’t have to touch again, unless you want to change or edit something. You can also add other pages such as a pre-sales page for affiliate products and you can add as many pages as you want and put whatever content you like. Most people only have the about me page.

Step 2 - Setting Your Categories (Click on Manage, then Categories)

This is where you can set categories for your blog. Remember the gardening niche. If you went with a broad topic like this, you could set up categories for general information, supplies, seeds, fertilizer, etc. This will help keep your blog nice and tidy and easy for your visitors to navigate.

When you post a new article such as “What’s the best seeds to use for growing ______” you might want to put it in the “seeds’ category and also in the “general” category. I suggest that you set up as many categories as you can to start with and thet way you don’t have to add a new one everytime you submit a post on something new.

Step 3 - Blogroll (Click on Manage, then Links)

Here you will have several links already listed, I suggest that you just delete these and add in new ones of your own. You can put in links to your own products, those of affiliate products that you’re promoting or that of other blog sites that you may be cross-linking with.  The choices here are endless.

If you want to change the title from “Blogroll” to say “Top Sites” or “My Products”, it gets a little more complicated because you would need to change the title text in the html code of your sidebar.php file. If you do want to change this, then you would go to the “Design” tab and click on the “Design Editor” tab. Here you will see on the right side a listing of the .php files. Click on the sidebar.php file or the leftsidebar.php file (yours may be labeled differently). Once there, find the text that says “Blogroll” and change it to the heading title you want.

(I might suggest that just in case you don’t do it right and can’t figure out how to get it back the way it was, I would copy all of the original html code and paste it into a notepad file and save it. Then, if you need to restore it back to original, all you do is copy and paste it over the html code in that .php file. Believe me when I say it has save me a lot of time trying to figure out what I did wrong.) 

Step 4 - Widgets (Click on Design, then Widgets)

Here you can add, remove and move widgets around to suit your taste or you can just leave it as is. I normally just leave as is but that’s your choice. Should you want to know more about widgets I suggest reading the help file on WordPress.

Step 5 - Plugins (Find on the main page, top right of your editor page)

This section is where you can really make your blog unique. You can find every imaginable plugin available by visiting the WordPress Plugin Directory at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/.  You can get video plugins, podcast plugins, Google plugins, and statistic plugins of all kinds. Look around and see what you like and follow the directions on how to get them installed and activated on your blog.

Okay we’re almost done….

Step 6 - Your Profile

Here you can go in and add the information about yourself. You want to be personable here and become human to your readers. Let them know who you are and why you know what you are talking about.

Step 7 - Title of You Blog & Keywords

You may be asking, where do I set the name for my blog and my tag line? In most WordPress themes, you will need to find the ”Setting” tab. Here you can enter your title, tagline and keywords. Be sure to put in some popular keywords for your niche as this is how you will be found on the search engines. Be sure to use your main keywords in the title, just like you did when you selected your domain name for your blog.

Step 8 - Writing (Click on Settings then on Writing)

One key thing you need to do in order to be found more readily on the search engines is to add more ping sites. Whenever you do a new post, you want to ping so that you notify the search engines that you’ve added new content. This is done automatically, but most WordPress themes usually only have one default ping location. Normally it’s the 1st one below. Here’s the best way to get an even better ping coverage. Just copy and paste all of these into the bottom box of the “Writing” section.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.wasalive.com/ping/
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

Step 9 - Permalinks (Click on Setting then Permalinks)

This is a simple setting, but it is also a key to getting a higher ranking within the seach engines. Normally, WordPress sets the default in the “Common Setting” area to ”Default”. I recommend that you go to the last one down that has the “Custom Structure” and select that one. Then in the box to the right paste in this code:

 /%category%/%postname%/

Step 10 - Reading (Click on Settings then on Reading)

Again, there are many options here, but mainly you need to decide whether a static page or the latest blog post will appear on the front page of your blog. I recommend your latest post. This can be changed at any time.

Step 11 - Discussion (Click on Setting, then on Discussion)

This is where you control the comments made on your post by your readers and how they are added to your posts. Read all the options on the page and choose how you would like to monitor your posts. Personally, I like to approve any comments made about my post before they are shown to my readers.

Okay, now I know that was a lot of stuff, but you don’t have to do it again. All you need to do now is start adding good quality content and be yourself.

In Part 4, I’ll cover adding Google Adsense to your Blog. You may have noticed that i have adsense on my blog at http://mikevanbergen.com . It fits in nicely and doesn’t distract from the rest of my content. And…I make a little money every time someone clicks on one of the Google ads. I’ll show you how you can get them on your blog.

Til next time….have a great blogging day!

Mike Van Bergen

P.S. Again I want to remind you of Michael Cheney’s videos ~ Start Your Profits Today ~ He charges a small fee of $97. If you’re in a hurry it’s well worth the investment.