Tutorials Archives - More from Your Blog

How to Start a Blog

There are many reasons why you might want to know how to start a blog. Maybe you have a business and want to supplement your online activity with a blog. Good idea! Maybe you want to start an online diary of your life. That’s fun too! Maybe you want to start a fashion blog, or a food blog, or a fitness blog. There are so many types of blogs out there to start! The key is starting. You have all of these ideas, so get going on them!

If you know anyone who is thinking of starting a blog, or who you think should, please pass this post on to them so they can get it done quickly and easily!

This post will serve as a step-by-step guide to show you how to start a blog in under 20 minutes. If you follow along with the post while creating your blog, you should have a new blog up and running in no time!

I will state upfront why I recommend HostGator. For starters, HostGator guarantees 99.99% uptime for your site. WordPress recommends only 3 hosting companies for running their platform – HostGator is #1. A+ customer service available 24/7/365. Another reason is that their pricing is amazingly good. (Save 25% more with code MOREFROMYOURBLOG) Lastly, as you are about to find out, the set-up from the ground up is very easy.
It is important that you know that I am a HostGator affiliate. Therefore, while it costs you NOTHING EXTRA, I get a little something when I refer people to HostGator. None of that changes anything. They are a great company, affiliate program or not. The truth is, I could become an affiliate of just about any of the hundreds of hosting companies out there, but I choose to recommend HostGator.

Ok, so How do you Start a Blog?

1. Do some brainstorming
What are you going to write about? What do you want your blog’s name to convey? Do some research as to the availability of domain names. Chances are, the first couple you try will already be taken. You can check the availability of domain names right here. Once you find a domain that is available, you’ll be at this screen:
Don’t register your domain on this screen, it will be easier to do it the way I describe below.

Once you’ve found a domain name that is available, think long and hard about it and make sure that it is the one you want. That will be something that you’re never going to want to change.

2. Get some cheap hosting
Now that you know of a domain that you like and is still available, it’s time to get some cheap web hosting to go with it.

You’re going to want to head over here, where you can sign up for HostGator and score awesome hosting for as low as $3.96/month! Save 25% more with coupon code MOREFROMYOURBLOG as well! To start, I recommend the baby plan. You can upgrade ANYTIME.

Choose a plan and you’ll be at this screen:

Upon entering your domain, you will see that it is available and it will be automatically added to your cart.

You will then be given the option to add other top-level domains to your cart such as the .net and .org versions of your domain. If you’re really worried about someone trying to snap those names up, go ahead and add them to your cart, although this can get pricey. I generally do not do this and only buy the .com domain.

Scroll down a bit to see this screen:
Here, you’ll be able to select which plan is for you and how long you want to sign up for. I recommend the baby plan, because you are able to add more than one domain to the hosting plan. The price difference is so small and most bloggers are likely to add another domain. I also recommend signing up for as long as possible, as you will save money doing so. That said, the nice part about HostGator is that you can sign up for just one month at a time if you want.

So, select your hosting package and billing cycle length and then create an account username and password.

Scroll down and enter your billing info. Their site is 100% secure.

Note: if at any point during this process you get stuck, feel free to contact me (info at the bottom of post) or jump on the phone and call HostGator at 1-866-96-GATOR and they’ll be happy to help you out.

Scroll down a bit more for some extra options. The screen will look like this:
They’ll auto-check a few of these, so make sure you un-check them.

Here’s a breakdown of what these extras are:
Domain Privacy Protection – this is a big deal. If you don’t choose this, anyone can look up who owns your site and your registration information will be public. This includes your email address, physical address and phone number. You want domain privacy protection.

Secure and Accelerate Your Site – WordPress does this quite well as it is. So does HostGator. You don’t need this extra.

Site Backups: Daily Backups of Your Site to the Cloud – you want to do this, but you just don’t have to pay for it. WordPress offers a variety of automatic backup plugins including BackWPup, Backup and WPB2D.

Increase Your Search Engine Visibility with SEO Gears – This is not necessary. Follow SEO best practices that I cover on this site and you’ll do just as well.

The next section will have you enter a coupon code. Enter MOREFROMYOURBLOG to save 25% on your order!

Underneath of that, you’ll be able to review your order. It will look something like this:
Check the box that you agree to their terms and move forward.

Once payment is complete, you’ll receive an email within a few minutes confirming your purchase and containing important information. I recommend forwarding this email to another email address that you own so it is in two places just in case.

In the email will be a link to your control panel aka cpanel. You’re going to want to click that. You’ll have to login. The login and password will be in the email as well.

Now that you’re passed that screen, you should get to your cPanel. This is the “back end” of your site and where all of the key technical matters will take place.

In the cpanel, you’ll see a LOT of icons. Ignore them all for now. You don’t want to spend a lot of time here unless you really know what you are doing. What we will do here is install WordPress. With HostGator, it is actually very easy to install WordPress on a domain. In your cPanel, scroll down and look for a “Software/Services” section. It’ll look like this:

Click QuickInstall to move forward.

Next, you’ll be at the WordPress install screen.

Choose WordPress on the left under “Popular Installs” and click “Install WordPress” on the right to move forward.

The Base Domain for your installation.
The sub directory you would like the site to load from, if desired. You probably want to leave this blank.
Example: Should you wish your WordPress URL to be mydomain.com/site instead of just mydomain.com, you would enter “site” in the box.
For Admin Email, enter an email address where you want the admin password emailed to. Make sure this is a working email address that yo have access to.
For Blog Title, enter the name of the website. This is what will appear in the header as the name of your site. You can change this later if you want.
For Admin Username, enter your preferred user name. Do not use “admin”, as it is easier to hack accounts with the username “admin”.
Your first name.
Your last name.
Click Install WordPress when you’re ready to proceed

A progress bar at the top of the page will let you know when installation is complete. Once complete, you will be able to start working on your WordPress site. Check your email for your WordPress username and password as well as a link to your WordPress dashboard.

You may also find your credentials by clicking View Credentials in the bar at the top fo the page:

Bookmark that url, it will be the page you go to when you need to login to your WordPress dashboard. Login to your WordPress and you’re good to go!
You’ll see a screen that looks like the one above. That is your WordPress dashboard. Hold your mouse over the “Posts” option and a new dropdown menu will appear. Click New Post and you’re off and running! To delete the original post that they put there, click all posts and you’ll see an option to trash that “Hello World” post.

Aaaaaaand that is how to start a blog that is self-hosted on WordPress.

Whew! We made it! Was is easy? Do you have questions? Leave a comment below, email me zack@morefromyourblog.com or catch me on Twitter @RealZackReyes. I’m happy to walk you through this process!

Now that you’re in WordPress, you’ll want to browse around the available themes and choose one that works for you. There are free themes and premium themes. I recommend jumping right in with a premium theme. It’s easy to use the freebies, but the premium themes are so much more functional, user friendly and SEO friendly that you don’t want to ignore them. First and foremost, I recommend a Genesis theme (this site runs on a Genesis theme) because of the functionality, moderate price and ease of use. Thesis is also a good premium theme with a lot of functionality.

Depending on how comfortable you are with HTML and CSS code, you will be able to customize your site on your own. If you are having trouble with handling the design yourself, it may be time to hire a designer. Try to get someone that you know, or that someone you know has worked with. Having a good, trusting designer is important, so don’t take it lightly. I recommend Laura at Pixel Me Designs. She has worked on several of our sites. Tell her I sent you! 😀

Rest assured, the hard part is out of the way. Now, it’s up to you to start providing great content, driving people to your blog and making the most out of your new venture!

How to See Which Keywords People are Using to Get to Your Site

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which keywords people use to find my site

Knowing which keywords and terms people are finding your site through Google with is very important. If you don’t know how people are finding you, how can you improve your chances of being found? Google provides a free and easy to use way to see every keyword or phrase that people punched into Google to land on your site.

This information can be very beneficial to you if used the right way. It’s also how bloggers find out the funny and ridiculous terms people punched into Google and landed on their site.

This post is assuming you have Webmaster Tools set up and have added the code to your site. For information on how to do that, go here.

First, login to your Google account and head to Webmaster Tools. If you only have one site here, it will be the only one listed. If you have more than one, simply click on the one that you are working with.

You’ll now be at a screen that looks like this:

Click on the “search queries”.

Here, in the upper right you can change the date range if you’d like. It will be set to the past 30 days.

Scroll down and you’ll see a list. These are your top performing keywords, listed in order of most clicks to least. You’ll also be shown other key information such as your click-through-rate and your average position in Google for each term.

Click on any of the keywords listed and you’ll be brought to a new page where Google will show you which exact page/post on your site that keyword is leading people to.

This stuff is so important to know! If you see a keyword there that you wouldn’t expect, take action. Go back to the corresponding post and make sure it is completely optimized. The difference between the 6th and 4th result on page one of Google can be HUGE! Take a look at a snippet from one of my sites. You can see that the keywords with results at or near #1 get amazing click-through-rates. You can also see how fast those clicks drop off as the results go down the page.
ctr
You can clearly see the importance of ranking as high as you can for keywords and thanks to the free info provided by Webmaster Tools, we get some insight as to what is working and what isn’t.

To quickly find low competition, high search keywords that can make a huge difference in your blog’s traffic and income, check out Long Tail Pro. Get started today with a 10-day free trial and see the magic that it can do for you!

Finding great keywords is only half of the battle. Once you’ve done that, it’s important to regularly monitor them through Webmaster Tools so you can see what is working.

Questions? Ask away!

How to See Where Traffic is Coming from with Google Analytics

How to See Where Traffic is Coming from for a Single Post

Head over to your Google Analytics dashboard and on the left side, do this:
how to see where traffic is coming from single page
This will bring up a list of all of your pages. They will be listed from most pageviews to least, 10 posts per page. You’ll see a search box toward the right side of the page that you can use to quickly find specific posts:

Once you find the page you are looking for, click on it within the search results. You’ll then see basic stats for only that page. To see where traffic is coming from for that page, do this:
stats from single page
Now you’ll see a new column for your traffic sources, again listed in descending order by pageviews.
traffic sources for a single page
Boom! There are your sources. Now, you’ll have trouble getting specific keyword info from Analytics due to their privacy policy, but you’ll get info for every referring site, which is very helpful.

Ok but what about your site in general? That’s next up!
—————————————————————————————————————-

How to See Where Traffic is Coming from for Your Site

Ok, so now we’re going to see who is referring people to your site in general. So instead of single posts, we can see referral stats for our entire site in one report. It’s actually very easy and can be done with just a couple of clicks!

Here’s how:
Get to your Analytics homepage and do the following on the left side:
all traffic sources
This will bring up, listed in descending order by pageviews, your traffic sources.

Notes: t.co is Twitter. m.facebook.com is mobile Facebook. Direct/none means that Google couldn’t identify a source for that traffic. It could be direct url typing, bookmarks, email links or other factors.

Bonus tip! To see what page people are landing on from a specific referral, do this:
Click on the referral source. Then do this:

Once you click on landing page, you’ll see the page(s) listed in descending order by pageviews for that specific source.

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Ok, I think that’s good for today’s Analytics tutorial.

Stay tuned for more and leave a comment below if there’s something about Google Analytics that you want me to cover!

If you found this post useful, please consider subscribing to my free email newsletter over there to the right —>

How to Lower Your Bounce Rate from 85% to 10% with One Easy Fix

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how to lower your bounce rate

Want to know how to lower your bounce rate? First, we should talk about why you would want to lower it. Some advertisers care about bounce rate, so providing them with a more accurate number is a big deal. There is a good chance that your bounce rate is currently an inaccurate measure of how engaging your content is.

How? Well, let’s look at what Google says about bounce rate.

“Bounce rate” in Google Analytics is one of the key metrics that helps to evaluate the quality of your traffic. “Bounce” happens when the visitor exited the website right from the landing page, without going to any other page. This is a great indication on how relevant the content was for the user and how engaged they were with your website.

Ok, to me that is not right. Let’s say you have a blog and you write one lengthy post every day, every other day or even weekly. People know that when they come to your site, they’re going to get a nice, 5000 word blog post that they love to read. Just because they leave after they read that entire post doesn’t mean they are not engaged. They should definitely not be considered a bounce! That was someone who spent 10 minutes or more on your blog, consuming your content. I’d say the content was pretty relevant!

So now that we an agree that a “bounce” is not necessarily someone who only visits on page, how do we fix what Google thinks about “bounce rate”? I mean, “this is a great indication on how relative the content was” is total crap! They are saying that if someone spends 10-15 minutes or more reading my blog post and then they leave, Google thinks the content was not relevant! So obviously, this needs to be fixed.

Well, the funny thing is that this is not really new news. As a matter of fact, Google put an article on its own blog 2 years ago about this.

Ok, so what exactly do you do?

You’ll be adding this snippet of code into your Analytics code:
setTimeout(“_gaq.push([‘_trackEvent’, ’15_seconds’, ‘read’])”,15000);
The 15000 means 15 seconds. Customize that to whatever you think is correct. I kept mine at 15 seconds. This code creates an “event” after 15 seconds. Once the “event” is created, the user is not counted as a “bounce” no matter what they do after that point.

Where do you put it? Well, below is a picture of what your code will look like. Place it where you see the red box.
lower your bounce rate Using the new Universal Analytics? No problem! Use the example below:
code That will do it! Now, when someone stays on your site for at least 15 seconds (or whatever time amount you choose), they will be registered as a “non-bounce” user.

I should also mention the caution that Google says we should take when using this function:

We hope this small fix will allow you to track and understand the users’ behavior and quality of the traffic coming to your website more accurately, and make more informed decisions. One thing website owners should be vary of, though, that not only the function may slow down the users’ experience, even insignificantly, but will also increase the volume of hits your site sends to Google Analytics, which might bring your usage over the limit (currently set at 10 mln hits per month). As such, this fix should only be applied when necessary and justified by the concept of the website and the landing pages.

I have not run into a problem and I have not heard of anyone who has, but I feel better having told you about the warning. 🙂

Note: Please use this featured responsibly. If you have an advertiser that you really want to work with, it is not in good ethical practice to lower your “event” to one second to drop your bounce rate.

How to Block Specific Ads or Categories in AdSense

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How to block unwanted adsense ads from showing on your blog

If you’re like me, you like to have a little control over the ads that appear on your site. Well, if you give AdSense free reign, you might see an ad on your site one day that you really would rather not appear on your site.

Did you know you can block individual ads, ad networks or ad categories?

Here’s how:

To Block Individual Ads That Showed on Your Site

Head over to your AdSense account and click the “Allow & block ads” tab at the top.
how to block specific ads in adsense

Now, here you might have to apply or enroll for the Ad Review Center. You can do that on the page you’re on. Once you’re in and you click the “ad review” tab, you’ll see something like the screen below:

From this screen, you can see every ad that has been displayed on your site(s). Hover your mouse over a specific ad to see some options. You can click anywhere on the ad to block that single ad. Use the dropdown menu while hovering to block the entire AdWords account for that ad. I would say, the majority of the time, if an ad is bad enough to block, you’ll probably want to block the entire account.
blocked ad
Once you’re done blocking the ad or ads that you want, you’re all set.

Now, if you’re really particular as to what type of ads show on your site, you might consider blocking entire categories instead. See how to do that below.

How to Block Entire Ad Categories from Showing on Your Site
We’re going to be in the “allow & block ads” section again.

First of all, you’ll see an “ad serving” tab as a top menu option. I ignore that because I feel that blocking ads with those settings is much too general. You’ll wind up taking away too many ad options and lowering your revenue.

You may want to use the “ad networks” tab if you hear about a network that is producing bad ads or something. Chances are, you’ll only find out through the Ad Review Center and will block ads in there though.

Ok, now here’s where you might want to spend some time. Below is the “sensitive categories” area:

Above is mine. As you can see, you can easily block ads from categories such as: dating, sex, politics, weight loss and more.

What is really nice about this screen, is you are shown some vital performance stats of the categories. Right on this screen, you can see which % of total ad impressions the individual categories provided. Additionally, you can also see which % of earnings those categories provided.

So if you’re on the fence about blocking a category and you see that it’s not performing, then just block it!

Next to the “sensitive categories” tab is one for general categories. There, you can block a variety of other categories. Here, I don’t have any blocked.

Farthest to the left is a tab named “advertiser URLs”. Here, you can manually enter URLs of sites that you don’t want to advertise for.
how to block individual ads
This is important to know if you find out that a competitor has started advertising through AdSense. How terrible would it be to be advertising for your direct competition?!

A few notes:
– Don’t go too crazy blocking categories. The more possible ads AdSense has to choose from to show on your site, the higher your CPC will be.
– Remember that ads show based on your browsing history, so ads you see, others may not.
– Never click your own ads.

So there you go! Now you can block those nasty toe fungus ads from your lovely blog!