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You will find when you decide you want to get a blog, training on blogging will be a necessary first step. Successful blogging, business or personal, will only come about by first figuring out a few things before you start.

In this article you will find a few answers to your questions about blogging.

How to get a blog - There are 2 top choices for getting a free blog:

Blogger

Wordpress

You can also download the latest wordpress blog software and install it on your hosted domain name. I personally prefer this route because you have control over all features this way.

But if you are truly a beginner to blogs then trying each of the free ones will give you a feel for blogging and is a very fast, hassle free way to get started.

If you take your time learning the basics of your blog software program before you move on to more advanced techniques, you will be more likely to retain what you have learned, and to keep feeling positive about your ability to understand the world of blogging.

Choosing the look of my blog

This will become one of your choices with either route you take above to getting your own blog started. The simplest way to get the look you want is to utilize the "Themes" feature in the wordpress blogs or the "Layout" feature in your blogger.com account. These themes and templates already have the necessary code needed to run your blog pages correctly and have ample choices in colors and designs to fit any desired look or blog niche idea.

What to put on my blog

This blog question is two fold. First you will have to decide what your blog will be about. i.e. will it be a business blog featuring updates about your products, or maybe it will have a affiliate marketing theme featuring your top affiliate program; will it be a personal blog for just posting your thoughts about anything you feel like that day, or maybe a blog created around a favorite hobby or particular interest you have in something.

Once you have decided what your blog will be about then you will need to find content for it (decide what to put on the blog and in the blog posts). It is recommended that you start out with as much content as possible before even announcing your blog or trying to get traffic to it. Content can be articles written by you, articles you hire someone else to write, free articles from popular online article directories, Private Label Articles (PLR), etc. Just keep the content topics within the theme of your blog.

The tighter the niche, or niche within a niche that you can keep it, the better chance you will have at success. For example you may have chosen Dogs for your niche or theme, picking out a main sub niche such as "The fastest, easiest way to housebreak your dog." would attract a more targeted audience and would have way less competition then just Dogs. The rule of thumb on this is the simpler and finer focus you can keep it the better. Don't pick dogs then put a 1000 categories and pages on everything to do with them.

How to get traffic to my blog

There are numerous ways to get traffic to your blog. Not much different then getting traffic to your web site. But there are a few top ways unique to only blogs. One is making sure you research your key words before adding your content, then optimizing that content to be rich in top keywords before using it in your posts. Using your main target keyword or keyword phrase in your title within your post and in your signature file in below your post.

Another method of generating traffic unique to blogs is using a ping service such as PingoMatic.com or FeedShark. Wordpress blogs notify pingomatic automatically as you ad a new post. With blogger.com you will have to subscribe to a ping service such as FeedBurner.

The third traffic method unique to blogs, is utilizing the comment feature on blogs related to yours. Placing relevant comments and then putting your URL to your blog can increase your traffic immensely. Remembering to use proper etiquette when doing this. Don't just post to try and get a link back to you. It would be rude and definitely will not help you in getting traffic to your blog.

How to monetize my blog

There are numerous methods to monetize your blog such as adding your own links and banners to affiliate programs, selling advertising on your blog, etc. But one of the simplest is adding AdSense (TM) ad units. Many themes and templates have been created around adding as many AdSense ad units as you are allowed.

You will also find specialized links as well at places such as Amazon where as an affiliate they provide you with blog related linking tools such as product clouds, search forms and so on.

There is even a plugin module for adding topic specific products from the Clickbank directory. (More on that below.)

Even personal blogs can find related products to link to. Everyone has an interest in something and usually that equal the purchase of various items. Why not provide those items that you know people interested in your niche would buy?

What settings should my blog options have

What options you chose to set for the most part will be based on your personal preferences. But after you have ran a few blogs you will realize there are options that must be set a certain way to protect your blog from outside invasion. The first most important setting you should adjust is to make sure the "Membership:" in Options/General settings is set to "Users must be registered and logged in to comment". This will protect you from receiving SPAM comments from all over the Internet. If you choose not to require members register. Then at the very least you will want to set the "Before a comment appears:" in the Options/Discussion settings to "An administrator must always approve the comment" so you can control what is being posted before it is.

What plugins are necessary

Again this is going to be mostly decided by your own preference. But one highly recommended plugin is the Akismet plugin which checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. Stops virtually all comment spam.

Then to further help towards monetizing your blog a good plugin is aLinks - a handy plug in that automatically links keywords in your blog posts to any URL you want or even specific products from popular affiliate programs such as Amazon and Clickbank.

How you utilize these will be different for the free blogs then one that is hosted on your own web site. If you do have your own wordpress blog software installed you can easily find and install any plugins you find in their directory at: wordpress.org

Take these necessary steps of training on blogging and you will find yourself blogging with the best of them out there in no time. And quite possibly earning an automated income as well.

Sincerely, Debbie Ducker

Debbie Ducker is the owner of DuckerPromotion.com Ready to try your hand at hosting your own blog?

Let us do all the work (Free training on blogging included):
http://www.duckerpromotion.com/wpinstall