Blogging with Blogger

Blog This! Blog That! These days it seems that more people are turning to blogs to find information they need, especially when they are looking for industry news, insights, commentary, or simply a perspective on an issue. I started one to share my journey with others and hopefully make a little bit of cash in the process. Ideally, I just like getting the information out there in my words.

For the newbies, (And there is nothing wrong with that, I was a newbie not so long ago!), A Blog is a short name for "Weblog" and it’s basically a website that you can get for free and use for multiple different things.

In another one of my posts, I have listed several of the free webpage building sites where you can get yours up and started almost immediately (see The Next Step - Marketing post that I’ve written) but the one I will be basing this post off today, is Blogger. This is a blog that you can get for FREE from Blogger.com. They are owned and operated by Google, so if you have a Gmail account or a Google Account, you can use your same login name and password as that to log in and you don't even have to create a new account! This was the first thing that grabbed my attention with them. I have a terrible habit of having several passwords and 9 times out of 10, I forget which one I have used for what. Being able to log in with an account I already have makes is a lot easier for me.

Why Blogger?

I trust them, I find them easy to use, I find that they don’t have many server issues (actually, I haven’t found any issues with them at all) and the elements that can be added are a lot easier to access and publish onto my page. Adding forms to my page is child’s play and linking it to all of my social media pages is such a convenience. Once I have finished my posts, I can easily share them via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. They have a great range of templates to cater for most needs with awesome graphics. Basically, they would be the ones I would say to go to if you’re new to blogging. I’ve tried Wix, Weebly and WordPress, but this is the one I’ll be choosing to stick with.

OK, so that’s the gist of it. Let me give you details and instructions so that you can start doing this right away.

You can be up and running in just minutes! If you do not have an account with Google already, you can create one for free, at Blogger or Gmail.com. If you don't have a Google Mail account already (Gmail, AdWords, AdSense) you will have to create one, but that is 100% free. Once you log in to blogger.com, you can create a blog right away! You get your own domain name that will look something like this:

www.YourDomainName.Blogspot.com

Of course, you would replace "YourDomainName" with whatever you want your URL to be. Most of the time, people choose keywords that are popular search terms on, so that the blog ranks higher on the search engines.

Now you’re ready to start writing…. Next step is to "Create a Blog" section, by clicking on the "Create a Blog" link.

A draft page will open up and this is where you will put in your text. In the toolbar you can see the different options including font size and type, adding links or images to your post. Add a caption to your image by clicking on the image and the options menu displays beneath it with ‘Add Caption’.

Once you’re happy with what you’ve typed up, click on the Preview button (top right corner) and see how your new post will be viewed by others.

Are you happy with how it looks? Cool, now we want to choose the Publish button (in case you have edited it somewhat, the option will be ‘Update’) and make it live for the world to see.

Once you have done that, the next step is traffic! You don't just want any traffic going to your site, you want targeted traffic. Targeted traffic are visitors who are actually interested in the product that you are blogging about. They’re in the market for what you are offering basically. That is the beauty of niche blogging...you find the people who need what you are offering and you simply give it to them. Increasing readership of your blog will take time, marketing, and quality posting on a regular basis. 

The way to drive targeted traffic to your review blog is to write articles for it and submit them to Ezinearticles.com. These article directories are the top, most popular ones and rank very well on the search engines --especially Ezinearticles.com. If you write articles in the niches that you are promoting, and you give away some good information and of course include a link to your review blog in your resource box at the end of each article, you will have targeted traffic to your blog, which will convert into sales, which means you will earn affiliate commissions!

There you have it. Good luck and I wish you the best of success with your blogging.

Just before I sign off, I was wondering….

Are you looking at monetizing your blog?

If you said “Yes!” to that question, then you need to use the formula below.

RB + AL + AM + T = $$$.

You might be saying, what is that?

That is the fastest and easiest way to make money with a blog. And you don’t need to be a scientist to be able to carry it out :)

Subscribe now to read my next post where I’ll explain the formula above and how best to put it into practice.

Hope to see you in the list soon.

Til next time,

Stay Safe, Stay Smiling :)