How to Make It Work

If there’s one thing you need to understand as an internet marketing entrepreneur, it is that internet marketing is constantly changing. What you have is a select group of savvy and successful individuals (often referred to as gurus) who test various internet marketing models and see how the market responds.  They keep tabs on emerging trends and are quick to create models that capitalize on them.

Right now, blogging as a vehicle for an online business is big.   You can think of a blog (short for web log) as a living, growing website designed around a niche market (topic) that brings together people who share  a common interest.   Living in the sense that blog visitors  can have a “text message” conversation with each other on the blog, and growing in the sense that new pages of content are added daily (if done correctly).

Blogging started out as a personal hobby; a sort of online personal journal.  Then it was noticed that search engines (Google) liked blogs and ranked them high in search engine results pages.  This was due to their natural, changing and growing content centered around one particular subject.   In short time, people realized the commercial value of blogs and started to use them in a revenue-generating capacity.

The most popular blog platform is Wordpress.  Wikipedia does a good job of describing it:

WordPress has a templating system, which includes widgets that can be rearranged
without editing PHP or HTML code, as well as themes that can be installed
and switched between. The PHP and HTML code in themes can also be edited for
more advanced customizations. WordPress also features integrated link management;
a search engine-friendly, clean permalink structure; the ability to assign
nested, multiple categories to articles; multiple author capability; and support
for tagging of posts and articles. Automatic filters that provide for proper
formatting and styling of text in articles (for example, converting regular
quotes to smart quotes) are also included. WordPress also supports the Trackback
and Pingback standards for displaying links to other sites that have themselves
linked to a post or article. Finally, WordPress has a rich plugin architecture
which allows users and developers to extend its functionality beyond the features
that come as part of the base install.

You should know the difference between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org.   In the dot com version, the blog is hosted on Wordpress, and the blog you create becomes a subdomain of Worpress.   The URL of a WP.com blog has the format www.yourblogname.wordpress.com.

In Wordpress.org, your blog is hosted on your own web host, and on your own domain.

Before you install Wordpress, you need to create a database on your web server, as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it.  Each web hosting service has its own way of accomplishing this, so check with your web host customer support if you can’t figure it out yourself.  You’ll need to write down the database name, login, and user name for later use.

You download the free Wordpress software (comes in a zipped file) to your computer’s hard drive.  Extract the contents.  Locate the file named wp-config-sample.php. Rename it to wp-config.   Then, open it in an HTML editor and add your database information that you obtained when you set up your database.  Once that’s done, upload it to your server.

NOTE:  It is a lot easier to use a web host that has a built-in application to install Wordpress.  Bluehost.com is a popular webhost that uses Simple Scripts, a neat application that installs a WP blog without having to deal with downloading and database set-up.

If you used Simple Scripts, it will email you your WP login information.  If you did the installation manually, Wordpress should send you your login information.

Next, you’ll need to activate your Wordpress blog.  In your browser window, type in http://www.yourblogURL/wp-admin/install.php (if you installed it in a sub-folder, include its name in the path).   Your Wordpress blog is now installed, and is ready for you to make edits to it via the Dashboard.