I have come to realize that many of my clients had no clue when . . . → Read More: Domain Names and Hosting]]> All too often, a new client will contact me to install / set up WordPress using their existing Domain Name and Hosting Account. Over the years, this has brought me face to face with many different Hosting and Domain companies.

I have come to realize that many of my clients had no clue when it came to purchasing these services… which has been verified over and over by their own admission.

This article will hopefully help you identify the best route to follow when choosing  your Domain Name and Hosting services. It is not designed to promote, compare, or recommend, any particular company or companies.

Domain Names

Your Domain Name is your internet address, and how people are going to find you and identify with your site or business. Get one. You need it.

Free Domain Names that come with services like Blogger are useless because all you are doing is promoting traffic to Google (they own Blogger).

Example: www.computertactics/blogspot.com may look like a identifiable web address for my site if it was hosted on Blogger (it isn’t). Sure, my name is there but the problem is, all the traffic generated to this URL benefits blogspot.com, NOT me. The search engines recognize blogspot.com, not computertactics.

Bottom line… if your site URL does not end in yoursite.com, you will not see much success.

Top level Domain Names (.com, .net, .org) are cheap to own; usually around $10 per year. Many other Domain extensions are available like – .info, .biz, .us, .eu, .gov, etc., some are cheaper, some are more expensive, and some are not available to the general public.

Wikipedia maintains a great list of Top Level Domains, including availability requirements.

Your best bet is to get a .com as this is what most people think of when it comes to looking for an internet site. It is the most popular, and most widely recognized Domain extension.

If you can afford it, purchase multiple years up front. The overall cost will usually be reduced and you will gain more credibility with the search engines, specifically Google.

Google does have a weight factor in place that favors “long term” Domain Names over “single year,” or those that are soon to expire. They know that most “scam” and “affiliate only” promotion sites use multiple “single year” domains (throwaway domains), and tend to judge everyone this way.

This does not have a major effect on SEO and is almost insignificant in it’s weight factor but, nonetheless, it is still in place and something to consider.

Choosing a Domain Name is important and should be taken seriously. Try to use a name that is relative to the content (niche) of your site. Remember, this is how people will initially identify with your site and the search engines read this as well, so it is most beneficial to use keywords wherever possible.

Short one word names are the best because they are… short, and easy to remember. Unfortunately they are all pretty much taken.

Don’t use initials unless you are a recognized, major company. They are meaningless, provide no insight into what your site is about, and offer no SEO benefits.

Hyphens can be used and do not affect SEO but the problem is, most people forget to use them when typing in a URL and it is difficult to communicate your URL verbally. If someone types in your hyphenated URL without the hyphens, they may go to a different site, or no site at all. This could confuse or frustrate a first time visitor which could send them elsewhere.

The best advice is to use a short phrase – bestcoupondealsandoffers.com, writingforsuccess.com, joeslawnservice.com, or whatever. Just keep in mind that it should make sense when read and spoken.

Where to buy your Domain Name. Domain Names are traditionally sold through companies called “registrars” who will register, manage, and protect your Domain Name.

A good Registrar will provide you with a control panel of sorts where you can manage your own Domain(s).

For most of you,  setting the Domain Name Servers (DNS) and renewing Domains is about all you would do here.

DNS is a set of Hosting addresses that tell the Domain service where to “point” your Domain Name.

Let’s say that you bought hosting at ABC Hosting and created your site – joeslawnservice.com. Well, your Domain service has no way of knowing this unless you tell them.

ABC Hosting will provide you with their unique DNS. It would look something like this:

ns1.abchost.net

ns2.abchost.net

You would login to your Domain service control panel, find the DNS management tool for your Domain Name – joeslawnservice.com – then type in the two DNS addresses provided by your hosting company.

Your Domain service will then connect your Domain Name to your site by “pointing” it to the DNS you provided.

Most Domain services will tell you that it may take up to 72 hours for the Domain Name to propagate (connect) to the site. Some will connect quickly and some may take a day or more, depending on the quality of your Domain service.

There are many Domain Name services to choose from -  GoDaddy, Name.com, Network Solutions, and Register.com. These are a few of the more dependable and respected names out there and any of them would be recommended to do business with. I suggest you comparison shop as there may be special deals available.

My Domains have always been managed by GoDaddy. I have been very happy with their service and have had no issues for over 10 years.

Hosting your Domain Name. I strongly recommend that you DO NOT combine your Domain Name and Hosting with the same service.

GoDaddy for instance, does an excellent job at managing your Domain Names but are one of the worst Hosting providers I have ever had to use. Quite a few of my clients have fallen into the trap of buying their Domain Name at GoDaddy and then get sucked in to using their Hosting Service. Big Mistake.

GoDaddy Hosting is way behind the times. Their Hosting Control Panel is archaic, difficult to use, and somewhat limited. Troubleshooting MySQL or MyPHP is a nightmare and their overall interface is terrible.

iPage is another terrible Hosting service that will offer to sell and manage your Domain Name. Their Servers are horribly slow and the Domain Name service they offer purchases from an outside source. You are forced to manage your Domain Name within the iPage portal which  is very confusing. Decide to leave with your Domain Name and you will be required to pay an additional fee.

Note: When choosing a Hosting service, make sure they offer cPanel or Vistapanel for your control panel.

There are also many Hosting companies that will include a free Domain Name in their package. If you go this route, read the fine print and make sure that you own the Domain Name and have complete control over it… even if you cancel your hosting account.

Otherwise, you may find out their Hosting service is not good and want to move to a better Host, then find out that you cannot move your Domain Name, or may  be required to pay a fee.

Should you get upset and move anyway, you will soon find out that you cannot re-purchase the same Domain Name through a registrar because your previous hosting company has it tied up.

Please keep these services separate. You will have total, independent, control over each service and be much better off in the long run.

What services do I use?

GoDaddy for Domain Name management – 10+ years

HostGator for hosting – 7+ years

Type the top keyword, relative to your business, into Google’s search engine and get . . . → Read More: Steer your Blog with Wonder Wheel]]> Google’s Wonder Wheel is an embedded tool found on the Google search results page. This terrific free tool is not only great for discovering related keywords, it can also be used to enhance your marketing efforts, as we’ll see below…

Type the top keyword, relative to your business, into Google’s search engine and get the results. Now look to the top left portion of the results and you will see “More Search Tools.”

Click the dropdown arrow to expand the options and you will see the “Wonder Wheel” listed about 2/3 of the way down.

Click on “Wonder Wheel” and you will see the following result – a wheel showing the most popular keywords or phrases pointing to your original keyword.

Now let’s take a look at how to maximize the use of this wonderful gift from Google.

Your original keyword phrase “designer bags” is the most popular keyword to your main site, or where your products or service is located. Don’t worry about the competition factor of this keyword, the more popular the better.

What we are going to do is take one of the spokes of the wheel and run it through your “keyword tool” to find the related keywords that have the most hits with the lowest competition. Let’s use “fake designer handbags.”

AdWords keyword tool returned “handbags imitation” which has fairly low competition and 9900 hits a month. We’ll use this for our first blog.

Now go to Blogger and create a new blog using “handbag imitations” as the title of your blog. Create a few short articles around this keyword phrase and stagger the postings. Use the keywords in the article titles for example: “Handbag imitations exposed!”

Do not place any advertising on these wheel blogs. The whole idea is to drive traffic to your main site.

How is this done?

Place a HTML widget on the top of your blog, above the article, using large text. Say something like “Get the best deals on designer handbags here” and link this to your main site. You also want to do the same thing with a sidebar widget (slightly smaller text) located at the top.

Delete everything from the sidebar except for the archives and the HTML widget you just created.

You don’t need a fancy blog layout or any graphics. As long as you have a blog title, post titles, and content that are related, and relate to your main page, you are good to go.

It’s now time to promote this blog. Social bookmarks, Twitter, forums, whatever you can think of to get “Handbag imitations” out there.

Once you finish the first blog, go back to the wheel and repeat the process with another spoke, and another, and another, until you have used them all. If one or more of the spokes is not related enough you can ignore it.

When you have finished with this wheel, click on one of the spokes, let’s use “fake designer bags,” and you end up with a new wheel to start with. See below.

Go around the wheel repeating the same steps as above and you will end up with 10 – 20, or more, micro blogs pointing to your main sales page or site, all optimized for the lowest competition / highest hit keywords.

This strategy requires a lot of repeat, monotonous work, but is worth the time and effort in the long run, and doesn’t cost a dime.

To begin with, a blog is a website. Blogs contain pages, navigation menus, written text, graphics, video, audio, and anything else you would put on a static website. You can . . . → Read More: Website or Blog… What’s best?]]> This is a question I asked myself before switching my websites over to blogs, and one that some of my customers continue to ask.

To begin with, a blog is a website. Blogs contain pages, navigation menus, written text, graphics, video, audio, and anything else you would put on a static website. You can also set the front page of your blog to be static and have your articles (posts) appear on a separate page if this is the look and feel you desire.

Building and maintaining a blog takes much less time than a website. You don’t need to know HTML, use any site builder software, or even hire someone to build it for you. If you did hire someone to set up your blog, it would be much less expensive than having a website built.

Blogs are easier to maintain than websites. With the great free blogging software available, like WordPress, adding content is quick and easy. You simply log in to your private control panel and type your content, add a video, or whatever, and publish your new information in minutes.

Blog platforms like WordPress have “Plugins” that can streamline almost anything you want to accomplish.The layout and structure is automatically programmed in. Websites, however, require coding, HTML editors, and technical knowledge. or pay someone to do it. This could take hours.

The biggest advantage of using a blog is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). When you write a new post, or add any content, and click the “Publish” button, it is immediately “Pinged” to online services that notify the search engines. This is an invitation for the search engines to visit your site, which they happily do. Your new content is usually picked up within a day, if not sooner, and your blog is indexed.

The use of certain plugins can also immediately send your content to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. which further enhances your viral exposure. You cannot do this with a static website and it could take months (or longer) to get noticed, depending on the strategies you use.

Furthermore, blogs allow you to “Tag” and “Categorize” your posts and pages which makes them easily searchable for visitors and search engines alike. Good for SEO.

What blog platform should I use?

This is probably the most asked question.

The “Big Three” are Blogger (owned by Google), WordPress.com, and Self-Hosted WordPress. All three are free and have advantages/disadvantages.

Blogger:

Advantages -

• Free and fairly simple to set up online.
• Allows multiple blogs.
• Advertising is allowed.
• Use of your own domain is allowed.

Disadvantages -

• No self-hosting available.
• Google has rights to your content.
• Limited plugins and customization.
• No automated “Pinging.”
• Your blog can be shut down at any time, for any reason. Blogger has a public “Flag” system in place where your competitors, enemies, or whoever, can “Flag” your site and Google will shut it down, without notice. Google will also shut you down for violating their Terms of Service (read it carefully). Many have had their blogs shut down and all content is lost.

WordPress.com:

Advantages -

• Free and fairly simple to set up online.
• Multiple blogs allowed.

Disadvantages -

• No javascript, flash, or plugins, and you are not allowed to have ads or pay per post, etc. Also, retailing is subject to staff approval and you won’t be able to use ecommerce features without getting an external page to put them on.
• Limited customization. No access to theme files for alteration/editing.
• Your blog can be shut down at their discretion.
• They charge to use your own domain name.

Self-Hosted WordPress:

Advantages -

• Fairly easy to use once set up.
• You control your own content. Advertise all you want.
• Many customization options available.
• Extensive availability of themes and plugins.
• Use of your own domain.
• Alter/edit any files or themes.

Disadvantages -

• You need to set up a hosting account and install the software. Most reputable hosting companies have an “Automatic Script Installer” that makes this simple and only takes a few minutes.

  Note: the cost of hosting does not need to be an obstacle as ComputerTactics offers Free Hosting which includes an Automatic Script Installer so you can easily install WordPress.

WordPress.com and Self-Hosted WordPress use the same software. The difference is that WordPress.com provides the hosting for you and restricts the capabilities of the software. Self-Hosted WordPress has no restrictions.

No matter which blogging platform you choose, there will be a learning curve. Self-Hosted WordPress may require a little more understanding simply because of the many great options available.

Self-Hosted WordPress is not only our recommendation, but it is the preferred blogging platform by many professional and personal bloggers alike.

If you are ready to start your WordPress blog and don’t have the time or technical patience to set it up… ComputerTactics will completely set up your hosting and WordPress blog for a one time fee of $35.00. Visit my Services page for details and ordering.

This guide should help you get things set up and familiarize you with the Admin Panel.

The left side of your Admin page is where you will find settings for everything. Each tab heading has a small . . . → Read More: Your First Steps with WordPress]]> Ok, you have WordPress installed and you’re looking at the Admin panel wondering what to do first.

This guide should help you get things set up and familiarize you with the Admin Panel.

The left side of your Admin page is where you will find settings for everything. Each tab heading has a small gray arrow to the right, which you can click to show the options available.

Personal Settings

Find the “Users” section, expand it open, and click on “Your Profile.”

The first setting is the color layout of your WordPress admin panel. You can change this from gray to blue if you like.

The next section shows your username as “admin” and this cannot be changed. This is also used as your Author name when you post. This can be changed.

In the boxes below you can enter your full name if you want along with a Nickname. I simply enter a Nickname that I want to appear as my Author name. The box below allows you to select the name you want to use for Authoring.

The next section is contact info. make sure your email is correct and fill out any other contact info you want.

You can also change your login password if you like. Don’t forget to write it down.

Click the Update Profile button and you’re done.

Site Settings

Expand the “Settings” tab and click on “General.” This is where you put the Title of your site, Tagline (description), Site URL, email address, time zone, etc.

Tip: Leave the Title and Tagline blank if you are using the “All in One SEO” plugin.  Use the Title and Description sections in the plugin control panel instead.

Adjust these settings to your preference then click the Save Changes button.

Now click on the “Permalinks” tab and adjust these settings. Permalinks are the URL structure of your posts. To keep this simple, choose either the “Day and Name,” or “Month and Name” option.
This will make your Permalinks friendlier.

Click the Save Changes button.

Cleanup

Now you want to go to the top of the page and just click on “Posts.” This opens a page showing all your posts. You should only have one, “Hello World.”

This is a default post, and unless you really want this showing, hover your mouse over the title and a sub-menu will appear. Click ‘trash” and get rid of it.

You will also want to go to the “Comments” section and do the same as there is a default comment posted there.

Nuts and Bolts

The basic settings are done and now would be a good time to fill out your “About” page. This tells visitors about you and/or your site. If you do not plan on using an “About” page you can either delete it or change the name to “Contact,” or whatever you like.

Your next step should be to find the theme you want to use and install it.

Read my post – Adding Themes and Plugins to WordPress

Themes Junction has tons of free themes to choose from.

Once you get your theme installed and activated you should browse through the “Theme options” if there are any. These are usually found either in the “Appearance” tab or under “Settings.”

Get to know how the theme works and adjust any settings to your preference. Not all themes have their own control panel, but many do.

Write a practice post or two, insert a picture, experiment with the “Widget” section, and get to know how things work.

The next step is to add some functionality, automation, and SEO to your site.

Read my post - Recommended Plugins for WordPress then install the plugins that you want, activate, and configure them.

Time to Go Live

Write your first post, check it over carefully, and save as a draft. Check your About page, Contact page, sidebar content, ads, etc.

If everything is satisfactory, go to “Privacy” in the settings tab and check the top option enabling everyone, including search engines, to see your site. Save this setting.

Go back to Posts, click “Edit” under your saved draft, and make sure it is ready to publish. Don’t forget to add Tags and set the proper category (s).
You should also check all the settings below to be sure your plugins are set correctly.

If all is OK then click “Publish” and you are live. Start working on your next post and promote your blog.

Good luck and have fun!

The following free Plugins are highly recommended…

All in One SEO Pack – This is a “Must Have” for any blogger. The SEO Pack has many settings that will optimize your . . . → Read More: Recommended Plugins for WordPress]]> Plugins are like little tools that add functionality and automation to your WordPress site. They are easily installed and most are free.

The following free Plugins are highly recommended…

Essential

All in One SEO Pack – This is a “Must Have” for any blogger. The SEO Pack has many settings that will optimize your WordPress blog for search engines. You want to be popular, right?

CFormsII – If you want your readers to be able to contact you, a contact form is necessary. CformsII offers unparalleled flexibility in deploying contact forms across your blog. Features include: comprehensive SPAM protection, Ajax support, Backup & Restore, Multi-Recipients, Role Manager support, Database tracking and much more. Very customizable.
Note: DO NOT simply post your email address anywhere on your blog as this will allow spammers to easily grab it and abuse it. You will be sorry.

Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog. Once configured, it will create the sitemap and submit it to the above search engines plus automatically update any changes to your blog. Good for SEO.

MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer – A “Ping” is a notification that is sent out to Directories and Ping Services that basically says “Hey, I just added new content to my blog.” This helps with search engine indexing and other sources of traffic.
By default WordPress pings whenever you post a new topic in your blog (Good), but it also pings whenever you edit and update any existing post (Bad). If you edit a post 10 times then WordPress will send 10 pings. It doesn’t matter how small or big a change you make, WordPress always pings whenever you edit. Excessive pinging can get you banned from the Ping Services!
This plugin prevents this from happening.

Link to this Page – The Link To This Page WordPress plugin provides a quick, simple to use, and unobtrusive way for users to obtain a link to your page or post for their own site.
Write good content and your readers will use this.

Quick Adsense – Quick Adsense is an Ads management WordPress plugin. It offers a quicker & flexible way to insert Adsense, or any Ads code, into a blog post. Besides, it can randomly place the Ads anywhere within a post. It comes with a simple setting page, and it does not overwhelm you with complicated customizable options.
In general, placing Adsense randomly within a post is a good way to experiment a variety of ads formats & placements besides optimizing your Adsense. If you have many regular visitors who frequently revisit your blog, the randomization will likely catch their attention.
There are many Adsense plugins available. I happen to like this one.

OnlyWire – This is a “Bookmark and Share” plugin that has much more to offer than the others.
OnlyWire not only allows your readers to bookmark and share your posts, it allows YOU to submit your posts to the social networks that you are subscribed to, with one click.
You will need to register and configure a OnlyWire account (free).
There are many other Social Bookmarking and Sharing plugins available, I happen to like this one.

Smart 404 – Save your visitors from unhelpful 404 errors! Instead of quickly giving up when a visitor reaches content that doesn’t exist, make an effort to guess what they were after in the first place.
This plugin will perform a search of your posts, pages, tags and categories, using keywords from the requested URL. If there’s a match, redirect to that content instead of showing the error. If there’s more than one match, the 404 template can use some template tags to provide a list of suggestions to the visitor.

RF TwitterPost – A simple plugin that will post to twitter whenever you add a new post to your wordpress blog.
There are many Twitter plugins available, I happen to like this one.

WordPress Database Backup – WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.
A wise thing to do!

Preferred

Disqus Comment System – Disqus is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community. Replaces the default comment system used by WordPress.

Official StatCounter Plugin – This is a great alternative to Google Analytics. Get detailed visitor stats for all your sites. Customizable and free.
This is my preferred site tracking tool. Very useful.

Video Sidebar Widgets – This plugin creates Video Widgets written in latest Widgets API. It enables the user to embed FlashVideo from various video sharing networks into the widgetised sidebar of a WordPress powered blog. Currently supporting video embed from 15 video sharing networks. Including, Youtube, Vimeo, Veoh, Blip.tv etc.. Now including Random Video Sidebar Widget to randomly display 1 out of 5 preset video.

SEO Top Tip – The SEO Top Tip plugin displays a customizable message at the top of the content area just above the first post on the homepage. It can be used to serve both visitors and search engines alike. Once its installed, and activated, the plugin can be configured from the WordPress administration panel. The webmaster of the blog can set whatever text, he or she likes as the message to display and at the same time can choose to apply a set of predefined HTML tags and various CSS properties, all from the WordPress administration panel!

The plugin has been programmed in such a way that it displays this message only on the homepage just above the first post and nowhere else. This ensures that the plugin won’t cause any duplicate content issues. The plugin works, even if the webmaster uses a static front page.

MaxBlogPress Stripe Ads – “Stripe Ads” is a new non-obtrusive way of displaying a single line of advertising message, a special note, or other information, right at the top of your blog. Very customizable.

Conclusion

The above mentioned plugins are ones that I use on different blogs, all are free, and some may require registration.

There are thousands of plugins available that can do just about anything. You can search for plugins at the WordPress Plugin Directory

At the time this post was published, there were 8,769 Plugins listed. Yikes!

Well, here is a great opportunity to start your own online business with absolutely zero investment and no upgrades… EVER.

Green Smoke is the maker and distributor of E-Cigarettes (electronic cigarettes) and they have a wonderful affiliate program which you . . . → Read More: Completely Free Online Business]]> I am forever seeing people ask – How can I make money online?

Well, here is a great opportunity to start your own online business with absolutely zero investment and no upgrades… EVER.

Green Smoke is the maker and distributor of E-Cigarettes (electronic cigarettes) and they have a wonderful affiliate program which you can join at no cost. They actually put $25 in your account when you sign up!

E-Cigarettes are rapidly becoming the most popular, and effective, way to give up smoking tobacco. Thousands of people are purchasing these products (and supplies) daily.

Green Smoke provides you with your own website, training videos, banners, links, tracking, and promotional materials.

You are paid 15% to 20% of every retail sale for the life of the customer PLUS you earn from any affiliates that sign up under you.

This means that whenever one of your customers orders supplies for their E-Cigarette (which they will) you get paid. These customers are yours for life.

The promotional capabilities are limitless because smokers are not niche restricted, they exist everywhere.

Advertise  through free classified ads, promote through health forums, run an Adwords campaign, add a link to your signature for use in forums, discussion boards, email, etc.

You can also do as I did and create a free blog (smokeless.co.cc) with free hosting and a free domain name. See my post about Totally Free Blogging.

Click here to check out the program, product, and Sign up for your free online business today!

REVISED AND UPDATED FOR 2010

The “Step-by-Step Guide to Selling Online,” By The Internet Marketing Center…

Start Your Own Successful Internet Business From Square One, With a Proven A-Z Program for Making Money Online

If you’d like to start making money on the Internet, but don’t have ANY business experience, technical skills, . . . → Read More: Online Selling Guide Product Review]]>

REVISED AND UPDATED FOR 2010

The “Step-by-Step Guide to Selling Online,”
By The Internet Marketing Center…

Start Your Own Successful Internet Business From Square One, With a Proven
A-Z Program for Making Money Online

If you’d like to start making money on the Internet, but don’t have ANY business experience, technical skills, or ideas for what you should sell, I highly recommend you take a look at The Step-by-Step Guide to Selling Online, a comprehensive, step-by-step program for starting a successful Internet business from scratch.

Created by the Internet Marketing Center, The Step-by-Step Guide reveals the exact process they themselves used to generate over $100 Million in sales online.

Using simple, easy-to-understand language, and plenty of helpful video and audio tutorials, The Step-by-Step Guide walks you through the six steps to building a successful Internet business from square one:

1. Find a lucrative niche market and decide what to sell…
2. Easily create your website, complete with winning sales copy
3. Attract your first eager visitors …
4. Take your first credit card payment
5. Ramp up sales & traffic quickly
6. Automate your business to be “hands free”

Then, once your website is live, and you’re getting your first visitors, you can take advantage of The Guide’s hundreds of ADVANCED strategies to improve your business, and drive your sales even higher!

And because The Step-by-Step Guide is 100% online, they’re able to update it whenever there are new test results to add, or new techniques to try out, so it NEVER goes out of date!

When you try the Step-by-Step Guide, you get:

• Over 1,250 pages of detailed, moneymaking strategies and techniques carefully laid out in easy-to-follow steps
• “Real time” updates with the latest and greatest online marketing strategies
• Streaming videos to make your learning even easier
• Content you can print out, or download to your iPod, so you can learn new techniques, even when you’re on the go, and away from your computer
• A “private rolodex” of hundreds of Internet marketing tools and resources
• A one-on-one 15-minute phone consultation with one of their IMC’s marketing specialists
• IMC’s exclusive Ebusiness Road Map System

I give The Step-by-Step Guide to Selling Online an enthusiastic 10 out of 10! It contains every last tip and technique you’ll need to start your money-making website. Thousands of other people have already used it to earn money online — six figures annually, in many cases — so you can be confident it will work for you, too!

If you want to make money online, I urge you to get access to this proven online business building program now.

Click here to try out the new Step-by-Step Guide to Selling Online for 30 days without risk. Get complete access to all of the training, tools, and support you need to start your successful Internet business.

Read the reviews at IM Report Card.

Sign up with sites like Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Blinklist, Technorati, and StumbleUpon, then submit your posts as soon as they are published.

The search engines will pick up . . . → Read More: Social Newsmarking]]> An integral part of your SEO plan must include social newsmarking (aka social bookmarking). Don’t wait for the search engines to find you… advertise your blog!

Sign up with sites like Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Blinklist, Technorati, and StumbleUpon, then submit your posts as soon as they are published.

The search engines will pick up on this and as long as you have good content, others will as well. This is some of the best free PR there is.

Choose the right sites.

Focus on the social news sites where you will have the most success. There are many and you should select only the ones that will serve you best and provide the biggest payoff.

The sites listed above should be routine, along with Twitter and Facebook. Directoryroll has an extensive list that you can investigate to see what other sites fit your blog style.

Most social sites allow you to categorize and tag your submission which provides viewers a multitude of ways to find your post.
Use your keywords wisely.

Benefits

Submitting your content to popular social newsmarking sites will get your blog indexed much quicker.

Keyword tagging your post will bring about more awareness of your site and result in an increase in traffic.

The majority of social sites will allow you to create a profile, or personal page, where you can list your blog (s), links to posts, and in some instances, publish content.

This not only creates one-way links to your site but enables you to brand yourself as an expert in your field.
The search engine robots will also frequent any new content in your profile/page and follow the links back to your site, thus creating increased page rank.

Social newsmarking may take a little time to set up initially but the rewards will be fantastic.

The first thing you will want to do is download the theme or plugin to your computer and remember where you saved it. DO NOT unzip the file, just leave it the way it is.

Now log in to your WordPress admin panel and click on . . . → Read More: Adding Themes and Plugins to WordPress]]> WordPress makes adding themes and plugins super easy.

The first thing you will want to do is download the theme or plugin to your computer and remember where you saved it. DO NOT unzip the file, just leave it the way it is.

Now log in to your WordPress admin panel and click on “Add New Themes” or “Add New” under plugins.

Click “Upload” in the menu at the top of the page then click the “Browse” button on the next page. This will take you to your computer where you can navigate to the file you downloaded. Select the file by clicking on it, then click the “Open” button, then the “Install” button.

WordPress will automatically upload, unzip, and install your theme or plugin. All you need to do at this point is to activate the theme or plugin and configure any settings that may be available.

There may be times when WordPress cannot upload a certain theme.This can happen when there are additional folders or files included by the Author which need to be manually installed.

This is easily accomplished by unzipping the theme package on your computer and using a free FTP program like FileZilla to upload the necessary folders/files to your wp-themes folder in the root directory of your site.

Usually, the additional folders included in your theme package is a Plugin folder which can be uploaded to the wp-plugins folder in the root directory of your site.

NOTE: When uploading themes or plugins via FTP you will want to upload the entire folder with all the contents included. DO NOT open the folder and upload the contents individually.