Before your theme hunting it’s wise to have a few things decided ahead of time ~ just to cut down on the length of time you spend doing this, because believe me, it can be an easy task to get lost in, there are so many choices and so many gorgeous themes out there!

1. What do you want the theme to say?

Your theme speaks for your site, what do you want it to say?

Clean, neat, tidy?
Show images related to your topic?
Bright and colorful?
Neutral and tame?

You know what they say about first impressions, and this couldn’t be MORE true than when a reader comes to your blog. You have about, Oh I don’t know, 2 seconds, maybe, if you’re lucky to make a good impression. The color, look and feel of your blog will be a lot of your first impression.

I suggest you keep your site as clean as possible. You don’t want a bunch of clutter, buttons, widgets etc in your sidebar.

You also want your sidebars clean so your content is what becomes the focus. It’s the point of your site. You want people to be able to focus on the content without being distracted not only by your sidebars, but the theme itself.

Sidebars:

How many sidebars do you want? You can get themes with a wide range of sidebar configuration, you can get 1 sidebar, 2 on the same side, one on each side of your content, and now there are even themes with 3 sidebars ~ a large one at the top of the page with two narrower ones below (like this site).

There’s no right or wrong, but here’s some of my thoughts on sidebars.

1. I’d say keep your sidebars on the same side.  It gets a little smushed and hard to focus on your content with stuff going on on both sides of it.

2. I love the 3 column themes simply because you can easily put a larger opt in box at the top and it is prominent and clear that you want people to sign up. (which is super important).

So before you go theme hunting make a decision on the number and configuration of sidebars you want. You can easily search through theme directories by number of sidebars which will lessen the time and number of themes you need to look through.

Navigation:

How do people get around your site? Are you going to have categories in the sidebar? Are your categories going to be at the top of the page? Are your pages going to show up at the top of the page.

When I first put this site up I had a cute theme on here ~ I really liked the theme, however, the pages showed up in this random area in the header area and it just was not a good configuration for the pages. I used this theme for quite a while, but at some point I decided this site needed to look more professional ~ which is when I switched to another theme, and then a bit later found the theme it has now, which is Vigilance. (if you click the free trial link you can still get this one for free)

It was navigation that really got me hung up for my new site. I wanted to have my categories at the top, in the nav bar. But I also wanted them to be nested. So I would have a main topic, then any smaller topic in that category would show up in a drop down menu people could click on. It looks really clean and neat. It helps people find exactly what they’re looking for without searching through tons of semi related posts. It also lets me talk about a bunch of different things, and only show 3 or 4 main categories. Which I really liked.

Well I’ll tell you. I had a hell of a time finding a theme that would do that. I found a bunch of themes that SAID they would do that. I installed a bunch of themes that said they would do that and none of them did. I knew there were themes out there that did it, but I couldn’t find them.

It was then that I remembered that Rosiland Gardner’s sites were like that in the Super Affiliate Handbook. So I went back to her sites and looked to see which theme she was using. Unfortunately it was a paid theme. I went back to the drawing board looking for free themes. Finally, in such disgust and frustration I just went and bought the Lifestyle theme. It was everything I wanted in a theme. It also provides tech support in the forums, so I could get some help customizing it I needed it.They have many themes other than the lifestyle, but it was what I was looking for.

This is the first time I’ve ever paid for a theme. But I have to say it was well worth the money. I am now going through and adding this theme to some of my uglier niche sites. Once you have the theme you can use it on as many sites as you want. I was also amazed looking through the Studiopress gallery just how different the same theme could look. I didn’t change much on the theme, a little bit of the color and the header and that’s it. It was pretty simple and well explained in the forum tutorials. You can see my new site and what I’ve down with the Lifestyle theme at Everyday Life and Balance.

If you decide you want what the StudioPress themes offer I will do a $10 theme install (over half off the regular theme install price as a bonus for buying through my link) and some basic customization for you, if you need it.

Customization:

While you’re looking for a theme keep in mind that you can usually change the header pretty easily. There are some things that are harder to change in a theme, like the font, and things like that, but background color and the header are usually pretty simple to change if you love the theme but hate the color.

Blog vs. Magazine themes:

A regular blog theme has sidebars, and one column of content. New content shows up at the top of the theme and it just goes down.

Magazine themes are heavy on images. There are usually multiple columns on the page offering information about different categories or topics. I feel like magazine themes can sometimes be very overwhelming ~ because there’s so much going on you don’t know where to start. However, there are some much more simple magazine themes now, including the lifestyle theme. If you think you will be using a lot of images ~ or your topic lends itself well to images you might want to think about a magazine theme. You will be able to show many images on the front page ~ which can pull people into your content.

Just think when you look at your theme how it will play to your reader. Will they be able to find what you want them to see? Will they be confused? Will they be able to navigate with ease through the homepage to the actual content? Most magazine themes only have a snippet of content for each post on the homepage ~ people will have to click through to see the post.

While I’ve never been a huge fan of magazine themes, they are growing on me. If you have a site that has 3 or 4 main categories ~ like a health site with nutrition, supplements, exercise as the main topics a magazine theme could be fantastic. Especially if you have nesting categories. You can set up each of those categories as a column on the front page and people will be able to navigate quite easily through the content.

How to find the best wp theme for your site

This can take some time, so set aside an hour or so to go theme hunting. Think of it as an adventure and have fun with it.  There’s a couple ways to start your search.

1. Google what you want.

If you know you want a blue 3 column theme then go ahead and google that ~ it will bring you some options you might like.

2. Theme directories.

My favorite way though, is to go to a theme directory. There are so many of them online now. You can google wp theme directory ~ or you can check out a couple of my favorites.

Rock Kitty ~ unique themes on many topics.

Free theme forum ~ this isn’t exactly a directory, but a forum with tons and tons of themes.

3. Wordpress dashboard.

You can also now look for themes through your dashboard in wordpress. Just go to the add new theme area in your dashboard and you can search and upload from there. I haven’t used this method so I’m not sure what kind of themes the will bring you when you search from there, but it’s an option.

So once you’ve chosen your theme you can upload and activate it. You’ll find the instructions to do that in the top half of this post on installing a wp theme.The second half of that post is about plugins which we’re going to work on next week ~ but if you want to get a head start, you can start on that. I’ve got a couple extra plugins I’m going to talk about though.

I’m going to figure out the mclinky thing today and add it to the challenge post for the week. So when you get this all done (which means you have accomplished the challenge! YAY)  go back and comment on the weekly challenge post so you’ll get your new site included in the linky. I can’t wait to check out which themes you guys choose!!

If your lenses aren't doing what you want them to do ~ grab a Lens Review!

Finding the Best WP Theme For Your Blog

Related posts:

1. Choosing Your Blog Settings and Theme
2. Installing Your Theme and Plugins
3. Choosing Great Blog Topics

Today we’re going to look at what to do next after you’ve bought your domain name.  These steps will always be the same, no matter what kind of blog you’re building. I’ve done tutorials on most of this already so I’ll just point you there so you can take some action!

Today’s Action Steps:

1. Forward your nameservers. This is done from the place you bought your domain and will point it at your hosting account so people will be able to see it. (click the link and scroll down to the nameserver part ~ the first video)

2. If you already have a hosting account and a domain on it you will need to do an add on domain for your new one. This is done at your hosting. (click the link and scroll past the nameserver directions)

3. Install wordpress on your new domain.

4. Change wordpress settings. You’ll want to optimize your blog ~ which is not nearly as complicated as it sounds. You’ll just need to change a couple settings in your dashboard.

That’s it for today. Those are some pretty specific actions you can take, so TAKE ‘EM! If you don’t want to do this part, or don’t feel comfortable doing it yourself I’ll be happy to do it for you.

Remember, the only way you fail is if you don’t take action, or you quit. If you’re stuck at any point in this process please let me know and we’ll see what we can do to get your past the hump. I will say the one thing that many of you could probably do is STOP worrying about what comes next, or next after that. Do what needs to be done NOW, focus on the task at hand ~ there’ll be plenty of time to worry about the rest later. If you contuinually worry about what’s coming you’re not going to get anything done, and you’ll find yourself 6 months from now still worrying about what’s coming with nothing to show for your time.

So far here’s what we’ve covered:

1. Think of a blog topic.
2. Identify your target market
3. Create a  content plan
4. Choose a domain name

None of these include creating products, or setting up an autoresponder or even worrying about a theme. One step at a time.

You can do it. I know you can.

If your lenses aren't doing what you want them to do ~ grab a Lens Review!

Forwarding Nameservers and Installing Wordpress

Related posts:

1. Hosting, Nameservers and Addon Domains
2. How to Install Wordpress For Your Niche Blog
3. Installing Your Theme and Plugins

How to choose a domain name

Now before I get into this let me say this first.

For this type of site there is NO right or wrong answer. Really. I know everything we’ve done thus far has demanded extensive keyword research, and doing  it wrong could prove fatal to your entire campaign.

Well… this ain’t that.

Authority blogging is much more forgiving. You can make choices that you’re not so happy with later, you can tweak them, and continue on to have a successful site. There’s not MUCH that’s going to blow it for you (if anything really). So please, please, please!!!!! I’m begging you to lighten up. Really.

Choosing a domain name and a theme for your blog really could be the most fun part ~ if you let it. I know it is for me. That’s half the reason I have so many 1/2 done sites. I love domain names and picking themes lol. I digress. Back to how to choose a domain name.

Quick Easy Steps to Choose a Domain Name

Some of the best bloggers out there don’t have keywords in their blog. Some of the best bloggers out there have pretty crappy domain names for their blogs (I mean really entrepreneur[dash]journey ~ how many people can actually spell entreprenuer? It’s a tough domain name ~ but his blog is great and HUGELY successful!

Problogger? Copyblogger? IttyBiz?

These are NOT keyword rich domain names and yet, they are some of the most popular blogs around. Tons of traffic and making LOTS of money to be sure.

Please don’t get stuck in finding the “perfect” keyword for your domain name, because with this type of site it’s really quite secondary.

Let’s look at some more:

5dollardinners, balancejunkie, tipjunkie, thechangeblog, notimeforflashcards, fedupwithschoollunch, paleoperogative, zenhabits

You see, these are not about keyword stuffing. I read everyone of these blogs regularly, along with a bunch of other people. It’s NOT about the keywords.

Ok… did you hear that?

How to choose a domain name

You’ve done some brainstorming, you’ve created a mind map, you’ve got an editorial calendar done.  Answer me this.

What is your site about?

Is it about caring for horses? Is it about planning a themed birthday party for your kiddo, is it about finding balance in your life?

Great. Now we know what the site is about.

Figure out 3 or 4 words that express that thought and call it a domain name.

Now before all the SEO people out there start squawking at me Once you’ve got your domain name idea let’s dial it in with a little research.

We’re not looking for the best keywords here. We’re not looking for any specific numbers at all. We’re not worried about competition. We’re thinking about 1 thing and 1 thing only. The semantics.

How are people searching for your domain name?

Let’s say your site is about finding balance in everyday life. You know, balancing work, kids, fun, health, your sanity. All those good things. That’s what it’s about.

Finding balance in everyday life.

Let’s look at the keyword tool and see if anyone’s looking for my topic this way.

The answer is a big fat no. OK. No problem. Let’s break it down a little bit. We’re talking about everyday life, and life and balance right? Let’s look at those then and see what we see.

Everyday life:

Ummm.. yeah there’s a few people searching for that term.

Life and Balance:

Uh… yep, there’s some people looking for that term too!

While these numbers are pretty big it’s not the number that is important. It’s the semantics, HOW people are searching. So look for something that makes sense when you say it out loud. Since these aren’t super niche sites you’ll probably find your numbers are pretty big too.

How do I create my domain name from this information?

Put the pieces together.

Everydaylifeandbalance ~ It expresses what my site is about. Succinct. Searches are there. There you go.

From that point you can use your tagline to make your message more clear, but this is a good domain name.

Once you have chosen your domain name you can get your url for  $7.49 .com at GoDaddy

Basic steps to choose a domain name:

1. Know what you’re going to talk about ~ the focus of your site.

2. Come up with a short phrase that tells people what your site is about.

3. Use that phrase to find the words people are using to search for that topic.

4. Don’t worry about competition ~ it’s not important.

There you have it. 4 Easy steps to answer the question how to choose a domain name. I’d love to hear how it’s going for you. If you’re struggling, leave a comment or take it to the fanpage. We can help each other out. (If you start a new thread/discussion on the fanpage stop by here and let us know. Then we can all participate (and I’ll know new stuff’s going on over there)

If your lenses aren't doing what you want them to do ~ grab a Lens Review!

How To Choose a Domain Name

Related posts:

1. How to Choose a Domain Name for Niche Marketing
2. Choosing and Registering a Domain Name for Your Niche Blog
3. Internet Marketing Strategy ~ How Do I Choose?

Don’t forget to stop by some of the other links and give them some love (be it a tweet, or FB mention, maybe a bookmark, or a stumble if you love the post or the site!)

Here we are, our first weekly blogging challenge.

Blogging Challenge #1

1. Choose and purchase a domain name.
2. Choose and install a wordpress theme for your site.

Those are the challenge activities  for this week. When you get them done come back to this post click the “click here to enter your link”. When you enter your link it will end up on the linky list. Go ahead and add a comment too so you have the extra link to a post from comluv.

Good Luck!!

This week’s posts will help you accomplish the challenge, so don’t worry if you’re not sure what you’re doing yet!

If your lenses aren't doing what you want them to do ~ grab a Lens Review!

Weekly Blogging Challenge #1

Related posts:

1. Need Help Getting Started Blogging?
2. Setting Goals and Staying Focused
3. Are You Going to Make Next Year Different Than This Year?

This morning I was tooling around the internet, noticing what people are writing about, and how they are pulling their blogs together. It dawned on me we should probably talk about that now, while we’re still mostly in the planning stage.

Without getting all technical we need to talk about who you and your blog are talking to. This is called your “market”. Each market can have a different “feel” to them. You want to make sure you target your market so they will become not only readers, but avid fans. This is how word of your blog spreads!

Let’s take a look at what I’m talking about.

For example people who are way into going green and people who are really interested in cutting coupons and spending less than 5 dollars a meal are very different markets.

While they may both enjoy recipes, they may both be moms, and have many other things in common if you try to combine these two markets on your blog instead of capturing both groups you’ll probably end up alienating both. The way they speak, the things they want to read, the resources they want are completely different. If you try to cater to both you’ll end up catering to neither and lose your readership completely.

Here are a couple blogs that do each of those things well.

5 Dollar Dinners ~ Coupons, recipes, dinner meal plans always made for under $5 for the whole family.

Kid vs Produce ~ getting kids to eat more produce.

Everyday Paleo ~ an entire blog filled with only paleo diet recipes (some of which are super yummy!)

Crockpot Cooking ~ a New Year’s resolution to use the crockpot every day in 2008 (which has turned into a real cookbook for sale on Amazon.com)

Green and Natural Parenting ~ plenty of info to help families live a little greener

As you can see each of these blogs are very different. While you could probably add content from each to one site ~ it just wouldn’t work because the people reading each are so different, even though they may share a lot of characteristics.

This can be true in one niche as well. Let’s take the parenting niche. (just because I know a little about this niche). If one were to think about doing a parenting site you would need to think BEFORE you start about exactly what types of parents you are targeting. Then you want to create content that speaks to those people. You can not, in the same space, cater to the attachment parenting crowd as well as the spanking crowd ~ it just will not work. You will end up alienating everyone.

If you wanted to do a blog on attachment parenting, you’d want to do just that ~ or other similar gentle parenting methods. You could even open it up further like that ~ by doing gentle parenting techniques, and this may be a stretch for that market. You could also do a site on more “traditional” parenting methods. Either way is fine, but realize that the people in those groups have completely different concepts, beliefs and values on parenting. It will be nearly impossible to grow a readership if you tried to combine them. Keep in mind the more “fanatical” (for lack of a better word) people are on their topic the harder it will be to combine that topic with others.

Here’s a great attachment parenting blog. Take a look at the topics, the posts, what they write about.

Now take a look at this site. See how they are both about parenting, but the likelihood of people reading them both is highly unlikely.

Free Range Kids all about giving kids freedom without going nuts.

Along the same lines if you’re going to do a blog about horses ~ you want to do a blog about horses. You don’t want to do a blog about horses, cats, lizards, dogs and chickens. The owners of each of those types of animals are pretty different. I know as the owner of 2 cats, a dog and a small flock of chickens if I’m looking for chicken information and resources I don’t want to weed through a bunch of horse talk or cat talk to get to it.

If you want to do a craft blog ~ choose one type of craft to focus on.  There are so many different kinds of crafts, it will be hard for someone to be a repeat visitor and reader if they want to learn how to stamp, and the first post they read on your site was about stamping, but then you moved to a different kind of craft.

The one way around this is if there is an overall theme to the site. For example here the main idea is internet marketing strategies. So I talk about different types of strategies. This still causes problems though. In fact, I just got an email this morning saying I thought you were talking about authority blogs why am I getting email about squidoo. So there are some logistical things even with an overall topic.

Here’s a great example of a craft blog who stays very focused on stamping.

Here’s another example of a great craft blog that does scrapbooking.

I hope this helps get you thinking about the topics and theme of your blog. We’re going to be grabbing domain names on Monday (if you don’t have one already) so think about what you want your overall theme to be,  and how you’re going to speak to your target market.

If you have any questions about this please feel free to ask. I’ll be on and off the computer through the weekend.

If your lenses aren't doing what you want them to do ~ grab a Lens Review!

Target Your Market: Identify Who You’re Talking To

Related posts:

1. 101 Niche Ideas to Get You Started
2. Web Traffic Tips: Forum Marketing
3. What Does It Take to Be an Authority Blogger?

I hope your mind maps are coming along. Today I thought I’d help you take them from ideas in a mind map to an action plan for creating content.

If you’re having trouble coming up with content ideas I’ll again suggest the blog planner from Blog Energizer. You’ll have to sign up for the service (it’s free) if you haven’t already. Then when you log in on the right hand side you’ll see a a link for the blog planner and the blog calendar. They will help you by giving you different holidays/celebrations throughout the year that you can tie into your blog topics. Of course they won’t work for every blog, but if they will for yours it makes like much easier. For example: yesterday was “do something day”. What a great topic for a blog post ~ in just about any niche!

Once you’ve got some ideas for your blog let’s take them and create an editorial calendar. I seriously resisted this whole process for years. I didn’t want to have a “plan” I just wanted to blog about whatever it was I wanted to blog about! dangit. What I realized (and I wish I could say quickly realized, but it actually took me a couple years) is I just didn’t end up blogging. It was really easy to get distracted, not think about what to write, get irritated I couldn’t think of anything to write about, and then just not write. Here’s what happens when you hit that point.

1. You give up.

or

2. You have huge gaping holes of nothing on your blog.

Neither of those options is very good.

I still railed against the whole idea of having a designated topic to write about each day. But here’s where it gets good.

I’m the boss of this whole dang thing.

and so are you.

You can write in a topic for any given day and if something more exciting comes up… write about that instead. The editorial calendar is not written in stone and you can change the rules any time.

I would suggest you use it pretty strictly for a month or two, just to get into the habit. I’ve found with my new blog even though I have topics written down for each day I have never really gotten into the swing of it for that site, and now I find it gets pretty easy to not post vs. post. So I’m just saying. I use it religiously for this site.

How far out should I plan?

Depends, on you of course, and your site. You may find planning a month at time works well. You may want to plan according to the seasons so quarterly. You may want to plan by the week. All of those will work if they work for you.There is no right or wrong way to do it. You may want to try a couple different things to see what will work best and stick for you.

My one suggestion is right now, while ideas are flowing like there’s no tomorrow write them down.

I know it feels like you’ll have ideas coming out the wazzoo forever, but it just isn’t the case. There will come a time when you just can’t think of stuff to write. Having a huge list from the beginning “I’ll never run out of ideas” time is a great asset.

I personally have a big black book I just keep writing ideas down in. I can then pull from them if I’m out of ideas or to help create my editorial calendar, or for articles, or guest posts or whatever it is I need to write.

How do I create this editorial calendar?

You can do it any way that works for you. Here are some ideas I’ve heard when I talked about this with people over at Lynn’s Elite forum (creating an editorial calendar was one of the monthly challenges for us over there).

Google calendar
Outlook calendar
Wall calendar
Desk blotter
use the blog planner from Blog Energizer

I personally use my day planner, which sits on my desk between my keyboard and my monitor. I like it because I can write down the daily blog post topic as well as other action steps I want to take that day. (and it’s easy to cross them off when I’m done, which I love) There’s just something about seeing a whole week’s worth of work DONE and crossed off that makes me a little giddy.

If you also want to have a “checklist of sorts” for your daily activities you might want to check out the Daily Docket from SimpleMom.net (which is one of my favorite blogs ever!) It’s a great tool to organize your whole day.

How often should I plan to post?

While you’re creating your editorial calendar you need to think about how often you’re going to post to your blog. In the beginning of a blog I highly recommend you post at the very least 3 times a week. It would probably be better to post 5 times a week, but be realistic with yourself. It’s better to consistently post 3 times a week, than to slack off, get discouraged because you’re not posting 5 times a week and just not post at all.

Remember, while you want to post 3 times a week at least, there’s nothing that says you can’t write all those posts in one day and schedule them to go out throughout the week. You can do that with the schedule feature in wordpress. That may work very well for some people.Then all you have to focus on during the rest of your work time is your promotion efforts.

So that’s something to think about. Be easy on yourself… be realistic. You know how much time you have to do this. If you can’t do 5 a week, then don’t. Do a consistent 3 a week and you’ll be fine.

I hope this helps you get clear and focused around your writing. Because the writing will be a large part of your job from here on in. It’s nice to get a good clear start right from the get go. If you have any other questions/concerns about content ideas fire away.

If your lenses aren't doing what you want them to do ~ grab a Lens Review!

Content Ideas: Getting Clear and Focused

Related posts:

1. 50 Great Ideas for Blog Content
2. Setting Goals and Staying Focused
3. Getting Yourself Organized to Start Content Creation

I can’t blog/make money writing about that!

If you think you can’t blog about something check out this site and try to tell me that again.

Need help getting your blog started?

I just wanted to let you all know that I am making myself available to help you get over the technical and mental blocks that blogging sometimes brings. I’m offering some services to help get you started, as well as some to help you get over the hump and on the right track if you’ve already started blogging.

You can see all of my blogging services here.

If there’s something you need help with but don’t see it on the list just shoot me an email and I’ll see what I can do. I made the list based on some of the emails I’ve received asking for help, but I’m sure I spaced something.

Are you taking action?

How’s your topic choice and blog plan coming? The week’s running out. A new challenge will be up on Sunday! Have fun and get started!

Oh, one other thing I wanted to talk about today.

One of the things I particularly love about this type of blogging is you get to SHARE!!! I mean that’s the whole point of it. Where it can be scary/not so smart to share niche blogs because someone may steal your keywords, authority blogs are MEANT to be shared and enjoyed by everyone.

Make sure you use your blog in the url field of any comments you make so we can all check out each others blogs. Oh, and if you like someone’s blog go ahead and give it a tweet/stumble/bookmark  ~ and leave them a comment and let them know.

We have a great community here and now we will be able to support one another and have some fun! This can be a great place to connect with others blogging in your niche ~ maybe for guest posts or ad swaps in the future, so start connecting now!

Ok that’s it for today ~ short and sweet. Look at that under 400 words. Stay tuned tomorrow for another blogging tutorial post.

If your lenses aren't doing what you want them to do ~ grab a Lens Review!

Need Help Getting Started Blogging?

Related posts:

1. Weekly Blogging Challenge #1
2. Social Bookmarking ~ How to Get Started
3. 101 Niche Ideas to Get You Started

This project starts in you.  In your heart, in your mind, in your spirit.

This one starts with passion. What is it that you just can’t stop talking about. What is you could talk about for days, weeks, years? That’s what you’re going to blog about.

Now before you start thinking let’s look at a couple thoughts to avoid:

1. It won’t be profitable: Now is not the time to think about profitability ~ there are so many ways to monetize/make money/be recognized for your blog. If you automatically dismiss your passion because YOU believe you can’t make money at it ~ you will be doing yourself a disservice. There is a way to make money with just about everything.

2. I’m not an expert: We  covered your internet expert status yesterday. Just get the thought out of your head. If you can talk to your friends for more than an hour at a time about a topic you’re expert enough.

3. Yeah but, Yeah but, Yeah but…. whatever your yeah buts are let them go. This endeavor is going to be successful because you get started. You will never know if you’ve hit a profitable topic, are writing interesting posts, or if anyone else wants to read your stuff until you get started.

The biggest obstacle

The biggest obstacle in your blogging career is going to be coming up with something to say regularly (like at least 3 times a week regularly) for the long haul.

It can be hard to know in the beginning to know if this can be a long term thing. That’s when you have the most ideas flying around in your head and you have that invincible “I could write on this forever” feeling. Here’s my suggestion, and it’s made my life so much easier, both on this blog and the new one I’m doing.

If you’re really having hard time thinking of something one thing you can do is go check out some of the topics other people are blogging about. This might spark some ideas, and also help you let go of any “oh I couldn’t blog about that…” stuff going on in your head. One of my favorite places to do that is in blog showcases. This is one of my favorites. It’s Studiopress. Click on the “showcase” tab and just look at what other people are doing. We’re not looking at themes right now we’re looking for a topic. We’re just looking around here.

Create a mind map ~ or in a less fancy term ~ make a blog plan.

Here’s how I did mine ~ just for some ideas.

1. Take your overall topic.

2. Break it down into different areas of interest you can write on about that topic.

3. Break those topics down into smaller bite sized ideas/concepts/wanna talk abouts

You have just created a mind map for your blog.

The number 1 thing ~ is your overall topic (your title/domain name type stuff)

The number 2 thing is your categories.

The number 3 thing is your posts.

Here’s an example of how simple I’m talking here ~ not rocket science.

things 1: I want to talk about internet marketing strategies:

thing 2: free platforms, niche blogging, authority blogging, list building

thing 3: squidoo, how to set up a lens, how to use hubpages, how to create a link in a module etc
how to set up wordpress, how to get traffic etc
how to choose a topic, how to get traffic, how to build a network, twitter etc
how to create a free giveaway product, how to set up aweber, how to…

you get it? It’s very simple, and if I sat down and mapped it out you’d get, well… this blog.

You can map this out as far as you’d like ~ write it down on a big piece of paper to do the brainstorming, then when you get to the posts part ~ write them in on a calendar. You will no longer have to waste time wondering what to write about on your blog (which totally saves me like 30 minutes a day!!).

Here’s a great post that does a better job creating a visual of this concept.  If you like the more techie way of doing this you can use this free mindmap software and map it out, or this one if you want to do it completely online.

Remember, this should be fun! This is the launching of a new project. Have fun with it. If you have kids and they have a great big floor pad of paper get down there with them. Let them have one side to create a project and you create your project on the other side. (That’s what Hanna and I did recently ~ I have since hung the big piece of paper over my (extremely messy) desk to continue writing down ideas/thoughts and other stuff when it comes)

Lighten up with this, have fun, don’t judge. You can’t get it wrong. Just play with it and see what you come up with.

If you find you can’t really think of many different things to write about on your topic you might want to go check and see if there are some forums on the topic. Go in, look around. Look for threads with lots of replies. Look for questions that get asked repeatedly. Look for hot topics. These can help spark some ideas on things to write about.

If you don’t find any forums on your topic you might want to broaden your topic a bit. This is not a tight niche site, you want to give yourself plenty of room to move around ~ but you do want to keep it related to the topic.

One other thing I particularly like about having this type of map is I can see if I’m staying on topic or not. If my idea doesn’t fit in one of my categories ~ then it probably is not a tight match for my site. (or I need to add another category lol)

One more thing about categories ~ this is how people will get around your site and find your information.  We’ll get into this more when we choose a theme, but you might want to think about how many categories you’re going to have. While there’s no right or wrong ~ if every post ends up being its own category it will be hard to get around your site and find what people are looking for. (If you have or want a bunch of categories there are themes that can show  your main categories and you can put more specific categories under them and see them on a drop down menu ~ which is working VERY well for my other site ~ but more about that later.)

I did a little searching this morning and found a couple other posts I really like on the topic of choosing a topic for your blog.

The first is from Yaro Starak ~ my blogging mentor ~ with his simple take on how to choose a niche.

The second is from Darren @Problogger ~ he’s the master so I thought it would be good to get his opinion!

The last one is from Steph at The Everyday Blogger ~ I love the example she gives in this post.

I know there are some of you who will freak out a little bit that we’re not doing more analytical data diving for this process ~ but just go with it. Have some fun, relax. It will be ok. I promise.

So here’s my thought and I’d like your opinion on it. For this process it’s great to take your time, but you aren’t going to know anything until you take action so I was thinking about doing a Weekly Action Challenge ~ like post them on Sunday so you can work on them through the week. The content on the blog will help you take the steps during the week.

I’m thinking about getting one of those linky things so you can come back and post your link when you finish the challenge and we can all check out each other’s blogs and spread the word around. Win/win/win/win let me know.

Since it’s already Wednesday you’re going to have to get to it this week.

Here’s this week’s challenge:
Choose a topic and create a mind map/plan for your blog.

When you get it done come back and let us know. And as always if you have any questions please ask away.

If your lenses aren't doing what you want them to do ~ grab a Lens Review!

Choosing Great Blog Topics

Related posts:

1. 50 Great Ideas for Blog Content
2. Choosing and Registering a Domain Name for Your Niche Blog
3. Choosing Your Blog Settings and Theme

Forget everything you’ve read … go ahead. Let it go.

Now is your brain a blank slate? Ok.. good.

What is the purpose of an authority blog?

We’ve built lots of different types of sites on our journey thus far. We’ve built one page Squidoo lenses, we’ve built niche sites and the main purpose in these sites was to push people to an affiliate product and get them to buy.

In those sites you needed to do a lot of keyword research, you had to do a lot of thinking and figuring before you started writing so you could easily place yourself in the buyers stream and divert him to buy what he was looking for from you.

Nothing wrong with that at all, but that’s NOT what we’re doing with our authority sites.

Our purpose with our authority sites (and this is going to be tough to grok for some of you I’m sure) is to create a relationship with your reader, and give them what they need.

Now depending on your topic what they are looking for, what they need may be completely different. It could be a million different things, but YOUR primary job as an authority blogger is to get into the mind of your reader, figure out what they are looking for, what they need, and give it to them.

This means we are not pandering to Google ~ we are not building a list of keywords to write about before we get started, we’re not trying to determine what the “best” keywords to have in our domain name are. We are going out there to build relationships, and interact with people who love to talk about our topic or need some help in our topic area.

Yeah, but…  Yeah,  but… Yeah, but…

I can hear you from here!

It’s ok. Think about it though. Do you think Darren Rowse of Problogger found 40,500 monthly search volume for the term “problogger” when he decided to put his site up? No, my guess there was a big fat 0 ~ but as of this morning there are in fact, over 40 THOUSAND people every month searching for the term problogger.

Darren created that search volume by creating a blog that is an absolute authority resource on becoming an authority blogger or a “pro blogger”.

Do you think there was a ton of search volume for No time for flash cards (my favorite kids craft site) when she started her site only a year or so ago? Nope, and there still isn’t much ~ only 590 monthly search volume ~ however, she has almost 3000 facebook fans ~ believe me she’s got a readership.

What about simple mom? Do you think there was a ton of search volume for that term before the simplemom.net blog got so big? Well she’s got over 21 THOUSAND RSS subscribers and has recently expanded her blog to an entire media network that includes 4 other blogs.

This is what authority blogging is all about. It’s about CREATING your readership. Being the BEST resource on any given topic so when people find your site they bookmark it, they subscribe in RSS and they come back every single day to read what you have to say.

What does it take to be an Authority Blogger?

Here’s what I think it takes.

1. Courage. You have to be willing to be yourself and put yourself out there. The more authentically YOU you are, the more you will connect with your readers and the better your blog will be.This can take a lot of courage, because many times our inner critic is yelling at us that we’re not “good enough” or not “smart” enough, or whatever enough to do this. But you are. Step into your courage and go out there and be yourself. You’ll find people don’t “buy in” to your information they buy YOU!! YOU are the one thing that makes your blog different than any other blog on the internet. You can write a blog on the exact same subject as 5 million other people, and it will never be the same as theirs because it has YOU, and that’s what will keep YOUR readers coming back day after day.

2. Persistence. This is not going to happen overnight. You’re not going to have 20K subscribers in the next month or two. It’s going to take time. This doesn’t mean your blog won’t grow in the next month or two, it will. You may even make some money in the next month or two, but you will have to be persistent to make this endeavor work. This is a long term business, not a shot in the pan set it forget it deal.

3. Consistency. You must be consistent. You must publish new content regularly and frequently. You will have to participate in your chosen marketing channels consistently and frequently. Consistency probably should have been #1 if you can’t be consistent you will not be successful with this internet marketing strategy.

4. Passion. If you’re going to still be talking about this topic 3, 5, 8 years from now you had BETTER love what you’re talking about. Seriously. LOVE IT.

5. Motivation. If you are not motivated by something about this you’re not going to succeed. The money can NOT be the motivation. It may take too long to happen and if that’s all you’ve got for motivation you’re going to lose it and quick blogging.  Something else has got to motivate you. Helping people, working through something, I don’t know what it is, but it’s got to be something that will keep you coming back to your computer every single day… no matter what.

What does it take to be an expert?

You might be concerned you aren’t an “expert” on anything. Well please, don’t let that stop you.  It’s just a matter of how you define “expert”. On the internet an expert is defined as someone who knows more than most other people on any given topic.

Now think about that. Do you think most people have read a book on the topic you’re interested in? Have you read a book on the topic? Do you think most people have read more than 2 books on your topic? My guess is not many people have read more than 2 books on anything in this day and age. Have you read more than 2 books on your favorite topic?

I bet you have. You’ve probably also done a lot of research online, read some magazines on the topic, and heck, you’re probably even DOING your topic. This experience and information makes you a very knowledgeable source on this topic, in fact, it makes you an expert.

Don’t think because you don’t have a phd in basket weaving you can’t be an expert, because you can be, in fact, if you’ve made baskets ~ you probably already are.

What can I do an authority blog about?

We’re going to delve into choosing a topic tomorrow, but for right now realize you can do an authority blog on ANY topic. Really, seriously just about any topic will work. You may not want to do underwater basket weaving as your topic, because there may not be enough people interested to build a big enough audience to make it worth it for you.

So today think about the things in your life you love to talk about. Brainstorm, don’t limit yourself to what you think might be “good enough” or “right”. Just think about what you’re passionate about. Write things down.

Keep in mind though… (this one comes from personal experience) the topic you pick will be a long term investment. You’ll be writing about it for a long time to come so make sure it’s not a “fad” passion. You may know I have a natural pregnancy site. I was very passionate about natural pregnancy and childbirth a few years back. I could talk about it all day. Of course I was pregnant and having a baby. It lost it’s luster a couple years after having Hanna ~ so just keep that in mind. (oh if anyone’s interested in buying an authority site on natural pregnancy ~ or you know someone who is…)

Also keep in mind we’re looking for more general topics for this type of site ~ again we’ll go into this more tomorrow. But you don’t want to choose a really narrow focus ~ because you’re going to be talking about it forever, you want a topic that’s wide enough you can find something to talk about for a long time to come.

What if my topic won’t make me money?

Now is not the time to think about making money. Really… think about how much and for how long you can write about a topic. How many other people are interested in your topic. How you can write about the topic in different ways month after month. (don’t worry, I’ll be helping you with that one!)

Every niche can be monetized, somehow. That’s why I say don’t worry about it right now. You can use affiliate products, create your own products, or even create a big enough audience to get sponsors who pay you to advertise on your site. The money will come if you have the passion and the awesome content.  So seriously, don’t sweat the monetization at this point. OK?

With all these things it may seem like it’s going to be tough to be an authority blogger ~ actually it’s quite the opposite. Authority blogging has less “rules” to follow, it takes less time to complete your daily actions (you could do this easily in 2 or 3 hours a day), and if you choose a topic you love it will be fun and you won’t even realize you’re “working”. (which is my favorite part!)

If you have general questions about authority blogging feel free to ask, just remember… this is a series and I’ll probably be doing a whole post on your questions ~ but ask them anyway to make sure I cover what you want to know.

If your lenses aren't doing what you want them to do ~ grab a Lens Review!

What Does It Take to Be an Authority Blogger?

Related posts:

1. Blogger and Amazon… Easy Peezy Now.
2. Choosing Great Blog Topics
3. How Do I Know Which Kind of Blog to Create?

Here’s my deal.

I totally get micro niche sites, why they work, how they work, how to build them and all that, but they just aren’t for me. I can’t get past buying a new domain for every single keyword I want to target. It just doesn’t seem like enough leveraging for me.

I’m not saying they don’t work ~ they do. There are plenty of people making them work, and making plenty of money doing them, I’m just not one of them.

Instead of me half heartedly trying to teach you how to make micro niche sites I’m going to encourage you to go to a teacher who is as enthusiastic, passionate and accomplished in this area as I am in others.

I’m going to suggest you get Commission Ritual.

This product is done by Brian Johnson.  He is currently making scads of money creating these micro niche sites. He walks you through each and every step of creating these micro niche sites, both in pdf and video format.

The product is set up very well, and is very organized. You get a lot of things with this package so let’s start at the beginning.

1. PDF ~ this is the main guide where he explains the whole concept, the theory behind them, how to research them, how to build them, how to promote them. Everything is in here.

2. The site ~ on the site he has created videos for every piece of the puzzle. They follow along with the pdf, so each piece of the pdf has a video that goes with it to not explain the piece ~ but show you exactly how it works. He gives plenty of real life examples so you can see how it works in real life. This is not a bunch of theory. He gives you real sites that are making money to learn from.

3. Extras: there are a few extra pdfs in the pack. One shows you different words you can use to target buying keywords for your sites. One is an update he did recently called the 3 hour profit plan. He goes through and gives you an exact method of how to do this quickly and consistently. There is a desktop reference that is fantastic. It’s like an outline of the process, so you can easily follow along step by step without having to dig back through the books and videos.

4. Makes it easy. There are certain pages every site will have ~ the about/disclaimer etc pages. He has given you awesome templates you can use to copy/paste right into your site. Just make some simple adjustments (change the names to your site name) and you’ve got your pages done.

5. Super checklist to stay on track: One of the best things he gives you is a “site setup” checklist. This checklist will help you go from start to profit for each site, keeping all the information you need for every site all in one place. This checklist is thorough and done in a format you can fill out over and over again. (and he explains exactly how to do it ~ which is really nice) It covers everything from targeted keywords to how many links you’ve created and where. It’s not just a checklist either ~ he gives quick little instructions in it so you can easily remember what you’re doing and what information you need to be clear to move to the next step of the process.

4. Continual updates. Brian does a fantastic job of providing updates to the product, and new techniques he’s using to get ranked and make money. In fact, the most recent update was as recently as Feb. 3 of this year.

5. Forum. This used to be an additional charge for “inner circle” people, however, he has now opened it up to all of his customers. The forum is quite active and you can ask all kinds of questions and get answers pretty quickly.

Pros of Commission Ritual

Tons of content
Great step by step information
Excellent customer service
Ability to ask questions and get answers
A community to get support

Cons of Commission Ritual:

Lots and lots of video ~ if you have a slow computer or don’t learn well from video this will probably not be the best product for you. Although most of the videos are under 5 minutes ~ there are a LOT of videos.

Do I recommend Commission Ritual?

If you just wanna see what it is, you’re still debating on whether or not you want to do micro niche sites for real, you’re still jumping from thing 1 to thing 2 to thing 3 ~ then no. Keep your money in  your pocket. I don’t want to see another great piece of content sitting on your hard drive collecting dust.

Have you chosen micro niche sites as the internet marketing strategy you’re going to focus on for at least the next 6 months?

If you can say yes to that question. I mean really YES. Then I absolutely recommend this product. There’s nothing better out there to teach you how to build and profit from micro niche sites.

Have you made a decision? Are you ready to build micro niche sites? Then get started with Commission Ritual. (I bet you can have your first site up and running today!)

I can’t wait to hear how you do! Please come back and tell me!!

If your lenses aren't doing what you want them to do ~ grab a Lens Review!

Commission Ritual ~ Your Best Bet For Micro Niche Sites

Related posts:

1. Squidoo Christmas Cash Commission Question
2. Choosing Keywords for Niche Sites
3. How to Build Backlinks Using Web 2.0 Sites