How to Start and Use Your Blog
I’ve been getting quite a few questions about how to work better/quicker/faster/easier with a blog. I thought I’d cover a few tips and tricks about blogs today. If you have any questions I haven’t covered please ask them in them in the comments section ~ that way this will be a great place you can come back and reference for blog related questions. 
So here we go.
Where can I build a blog?
I know I recommend blogger, but there are lots of places you can build a blog very easily for free. Each has their own way of doing things, but they will all work. Here’s a few options you can choose from ~ if you want more options google free blog platform.
Tumblr Probably one of the MOST simple ways to get started ~ very straight forward, fill in your name and email address kind of simple.
LiveJournal ~ This is a very community oriented site so do not create a “spammy” type blog here, you really need to create a blog that has some good content here.
Blog.com ~ this one is very similar to blogger.
tblog.com ~ Another free blogging platform, with plenty of control over your blog
Here’s the deal ~ right now you can start a blog at blogger, but at some point in the future, when things start getting bigger you’re going to want to create a “network” of your own sites across a variety of platforms so you will always have some place to link from. Don’t let that overwhelm you, just know there are more places out there than blogger to start a blog.
How do I start at Blogger?
Blogger was recently taken over by Google. Now all you have to do to get started at blogger is put your GMAIL address AND PASSWORD in the sign in area ~ this will get you started. Remember, it’s your gmail address and your gmail password now. Once you get logged in it will walk you through the steps. Here’s a video on how to start a blogger blog.
Here’s the video in text:
1. Enter your gmail email address and password.
2. Choose a username for your blogger account. (doesn’t matter what it is)
3. Choose a url and name for your blog (something general)
4. Choose a template for your blog (doesn’t matter ~ just pick one)
5. Start blogging
Why am I building a blog?
For our purpose today your blog is a place to be able to create links back to your “money” sites. This blog is going to be part of your “linking network” someday ~ we are not expecting traffic to this blog. It doesn’t need to be beautiful. It doesn’t need to be fancy. In other words DO NOT OBSESS over this blog. We’ll make a blog soon that you can obsess over, but for right now this one ain’t it.
What do I title my blog?
Whenever you make a blog you will be asked for 2 things, the url and the title. I suggest for these linking blogs you create something very general. If you know you have a propensity to promote kitchen stuff ~ hey do a kitchen related blog. If you are promoting products feel free to do a “deal” or “gift” type blog. What your url is and what you name it is really NOT that important right now ~ just pick something and put it in. I choose general themes for my blogs because then it’s easier for me to have a wider variety of relevant things I can link to from that blog.
For example I love to cook. I also promote a lot of family related stuff, cooking, kids, etc. I could set up a kitchen or cooking related blog and all of those things would be appropriate to link to from there.
For the random products I promote for holidays I have created a few deal blogs and holiday blogs. Deal blogs are just a place you can tell people about a great deal you found on an item ~ they’re perfect for product promotion because part of looking for a good product to promote is finding one there’s a savings on.
So you see the topic/url/name is not all that important, what’s important is what you put ON your blog.
What do I write in my blog?
You can write whatever you want ~ did you hear me? You can write whatever you want! This is YOUR space. You can do it any way you want. You can write anything you want. I suggest you write it in your own words, but other than that ~ it’s open.
Here’s some ideas:
You can share stories ~ and link to a product in the story.
You can write a review of the product ~ and link to the product
You can talk about a specific feature you like ~ and link to the product
You can talk about a reason you would use the item ~ and link to the product
You can give a great recipe ~ and link to the product (if it’s relevant)
You can do a tutorial on something ~ and link to a product
You can make a list ~ and link to a product
You can state an opinion ~ and link to the product
As you can see there is a million things to write, and what’s really important is that you link to the product. When you’re linking to the product make sure you use the keywords for your anchor text. That’s why we’re doing this blog. You see it’s not the content that is super important ~ remember we’re not really expecting people to read this bad boy ~ it’s the LINK that we’re looking for.
Here’s a quick video where I create a blog post from scratch:
Now ~ this DOES NOT mean you can just go in and create a keyword anchor text link and call it a post ~ NOPE. This is a blog ~ it is part of a community, and Google is expecting some content.
If you just do links in your posts you will probably get your blog closed for being spam.
Google will not like it because it’s spam.
Remember ~ blogs are short for web log or in other words, journal, online diary ~ think of it that way and you’ll be fine.
A whole other way to look at it:
If you don’t want to create the content for your blog there is a way you can still do this ~ and it won’t cost you anything. You have to use a wordpress (you host) or a blogger blog. Unique article wizard provides a service where they will publish articles on your blog. Yes, all the articles will have links to other people’s stuff in them ~ you don’t really care about that.
What you get is free content filling up your blog.
What you also get is a SIDEBAR to put your links in.
This blog will keep growing, and you will have new, fresh content and you can easily put your links in the sidebar of the blog.
If you decide to do this make sure you limit the kinds of posts that come to your blog. You can choose categories etc. It’s best if your articles are all on relevant topics, then your links will be relevant as well.
If you want more information on this let me know and I’ll do a whole tutorial on it. If you want to look yourself go to Unique article wizard. Go to the bottom of the page and look for the “blogger login” link. You can create an account from there. Once you get to dashboard there will be a link to learn how to set up your blogspot blog (that’s blogger) read that and check it out.
How do I effectively use this blog?
1. Create posts pointing back to any lenses/sites you make. Here’s an example of one of my posts from a linking blog:
As you can see this doesn’t have to be tough ~ it doesn’t have to be complicated. Just make something up. I didn’t go study something somewhere to make up this post ~ I just made it up. I have a dog. I have a new sofa and I have a BUNCH of dog hair on it. Make something up that is relevant and then add a link. It really is that simple. Don’t let the blog get in your way. It’s just a place to build one more link from. Really ~ that’s it. Just a place to build a link. So don’t let the idea of having a blog get you overwhelmed and in panic mode. Ok??
2. Create links pointing back to your sites/lenses in the sidebar. Here’s an example of some (old) links in my sidebar:
3. Use the RSS feed for your blog in your lenses.
4. Submit your RSS feed to RSS directories to give your blog some links pointing to it. (the more links you have pointing to your blog the more your links pointing to other things will count as well)
I think I’ve covered most of the questions I get about blogging, but if I’ve missed your question feel free to ask it in the comment section below. I’ll be glad to answer it, and do a video if that better illustrates the answer. Now go out there and get blogging.
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Hiya Jackie,
This article is very timely. I have a general url based blogger blog that get’s picked up immediately for anything I post. I don’t sell hard on this blog, just really short, upbeat posts which links to my money pages.
I can vouch for UAW. I use it to popular an article directory I own. I literally went from a few posts before UAW to 10s of 1,000s of them in just a couple of months. That’s with accepting all categories, which in my case, made sense — it’s an article directory. But narrowing down will definitely be critical when you have a more narrow niche in mind.
Good stuff here, Jackie! I’m continuing to add to my list of places to write and things to do. Keep up the good work!
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Kind of off topic but if we’re using squidoo for affiliate marketing are we going to need to put some kind of a disclaimer on each lens?
Hello Jackie,
Thank you again for your timely valuable information especially for me a beginner. I have a question is a video missing here:
Here’s a quick video where I create a blog post from scratch:
or is it only me. Thank you again, today is my day off and I will be “working”.
Have a great weekend,
Les
I have a question about having a hosted blog. In the majority of the information I’m finding, it is said that you MUST have a hosted blog with its own domain because it’s better for search engine rankings, it gives you more flexibility, etc., etc. It seems like that would be rather expensive after a while.
It seems to me that Blogger can do most of what I would want… content related to my keyword, keywords, links, etc.
So…what is the big advantage for the hosted blog?
Thanks!
Lisa
@Mark ~ what a great idea for a directory! And it does work quite well for blogger too.
@Les ~ I can see the video but if you can’t check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OcDSD22kOw
@Lisa ~ again it depends on the PURPOSE of your blog. For this it’s perfectly fine to have a blogger blog, and a blogger blog can work fine as a main blog as well, however the big problem with blogger is YOU don’t own your content. They do. If for some reason they decide your blog is spam they can take it down. period. This does happen. I have recently received a number or emails from blogger about some of my blogs. I answered the email and none of them were taken down, but something triggered that email. IF that was my MAIN money site I would want it on my own domain where I have total control. That’s the main advantage of your own hosted blog ~ also having a domain that is ONLY keywords not a subdomain of something else seems to give you a slight boost in search engine rankings as well.
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@Steven ~ that remains to be seen. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea at some point to put one in there but I don’t know the answer to that for sure.
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Hi Jackie, thanks for you help.
I have trouble seeing where your cursor is & what you are doing.
I see other tutorials with a colored blob around their cursor, this would be a great help to me, I really want to see what you are doing
Thanks,
Lakshmi.
p.s. I just got accepted as an Amazon affiliate, pls. could you show me how to put the Amazn partner logo on Squidoo? Want to make my 1st lens soon. Thanks.
Hi Jackie. Thank you for the blog information. I would very much like to see a tutorial on UAW. I know I would benefit from it.
@Lakshi ~ I’m working with the tools I’ve got. Jing doesn’t have the blob. Just follow along best you can and watch it again if you have to. Go to the sidebar and search for html from amazon it should bring up the post that tells you how to do that.
There is a LOT of information on this blog, I’m sure most of your questions will be answered either in a post, or the comments on a post, so make good use of the search box.
@Rachael ~ you mean using it to add content to your blog? That I can do. I’ll schedule it for next week.
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@Lakshmi also if you click the square box next to the volume thing at the bottom of each video it will make them bigger so you can see them better. It might be a little blurrier but you will be able to see the cursor better.
Here’s a picture if you don’t understand what I’m talking about: Click the link to see it: http://screencast.com/t/BcScvFVk
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Thank you again Jackie, it was my Safe Eyes for my daughter that blocked the video. I don’t know why it sometimes blocks one video and not the others, especially when your videos has nothing to do with adult content. Thank you again,
Les
Hi Jackie, since I have my own hosted sites made with wordpress , I can’t blog on that site for a link obviously. So would it work to just set up a separate domain (generic name) to use for all posts and links? It seems odd that if they are hosted on the same server, it would (or would not) create an effective link as opposed to going to Blogger to make one from a separate server.
Hi Ken
I’m not sure what you mean. You can’t blog on that site for a link where? Actually you CAN use your own blog to create links to your own blog ~ I do it all the time, (all the links back to posts in a post) and they work quite well.
Can you be more specific because I don’t really understand what you’re asking.
You will still get credit for the links even if they are on the same server. And at some point it’s a good idea to broaden your linking network to other servers.
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Hiya Jackie!
I also would LOVE to see a tutorial on UAW!
I did a blog post the other day on my blogger blog and I put a picture of my product on the post. I couldn’t get the picture to go anywhere except at the very start of my post. So, when Google crawls my post, would having a picture as the very first thing in the post deter Google from ranking my post? (I hope you understand what I’m trying to ask.)
Thanks!
Cindy
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I can’t do a tutorial on how to do the whole thing but I can show you how to set up an account to have it post to your blog. It’s fine ~ google will still rank your post.
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Jackie,
Thanks so much for this post! I look forward to your emails daily to find out what new thing we are going to learn.
Just my 2 cents – I would also love to see a post and video about UAW and how it works. I’ll watch for it.
Jane (MoneyMom)
Ok, so your saying you can link from one post to a different post on the same page(or site)? That would still look like a backlink in googles eyes? To me it seems like that would look like internal page linking. But if I had another add-on domain set up (on the same server) to link to the original blog, that would be better?
I’m so glad you created this tutorial. Just one question here: do I need to create original content for each free blog, or I can rewrite the article? In case I can do both, do you have any suggestion of what would be the more effective content of my post?
@Ken D. Internal linking helps and is good, but links pointing to a site from somewhere else is good too. You should do both.
@Francois You should create unique content on each site. If you rewrite an article it’s still unique.
In this post I’ve given you many content ideas ~ content is content, there’s not something that’s better than another ~ just write what feels good to you. If you hate doing it ~ you won’t. So choose something you CAN do. If you can’t write all this content then I suggest you grab Unique article wizard. Once you’ve submitted your article you will have (almost) infinite unique versions of it to use wherever you want.
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Hi Jackie,
I too am interested in seeing the video, will check out UAW as you have suggested.
Thanks for all your great guidance.
Carole
Blogger is a great service to write your post and it is extremely easy to start for mommies while other services require more time and effort. I love the video you share in this post
nice Posting. I just starting with Internet. My parents didn’t allow me this, before I was 16 years old. It’s very nice, becaus now can I improve my English language.
Jackie,
Great posting as always! I have strictly been using Blogger so far my blog creations and soon it will be time to venture into the world of WordPress. I don’t have a clue on how it works but I am slowly gathering up some information to figure out how it works.
From what I have read it seems to be a natural progression to start using WordPress thought I don’t know why
Keep up the great work!
Chad
Hello,
I just started a bloogerspot for one product I am promoting. Do I need to make multiple blogspots(that link back to each squidoo lense) for each amazon product that I am promoting? Or do I just add a new post (for a diffrent product) on the same blog that I just created?
Sorry,
I guess I just keep adding new post correct?
@Chad ~ we’re going to start getting into wordpress after the first of the year ~ so stay tuned!!
@Odie ~ did you read the start a blog post from the article page? I think I mentioned that in another of my comments to you. It will answer your questions.
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No, I do not think you mentioned it. I have looked at all the videos above and nothing says anything about multiple product blogs.
Sometimes you are telling me to read one thing and then the answer is somehere else in the blog. Or maby, it could be me. I guess I make mistakes.
It is in the post I just referred you to ~ here’s the relevant portion highlighted. http://screencast.com/t/OGU0ZmY0N
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There is a chapter called “create a blog using the christmas cash blueprint” on the article page. Is that the one you are speaking of?
The one that says “create a free blog” http://internetmarketingformommies.com/create-a-blog-to-support-the-squidoo-christmas-cash-blueprint/
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Thank You for all your help, I do understand that you cannot hold everyone’s hand but, I am finding it a bit difficult to customize my blog the way that I want it. I understand how to add images, links, pictures etc.. but little things like putting the heading in all caps is not covered in any tutorial. And plus, just moving things around to just fit. I have been working on this all day and I just cannot find a place to start. I already have the products I need to promote, and due to time, it would be difficult for me to do squidoo and blogs. So I just decided to use blogs and link them to the product, but now I’m thinking is that enough?.
The blog is not supposed to be anything fancy. For this purpose it is ONLY a place to link back to your lens ~ it’s a backlinking tool. There’s no need to spend a bunch of time on it, to make it fancy or look pretty ~ chances are it will NEVER SEE ANY TRAFFIC that’s not it’s purpose.
Whether you decide to just go with a blog or lenses ~ either way you are going to have to keep building links if you want/expect to get any traffic to either one of them.
Why would you want a heading in all caps? Press the cap lock button and type.
All you have to do is write a short post and put an anchor text link back to your lens in the blog post. THAT’S IT.
You’re making it way to complicated.
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I pressed the caps button and typed, but the blog page just did not come out that way. I understand what you are saying. I will not spend that much time on blog then. But I will link to squidoo then.
Awesome post. The niche blogs can really earn a lot of money just from advertising space. I know that some blogs even charge fees such as 250 per review of a product. It can just take you places. I have few not IM related blogs but will be starting a new IM blog soon!
,..] internetmarketingformommies.com is other interesting source on this subject,..]
Jackie, I just want to ditto on the danger of Blogger. I have a block that was lock for “spam” and there was no span on it. I wrote to them and they unlocked it but it was scary to realize how easy it happens. All I did to trigger the spam filters was changing the template!
So, hosting your own is a good idea.
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