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Making Money With A Wordpress Blog- Part 1
Posted 08-01-2010 at 07:57 PM by GrantFreeman
When it comes to wordpress, I'm a complete newbie. Makes me feel like I should know more about this stuff..
I'm embarrassed to say, that I've realized that I've forgotten a lot about building traditional websites. Been at it for about 14 years now, and I've helped lots of people make money with their websites in those years.
This short report is designed to be useful to you. That is, if you're like me and a total newbie at this thing called Blogging- and you want to make money with a Wordpress site, but you're missing the basics.
Blogging. I've heard about it many times, but just started really appreciating it. At first, I thought it was just a fad that wouldn't last, but It looks like it's here for the long term.
Even though I'm new to this Wordpress thing, I've learned a lot about Wordpress in the 2 years I've been playing with it.
I'm absolutely convinced that once you get the hang of it, making money from your own Wordpress site (from wordpress.ORG, not the branded kind from wordpress.COM) is easier.
From my own experience so far, I think it's faster, easier to manage and update, and more fun to use than traditional websites.
A Plethora Of Free, Ready-Made Websites
Did you know that there are many people who make these things called "themes"? Yup.
Themes come in all shapes and sizes. Themes are like websites in a box. They are templates that you can use "out of the box". Once you've installed and configured wordpress on your server, you can be creating content on your site in no time at all.
You can get lots of free wordpress themes from wordpress.org from this link. The default theme Wordpress comes with is actually very good.
Themes come complete with Cascading style sheets, starter pages, graphics, icons, headers, footer graphics, html, xml, rss, and yes... even plugins!
You have themes that come in all different styles and colors. Different fonts and layouts. Themes that are made for specific niches or ones that, with some coding skill, you can make for just about any niche you can find.
From simple as pie, to complicated as hell. It's all out there on the web. Just google:
"wordpress themes"
..without the quotes and see what you find.
Some of the themes I really like come from elegantthemes.com. Go check it out now. You'll love what you see.
The themes on this site are first-class all the way. If you like what you see, you can sign up through this affiliate link if you want, or just click the link above. For the price of membership, you really can't go wrong. Customer service rocks.
SEO, Plugins, and Spam- Oh My
Did you know that there are tons of these things called "plugins" that help you manage all different kinds of functions on your website..
For free?
Oh, it's true. This simple fact was a huge eye opener for me. Sure, some you have to pay for (especially if you want to run a commercial type website) but the majority are free to use.
You can download plugins that manage:
• Social Networking- Integrates easily with Facebook, Twitter & more
• Comment Spam- I use Akismet and WP-Ban plugins for this
• Video Uploads- Stream YouTube vids or upload from your Hard Drive
• Photo Gallery Plugins
• Membership Plugins- for creating and managing your own free or paid member sites
• Shopping Carts- So you can sell your own products
• Affiliate Programs- So you can become an affiliate or have your own!
• SEO- Plugins like this make creating a search engine friendly site incredibly easy
• Build your list- There's even plugins that serve autoresponders like Aweber
• More
This is just a very small offering of what's out there. With just those options, you can create a Wordpress blog for pennies, and has all the stuff you need to get traffic, and make as much money as you want.
Before blogging came along, a traditional website with features like these would have cost you more than $1,200. If you wanted me to build something with all the bells and whilstles for free, I'd laugh at you. Then, I'd share the body of your request with my all of my friends so they cold get a good chuckle out of it too.
But What If I Want A Traditional Minisite?
Hey, nothing wrong with that.
Just keep in mind that you'll have to spend more time searching for management scripts on your own. It will take you even longer to get your site the way you want it to look, and be compatible across the different web browsers people use.
In Wordpress, you can search the plugin directory directly from your adminstration panel. You can even install from there too. And Wordpress websites are pre-configured to work seamlessly across many different browsers.. even cell phones!
If you check out Wordpress and you decide that it's just not for you, that's ok. You might want to search google for "website templates". Those are usually one or two page site templates that are mostly graphics. You still have to know more about html and the complicated stuff that is almost transparent in Wordpress.
Try it and find out for yourself. That's what I did. I just didn't get it at first. But then I looked at all my choices, looked at what I wanted my site to accomplish, and finally decided that Wordpress was the smart way to go.
Less headache, more time to offer value to people, more ways to make money.
Stay tuned for part 2. I'll share the ways I and others make good money with Wordpress blogs.
Grant
I'm embarrassed to say, that I've realized that I've forgotten a lot about building traditional websites. Been at it for about 14 years now, and I've helped lots of people make money with their websites in those years.
This short report is designed to be useful to you. That is, if you're like me and a total newbie at this thing called Blogging- and you want to make money with a Wordpress site, but you're missing the basics.
Blogging. I've heard about it many times, but just started really appreciating it. At first, I thought it was just a fad that wouldn't last, but It looks like it's here for the long term.
Even though I'm new to this Wordpress thing, I've learned a lot about Wordpress in the 2 years I've been playing with it.
I'm absolutely convinced that once you get the hang of it, making money from your own Wordpress site (from wordpress.ORG, not the branded kind from wordpress.COM) is easier.
From my own experience so far, I think it's faster, easier to manage and update, and more fun to use than traditional websites.
A Plethora Of Free, Ready-Made Websites
Did you know that there are many people who make these things called "themes"? Yup.
Themes come in all shapes and sizes. Themes are like websites in a box. They are templates that you can use "out of the box". Once you've installed and configured wordpress on your server, you can be creating content on your site in no time at all.
You can get lots of free wordpress themes from wordpress.org from this link. The default theme Wordpress comes with is actually very good.
Themes come complete with Cascading style sheets, starter pages, graphics, icons, headers, footer graphics, html, xml, rss, and yes... even plugins!
You have themes that come in all different styles and colors. Different fonts and layouts. Themes that are made for specific niches or ones that, with some coding skill, you can make for just about any niche you can find.
From simple as pie, to complicated as hell. It's all out there on the web. Just google:
"wordpress themes"
..without the quotes and see what you find.
Some of the themes I really like come from elegantthemes.com. Go check it out now. You'll love what you see.
The themes on this site are first-class all the way. If you like what you see, you can sign up through this affiliate link if you want, or just click the link above. For the price of membership, you really can't go wrong. Customer service rocks.
SEO, Plugins, and Spam- Oh My
Did you know that there are tons of these things called "plugins" that help you manage all different kinds of functions on your website..
For free?
Oh, it's true. This simple fact was a huge eye opener for me. Sure, some you have to pay for (especially if you want to run a commercial type website) but the majority are free to use.
You can download plugins that manage:
• Social Networking- Integrates easily with Facebook, Twitter & more
• Comment Spam- I use Akismet and WP-Ban plugins for this
• Video Uploads- Stream YouTube vids or upload from your Hard Drive
• Photo Gallery Plugins
• Membership Plugins- for creating and managing your own free or paid member sites
• Shopping Carts- So you can sell your own products
• Affiliate Programs- So you can become an affiliate or have your own!
• SEO- Plugins like this make creating a search engine friendly site incredibly easy
• Build your list- There's even plugins that serve autoresponders like Aweber
• More
This is just a very small offering of what's out there. With just those options, you can create a Wordpress blog for pennies, and has all the stuff you need to get traffic, and make as much money as you want.
Before blogging came along, a traditional website with features like these would have cost you more than $1,200. If you wanted me to build something with all the bells and whilstles for free, I'd laugh at you. Then, I'd share the body of your request with my all of my friends so they cold get a good chuckle out of it too.
But What If I Want A Traditional Minisite?
Hey, nothing wrong with that.
Just keep in mind that you'll have to spend more time searching for management scripts on your own. It will take you even longer to get your site the way you want it to look, and be compatible across the different web browsers people use.
In Wordpress, you can search the plugin directory directly from your adminstration panel. You can even install from there too. And Wordpress websites are pre-configured to work seamlessly across many different browsers.. even cell phones!
If you check out Wordpress and you decide that it's just not for you, that's ok. You might want to search google for "website templates". Those are usually one or two page site templates that are mostly graphics. You still have to know more about html and the complicated stuff that is almost transparent in Wordpress.
Try it and find out for yourself. That's what I did. I just didn't get it at first. But then I looked at all my choices, looked at what I wanted my site to accomplish, and finally decided that Wordpress was the smart way to go.
Less headache, more time to offer value to people, more ways to make money.
Stay tuned for part 2. I'll share the ways I and others make good money with Wordpress blogs.
Grant
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