18 replies
Hey guys I began my first blog just the other day. It's pretty much just a log of what I'm doing as a newbie to try and make a start in IM.

It's pretty ordinary but if anyone isn't too busy...please check it out and let me know what you think and how I can improve?

Any advice would be great!!!

Vaughnwilliam.blogspot.com
#blog #newbies
  • Profile picture of the author Bluestarace
    Originally Posted by Vaughn william View Post

    how I can improve?Vaughnwilliam.blogspot.com
    Umm...you might want to spruce it up a little...add a little color maybe. It kind of looks bland.
    The content is good, but the problem with "IM journey" blogs is that they are popping up everywhere. So it might be a little hard to build a readers base. But keep at it. Once you start growing, traffic and readers will follow.

    Are you looking to monetize it?
    I would recommend getting your own domain and hosting if you are looking forward to keeping your blog for a long time. It is just more safe.
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    • Profile picture of the author Vaughn william
      Originally Posted by Bluestarace View Post

      Umm...you might want to spruce it up a little...add a little color maybe. It kind of looks bland.
      The content is good, but the problem with "IM journey" blogs is that they are popping up everywhere. So it might be a little hard to build a readers base. But keep at it. Once you start growing, traffic and readers will follow.

      Are you looking to monetize it?
      I would recommend getting your own domain and hosting if you are looking forward to keeping your blog for a long time. It is just more safe.
      Cool thanks, your right there are similar blogs everywhere, I don't think I'll monetize this blog more so use it to learn and just keep track of where I'm going and what I'm doing, I want newbies like me to see what I've done and be able to learn from it and not make the same mistake that I have,

      How might I be able to get more people to see my page?

      I think once I find a topic or niche that I'm really interested and passionate about then I might get a domain and try and learn a bit about that and perhaps hopefully one day try and monetize that one,

      Still a lot to learn.

      Thanks again
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  • Profile picture of the author Miguelito203
    Originally Posted by Vaughn william View Post

    Hey guys I began my first blog just the other day. It's pretty much just a log of what I'm doing as a newbie to try and make a start in IM.

    It's pretty ordinary but if anyone isn't too busy...please check it out and let me know what you think and how I can improve?

    Any advice would be great!!!

    Vaughnwilliam.blogspot.com
    Well, there are a couple of things you do. First, you should start a blog on your own domain so that you can control the content on your blog and start building a list. When you create blogs on free sites, not only are they picky about the things you can promote, but they have the authority to remove your blog at any time -- which means you could lose out on a lot of money. I speaking from personal experience here.

    Secondly, you need to break up your paragraphs so they are easier to read. Thirdly, your blog should contain both product reviews and articles about things going on in your niche. You will get traffic from both. It's also important that you write quality content and target the right keywords so that you will get found in the search engines. I hope this helps some.

    Good luck,
    Joey
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    • Profile picture of the author Michelle Stevens
      Originally Posted by Miguelito203 View Post

      Well, there are a couple of things you do. First, you should start a blog on your own domain so that you can control the content on your blog and start building a list. When you create blogs on free sites, not only are they picky about the things you can promote, but they have the authority to remove your blog at any time -- which means you could lose out on a lot of money. I speaking from personal experience here.

      Secondly, you need to break up your paragraphs so they are easier to read. Thirdly, your blog should contain both product reviews and articles about things going on in your niche. You will get traffic from both. It's also important that you write quality content and target the right keywords so that you will get found in the search engines. I hope this helps some.

      Good luck,
      Joey
      Yeah I would echo that definitely you should look at getting your own domain name & hosting and setting your blog up on WordPress. That way you have complete control over the look, feel & content.

      And you need to start using paragraphs properly. If I landed on your blog I wouldn't bother to read it because it's just one big block of text which makes it really hard on the eye.

      Well done for taking action though, it's the first and most important step
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  • Profile picture of the author onegoodman
    Honestly, I would never spend a minuet reading. There is no design for the website, nor even clear visible title.

    If you serious about IM, get a domain (free sub domain is always a con for any website). get a webhosting and start using something like wordpress (if you looking for a professional blog).

    Plain text website are long gone, and people spend so little to view a new website. If they can't find what they looking for from a website they would n't waste their time trying to look it up and move to another website.

    Wish you luck
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Campbell
    Vuaghn my man,

    How is the journey going?

    It is right what all the others say, but most important part about all of this is to market yourself, who YOU are and what makes YOU different. Get personal even if you don't have many visitors as yet, you want to be ready for when you start driving traffic.

    So your first steps:

    1: Register a domain (Namecheap is a great place)
    2: Get Hosting, I use Hostgator, but there are a lot of good ones out there.
    3: Install Worpress on your domain
    4: Start posting about your daily tasks, struggles, and accomplishments.

    And it goes without saying, get a WF Avatar and sig, so people can ralate to you.

    All the best
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  • Profile picture of the author spriyada
    It is very hard to read. Break up the paragraphs. Also, like many others before me have said:
    1)Get a domain name
    2)Get hosting (I use ipage and like it so far. They have great support and they offer a free domain name when you sign up for hosting. That is two birds with one stone my friend.)
    3)Install wordpress and install a good theme for your wordpress blog. Try flexibility3 for your theme (this is what I use)
    4) you have good content so continue with that. Make sure that you have divided the content into clear paragraphs.
    I hope this helps…keep going at it.
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  • Profile picture of the author syedmuntajib
    Gone through your blog. Here are some corrections you should make to look pretty much interesting.

    1. Use Paragraphs, because the readers arent much cooperative in reading such a big paragraphs.

    2. As already mentioned above, use some coloring to your texts.
    3. Try to present some case studies with live examples.

    And finally the remaining are already mentioned above.
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  • Profile picture of the author esk
    yeah, you should definitely get a domain name. I think they don't cost more then $10 per year.

    Your posts are pretty difficult to read, because they are not formatted. I can imagine this is pretty hard to do on a iPhone.
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  • Profile picture of the author cooperman16
    bro,

    break up the text into smaller chunks, add a bit of colour, change the layout and the jobs a good'n! totally agree with what @Stuart Campbell Is saying above ^^ they're a necessity
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  • Profile picture of the author jaiganeshv
    Congrats on taking action..

    I recommend you to go with a minimalist theme/skin like in Minimalist Blogger templates

    1. Also content is stuffed in all one paragraph. Pls make it easy to read.

    2. Have left or right hand side navigation for older posts. You can drag and drop recent posts from "page elements" section.

    HTH
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    I would do as suggested and pick up a wordpress domain.

    I only use blogspot blogs for backlinks and preselling. I realize that some people can monetize blogspot blogs but monetizing your own site is so much easier just using wordpress. You can personalize things a lot more, a crapload more options, its just a much better/more professional platform to work with.

    Goodluck! - Red
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  • Profile picture of the author orpaz191
    I recommend you learn as much as you can about both monetization and traffic. Build a model to work on, and take action.
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  • Profile picture of the author lint631
    Agree with all the comments above. Get your own WP site and make it more personal. I would add a picture of yourself. It helps readers connect with who is actually behind the blog/website. Good content though just needs a killer design!
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    1) Change templates

    2) Change your favicon

    3) Get rid of the big paragraph blocks

    4) How do you plan on making money with this blog?

    5) Do you REALLY know how to make money online?
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  • Profile picture of the author ELVISTHEPELVIS
    You really should get your own domain, Blogspot will sometimes delete blogs and then all of that work will be wasted.
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  • Profile picture of the author micksss
    What are you interested in, knowledgeable/passionate about? You could blog about such things and make money through adsense and/or promote affiliate products related to the topics.
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  • Profile picture of the author Cheryl Low
    Hi Vaughn! Agree with the advice given so far, especially about breaking up your posts into paragraph. As soon as I saw the huge chunk of text, my brain said "it's too early in the morning!" and shut down.

    Your visitor should also to be able to navigate easily from post to post and pick the posts they want to read so having titles that give a hint as to what to expect for each post would help. For example:

    Day 1 - Building my first website
    Day x - What I learned from the good folks at Warrior Forum
    Day xx - My first paycheck
    Day xxx - My first $1,000,000

    You say you don't plan to monetize this blog. Why ever not? If you get tons of traffic later, you'll kick yourself for not having made more of the relationship you've built.

    But no matter how great your content and website is, it's no use if no one can find it. So you need to learn how to use SEO and other ways to get people to visit... and stay!

    Get people to leave their emails and start emailing to your list so that traffic which come your way wouldn't become just one off. If you decide to do something else later, you have this database of people as potential customers (and you've worked hard for them). They are more likely to buy from you as they already know you (as long as the target market for your new venture is not too dissimilar).

    I use Get Response. They charge $12.30 per month for an annual plan for up to 1000 subscribers and they are pretty reliable.

    Lastly, do personalize your blog. A big part of relationship building is letting people into your life, bit by bit...

    Good luck!! The important thing is that you are determined to succeed and that's half the battle won, my friend.

    Cheers
    Cheryl
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