Upgrade to Pro — share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …

All blogging platforms are not created equally

Pam
March 03, 2013

All blogging platforms are not created equally

What do you look for when deciding which blogging platform is right for you?

Pam

March 03, 2013
Tweet

More Decks by Pam

Other Decks in Business

Transcript

  1. February 10th, 2013 Published by: planginc 1 Blogspot – the

    Google friendly Blog | Blogspot – Market Your Blog How do you Blog For some it seems so easy – for me it was daunting. It took an event I was passionate about to find the courage to get started, you can read that post here. I hope to be able to help other’s avoid the mistakes I made. I’d been intending to start a blog for over a year – but I had the same questions you have “HOW DO YOU BLOG?! WHERE DO YOU BLOG?! I had no idea even WHAT TO BLOG ABOUT…..so I put it off. If you’re trying to learn to blog on your own, it can take time (over a year in my case) and a lot of money on training classes, domain name purchases, hosting and lots of mistakes along the way. Things to consider…. • domain name for your blog – picking a name and picking a registrar to work with • hosting package for your blog – picking the right plan • design for your blog – paying a graphic designer or creating your own w/hours of tweaking • layout for your blog – again; hours can be spent trying to get it “just right” • learning the blogging interface for the hosting company you chose • learning about key-word relevance so people can FIND your blog • learning how to optimize your blog so google can even FIND IT – this step alone can take 6 months to a year – that’s assuming you’re even able to “crack the code” If you’re determined to start your own blog, Tyler Moore has an excellent video available on youtube. Regardless of the platform you choose, you’ll want to read this entire post so you’ll be better informed about the choice you make. If you’re going to go it alone, here are 10 mistakes to avoid to avoid by Michael Hyatt If you’re still with me, I’m going to break this down into several posts…..”bit sized pieces” in order to better answer your questions. I’ll explain why I chose the Empower Network platform to blog on in more detail throughout. I’ll provide free training video’s in the hopes I can help you sort through all of this and avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made over the past year. The training won’t teach you blogging step by step, it will explain the importance of blogging if you want to be “found” on the internet. It will also teach you important steps to take if your intent is to build an online business. It will give you both online and offline marketing strategies in a very easy to understand (and implement) format. At the end of this blog post I’ve included “shortened” versions of the 6 part training series so you can get an idea what each of the individual training’s cover. This training is ideal for anybody that’s trying to learn not only how to blog and where to blog, but how to set the blog up so search engines can find it! How do you Blog? – Avoid my mistakes!! The best advice I can give you before you take ANY action – do not spend ANY MONEY on training classes, SEO programs, domains, software etc UNTIL you have a solid understanding of the whole picture. No ONE PROGRAM is going to solve all your needs. I made that mistake. It was like getting a 200 piece puzzle from a garage sale with all the pieces in a plastic baggy because the box had long since been destroyed. Imagine taking that puzzle home and trying to put it together with out knowing what the final picture was supposed to look like? And just when you thought you had it figured out, you discovered you were missing several key pieces! Hours and hours wasted because you didn’t have the whole picture and you were missing important pieces. In the case of starting a blog on your own, the hours can turn into weeks and then months – it can also be hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars wasted trying to start your first blog and get it in front of people. Step 1 – Decide “What is this Blog FOR” If you’re only intent in starting a blog is to share it on your social networks and blog for a hobby, WHERE YOU BLOG isn’t as big of a consideration. There are plenty of free alternatives where you can set it up for free in no time. Top 10 Reviews has an excellent side-by-side comparison chart to see how the top 10 most popular blogging sites stack up. If your interest in starting a blog is twofold – getting your message out AND earning an income (or using it to drive business to another site), WHERE DO YOU BLOG becomes a much bigger consideration.
  2. February 10th, 2013 Published by: planginc 2 In order to

    better understand why, it’s important to understand two things: 1. What an authority website is An authority site has high credibility and high search results placement. Think of it like a person that can be trusted to give you what you’re looking for. Google places a lot of emphasis on authority websites. Typically an authority site has lots and lots of inbound links because other sites on the net are pointing to it as an authority. 2. Alexa Traffic Rank <– click on the link to get their toolbar Alexa ranks how popular a website is. This ranking also helps google to determine how trusted the information on the site is likely to be. If you plan on getting paid advertisers on your site, the higher your Alexa Rating, the more they’re willing to pay to advertise on your site. This youtube video does a great job explaining Alexa and a couple other tools: So how do these two things play into your decision on where you blog….IF your intent is to make $ blogging or to build any kind of online business? It’s the difference of opening a brick and mortar shop in a busy downtown area or deciding to open your business out in the middle of nowhere – location…location…location! People need to be able to FIND your Blog or other online business In the video you just watched, you heard him say one of his website was ranked 109,000; another 280,000 and the third that he’d just opened the week before was ranked at 1,000,000. That doesn’t sound very impressive – unless you have a site like I have that I started last summer – http:// www.tellingyournewstory.com/ and it’s Alexa ranking is still at 13,254,125. I didn’t only build my business in a remote location, mine is on an island……and if traffic is any indication, I’m the only one living on that island I built it on the WordPress platform. WordPress is a fantastic tool, this site you’re on now is using WordPress. When I made the decision to start blogging, I could have added a blog page to that site and blogged there…..but somebody would have had to swim out to it. There wasn’t a chance it was getting “stumbled upon” on the internet. I would have had to do some serious Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to it to get it seen – and I knew nothing about SEO. If you build it they will come…or not? I think you can understand by now – this isn’t the case. If we use the brick and mortar example again, starting your blog from scratch is the same as starting a business offline from scratch. You need to get listed in the yellow pages, run ads in the local paper, send out mailers – anything you can to get your name in front of people. What if instead, you purchased a business that already had a healthy following? That’s what you’d be doing if you decided to start your blog on an authority site like the Empower Network. When we start a blog here, our blog becomes a sub domain of the Empower Network – allowing us to take advantage of this sites power. Here is a snapshot of my Alexa ranking on the Empower Network: Based on what you just learned about an authority site (lots and lots of inbound links) and the Alexa Ranking, I think you can start to understand the benefits of choosing to blog here if you want your message to get out. With a ranking of 516 and 38,293 links in, you’re way ahead of the game the minute you start blogging here. If you check the Alexa Ranking for Google’s free blogging platform, or WordPress – they’re also authority domains. So why aren’t we part of that when we get a blog going there? Why is my other site listed at 13 million after more than 6 months and this one was at 516 on day one when they’re both using the WordPress platform? Because when we set up a blog here, it’s set up so our blog becomes a sub-domain of the Empower Network blogging system, allowing us to benefit from the power of their site. There are 10′s of thousands of people blogging on this domain each day, sharing their blogs on the social media sites, linking their blogs to other sites. Each day that goes by with thousands of people blogging on it, linking to it, it becomes an even more powerful place to be if you want your message to be heard. Only you can decide if the power of the platform is worth the $25.00 a month it costs to get a blog here Not sure what to blog ABOUT? I was in the same boat. In my case, I was trying to build an online presence for my business and blogging was a necessary
  3. February 10th, 2013 Published by: planginc 3 first step but

    I was overwhelmed – I didn’t know anything about it. And I didn’t know what to say – what if people didn’t like what I had to say? After watching enough of the training provided in the back office and hearing it over and over again “who cares, there will ALWAYS be people that don’t like what we have to say”, I felt more confident. I also thought I needed to choose one subject for my blog and never deviate. I was completely overwhelmed…..and completely wrong. By the time I’d completed my second blog post I was wondering why I’d waited so long to start – blogging is not only EASY, it’s FUN! You can blog about ANYTHING – and it doesn’t have to be a common theme across all your posts. You set up “Categories” like I did on the right hand side of this page (scroll up to see them) and assign it to that category. I like blogging about GMO’s and other health related issues – and I like blogging about….blogging. If somebody comes here and they like reading about GMO’s, they can click on the GMO Category. If they come here to read about home based businesses, they can click on that category. You can keep adding new categories as you come up with different topics you want to blog about. You can blog about anything you want – just set up a category for it so your readers can decide for themselves what they want to read about. That’s another benefit to choosing a system here – the training – it’s phenomenal. Once you join, you get access to a “back office” that has additional training in it. Anywhere from beginning, intermediate to advanced. Here’s a screen shot of my back office: HOW do you BLOG…and WHERE do you BLOG I’ll try to answer both questions in more detail over the next few blog posts, this one is getting pretty lengthy. If you’d like to learn more about blogging here at the Empower Network, here’s a video overview of the program If you’d like to see what you get with the $25.00 per month viral blogging system, you can see it here As you go through the training, I think you’ll start to get a sense of how complete this blogging system is and how committed they are to our success. Not only do you learn how to blog and how to market that blog, but you can earn a substantial income just by blogging if you chose to be an affiliate of the program. What does that mean? Blog and get your blog out there. As people come to your site to read your blog posts, if they click on one of the banners on the side of your page and join, the $25.00 they pay each month goes directly to YOU. The founders of the company chose the name “Empower Network” because they want to help empower people to find their own voice – to tap into their inner selves and share that with others. Blogging is a great way to do it. When you do as they suggest and listen to training for one hour a day, you become more fearless. I know I did. I was TERRIFIED to make my first blog post. I actually cut and pasted one from the school I attended – that blog is here. Yea – I was a chicken. They don’t mind, I’m an ambassador for the school and it’s good advertising for them I signed up for the blogging system and in one of the first training’s they said to pause the video and go make your first blog post. About the 3rd time he said to do that, I did it – I copied somebody else’s and put it on mine – but I did it. The cool thing, as you learn more you can always go back to the post later and make it better. I added all the stuff at the bottom of the post after the fact, same with the video and the photo. You can go back and make them better and better as you learn new tips and tricks – just GET STARTED. I had to find a way to tie into a pretty funny video I found on youtube yesterday about procrastination. I must have watched this thing 10 times – it still makes me laugh as I watch it again now. I think I’ll make a separate blog post just for this: In Conclusion Whatever direction you decide to head with your blog, watch the 6 part training. The only investment is your time and it will open your mind to things you likely weren’t aware you’d need to consider. He does a great job explaining how to get your blog (or other products/service) OUT THERE so people can find you. He covers google, links, social media, white hat SEO, black hat SEO, blog commenting and much more. Join the movement, let’s make a change… -Pam Where do YOU blog? CLICK HERE to learn how to create an income stream with our viral marketing system. You’ll have
  4. February 10th, 2013 Published by: planginc 4 access to top

    training by industry leaders. You’ll not only learn how to blog, but how to market your blog. If you’re ready to get started now, CLICK HERE to see what you’ll receive with this $25.00 a month viral blogging system. Why I chose the Empower Network as my platform 1. I spent a lot of money and several months trying to set up a blog on another platform. I spent more time tweaking than blogging. For $25.00 a month, all the work is done for you. As soon as you join the system, you will be given a blog under Empower Network. Your blog will become a sub-domain of the system, all you have to do is log in and start blogging. 2. SEO – This blog sits on an 10-year old domain. In SEO, search engines consider the age of the domain your content is on. They use it to decide which websites they will display for customers when they are searching for a specific keyword. Search engines often rank old domains as an authority websites, helping you get a much higher ranking than you could on your own. Because of the number of people blogging here at that Empower Network, Google looks at it as an authority site and gives it higher placement in the search engines. I have written a post and had it listed on page one literally overnight. Unless you know a lot about Search Engine Optimization, that’s nearly impossible to do on your own. 3. The $25.00 a month I pay for this platform goes directly to the person who referred me to it. This benefits me because they have a vested interested in helping me learn all about blogging and online marketing. When you sign up for this blog, you’ll have the option to refer it to others as well. Every time you refer an active member, you will receive $25.00 every month they stay active. With all the support I received, the Empower Network blog helped me to (finally) find the courage and resources to create my own blog and earn some extra income for every referral. 4. The Empower Network training – what they offer here for free with regards to internet marketing training far surpasses courses I’ve spent 100′s of dollars on. Whether you decide to join the Empower Network or not, you’ll find value in this 6 part bootcamp training series available here; an invaluable tool for building an online business of any type!