Forums

[Terri Hall Contribution Level: 1]

Hi,
I just created my new wordpress blog. I would like some suggestions on what to add, subtract, etc.
I will be adding pages and talking about various topics such as web design, internet marketing, entrepreneurs, etc.
I appreciate any helpful comments the community would make. I still need to figure out how to get people to sign up for a newsletter......
All the best!
Terri Hall


Good grief, I almost forgot to post the address! terrilhall.com

[Roger Silen Contribution Level: 2]

Great job and Kudos for getting started...

Well you want feedback... Here goes...

1. Get your Opt in set up ASAP - ideally in the top right hand corner

2. Put your photo/video up to show people who you are...

3. Delete the Hello World Post, the generic example post that comes pre-loaded

4. Start Posting!! - remember content is KING!!

5. Make sure you have "All in One SEO" plugin installed

there's a few thoughts off the top of my head

Congrats again for getting it started!

[Roger Silen Contribution Level: 2]

Shoot forgot a Big One.....
Add the Google Friend Connect Widget ASAP


Best of Success

[Terri Hall Contribution Level: 1]

Wow!
Thanks for the response. Where can I find these that you are referring to?
I dont know where to get the opt-in, and can I send it to my Aweber account?
Where is the Google Friend Connect Widget?


thanks thanks thanks thanks,
Hope you have a Merry Christmas!

[Volker Schaefer Company: Life Plus International Contribution Level: 5]

You find the opt-in formular in your Aweber account.

Copy the Html from there to a new Html Widget in your blog. So your visitors can sign up as prospects.

And I would throw away the calender on the right side to get more place for the opt-in formular.

I wish you much success with your new blog

Volker

[Roger Silen Contribution Level: 2]

http://google.com/friendconnect

Sign in and copy the html to another html widget on your blog... (better known as a text box)

All the best,

Roger S.

P.S. you can see mine by dropping by my blog.. should be in my sig file

[Jerry Lucado Company: Global Resorts Network Contribution Level: 2]

Hi Terri Hall,

Congratulations on your first blog/website.
I know how it feels after having done it myself a few months ago.

Did you do it yourself or did you have someone do it for you?
Either way, you'll want to learn how to do many things for yourself, unless you have unlimited capital and can outsource everything. After all, if you are going to advertise yourself as a web designer and (internet) marketing coach, you're going to have to educate yourself in many areas and know how to do the specifics.

And you will get much advice here at BN. Employ what you understand, ask more questions on how to, and just know it takes time and hard work to generate content, traffic and have a following. But it can be done and it is fun to learn all along the way. For instance, I haven't even employed a list opt-in yet. I know, I know. Many will tell you that is the first thing to do. But without more traffic until now, it would have just been another unnecessary expense for me. But I have spent a lot of time and expense in learning and now I'm ready for that too.

Utilizing WordPress as your blog platform makes it easier to do things for yourself and to find info on how to do things. I'll let you do this for yourself, or you can connect with me, but I wanted to give you a few tips here before I leave.

1. You may already have these plug ins, if not, I recommend minimally installing the following;
a) The All in One SEO, b) Google Analytics, c) XML-Sitemap, d) WordPress Database Backup. There are others you will want like "Contact Form 7" and "Subscribe To Comments", and others. It looks like you already have the Sociable Plug In, but you may want to reduce the # of social services there to make it look less cluttered.

2. Get your site indexed with the robots and verified at Google.

3. Do your custom structured permalinks. Make it easier for the robots.

4. Learn keyword research and SEO. You can be the absolute best, but if people don't know you exist, it is all a futile experience.

5. Add some pages and add many posts. Complete your "About" page and let your readers know what your USP is. (Unique Selling Position)

6. Know and remember you can go as far as you want down this road to success.

7. Continue to learn everything you can.

I apologize for such a long comment, but I just wanted to help as much as possible.

Good luck and best wishes to you.

Jerry

[Sanjay Wadhwa Contribution Level: 1]

Congratulations Terri on your first blog and welcome to the blogging community.

I have setup my blog recently and had to learn a few things. I found the following very useful :

Installations
Install following Plugins :
1. All in One SEO - For SEO purposes
2. Smart Update pinger - For pinging to directories only once per post
3. FD Feedburner - Set up your RSS Feed first through Feedburner
4. TweetMeme - Give people an opportunity to Tweet your posts
5. Onlywire - Submit to Social Bookmarking Sites

To Install Plugins :
Log in to Admin Area of your WP blog by going to yourblog/wp-login/
On your admin panel in the right hand side you will see Plugin section.
Click Add New under that
You can search these plugins and then click install. Bang! It's Done.
Go to the Installed section under Plugin and Activate each one of these and you are done.

Content:
1. Learn and do Keyword research. What are people looking for in your niche.
2. Write Keyword Focused Content.
3. Schedule your writing and write on schedule. atleast 2 or 3 posts per week to begin with.
4. Add Links to your content. You can link keywords to your other posts / pages / websites. Aids pageranking.

Promotions:
1. Create your promotion strategy. Promote your blog.
2. Click on Onlywire Button once after each post.
3. Setup Autoresponder. I use Aweber. It is superb and easy to use.
4. Build a form and use the code in a text / html widget on the sidebar.
5. Also use your form in 1 out of every 3 posts.
6. You can also use some free promotion strategies like Article Marketing, Forum Marketing, Video Marketing to get backlinks to your blog and drive traffic.

Hope this helps! Wishing you Thumping Success!

[Nathaniel Johnson Contribution Level: 6]

nice job, you've got a lot of work to do but are definitely on the right track that's for sure, WP is an awesome blogging platform!

[Patty-Jean St Hilaire Contribution Level: 1]

Hi - There are a lot of helpful people here!

I cannot figure out how to get my aweber autoresponder box on my www.pattyjeans.wordpress.com blog!

Apparanly wordpress does not allow that kind of javascript. I'm assuming I have to find some sort of plugin - and I'm not sure how to connect the download the plugin onto my blog...

I would be greatful for ANY insight !!!! Thanks in advance!

pj st hilaire <3