Part 8: How to Build an Income Generating Blog from Scratch

So now, I believe your WordPress blog is all set, nice and secure and ready to receive some content. The initial stages of setting up a blog are crucial. The theme, the plugins, the keywords, security, Search Engine Optimization, the domain name… they all play an important part and each play a critical role in the success of your blog and making you a blog income.

 
After all that is set up and complete, then it’s all about your blog posts (content) i.e. your writings. The content you add will make your blog successful (or not!). This part of “How to Build an Income Generating Blog” is focused on creating contents on your blog. To start blogging, you should aim at least 12 unique top quality blog posts between 500 – 800 words each. Think about this, if you come across a blog and it has just 2 blog posts. Are you going to return? Unlikely! That’s why you should aim for at least 12.

 
If each one takes you an hour to write, that’s 12 hours work. You have to do that if you want a great start and you want Google to recognize your site almost immediately. Each of these 12 (or more) MUST be unique. Not copied from anywhere else. This is really important. If you were to copy and add 12 blog posts that Google was already aware of, Google would know you are copying content and not recognize your blog. After 12 unique posts, then it’s fine to add the odd duplicate blog post but not in the first 10.

 
If you have at least 12 well written, informative blog posts, then that will make visitors return time and time again. It’s those first impressions that count. But a badly written blog post can cause you and your reputation a lot of damage and visitors will not return, so make sure your blog posts are well written.

 
To add contents to your blog, you could try writing the title, the introduction, the main body and the conclusion/summary. Tackling each of the 4 parts in turn will make the writing of the blog post much easier. Your blog post title is the most important element in terms of indexing because Google will take your title and place it as the main part of what it displays in the search index. The links you click to visit whenever you do a search in Google are the titles from each page of the websites that show up for the search you just did.

 
This is critical because it impacts both what your page will rank for in terms of keywords and whether the person doing the search will be enticed to click the link when they see the link in the search result pages. Using your keyword phrases in your blog post titles are the number one factor that influences what your individual blog posts will rank for.

 
And if your headline doesn’t capture the visitor’s attention, then the rest of the blog post will just be ignored. Your blog post content may be the most thrilling, exciting information ever, but if your headline sucks and doesn’t grab the readers attention, all your efforts are wasted. Do spend time on your heading. It’s the heading that ensures the rest of your blog post gets read. Also ensure you add the same keyword phrase you use in the title in the first and last paragraphs of your content.

 
This is how you add blog posts:

Step 1: Login to your blog’s admin, at https://www.YourDomainName/wp-admin.
Step 2: Click Posts, then click on Add New on the left menu bar.
Step 3: The following steps and tips will help you write a new blog post.

 
Post Title – Under the headline “Add New Post” provide a headline for the post. The title of your post should be in the classic “headline” style that creates curiosity and compels them to continue reading it. Use your primary keyword phrases in your title for Search Engine Optimization reasons, as well as attention grabbing phrases such as “free”, “how to”, and “top 10”.

 
Post Content – Type the body of your blog post here. Use proper formatting such as Bold, Italic, and clickable links around keywords and phrases to emphasize. Break your content into short paragraphs for easier reading. Add images to your post. Use your primary and secondary keyword phrases in your post. Try to use your primary keyword phrase in your title, your first sentence, and at least 2 or 3 other times in your post. Be sure to bold your primary keyword phrase whenever possible.

 
Categories – Select the blog categories that best match the topic of your post. Click “Add New Category” to create a new category. Create categories with your primary and secondary keyword phrases. Use one keyword phrase per category such as “Marketing”, “SEO”, and “WordPress”.

 
Step 4: After completing your post, click “Preview” to make sure that the post looks correct before publishing. If everything looks correct in the post preview, click “Publish”. This will make the post live on your blog. You can also schedule a post to appear at a future date. To do so, click “Edit” to the right of “Publish immediately” and change the listed date to a future date and time. This feature comes in handy when you are going on vacation but still want new posts to appear while you are away.

 
Step 5: To check that your post was published, view the homepage of your blog and you should see your new post live as the newest post.

 
How to Add Images
Adding an image can make a huge difference to your blog post, so if you can, try and add a relevant image rather that just text. You can use commercial free images from Google Images, flickr etc Put the cursor on the area where you wish your image to be loaded and click the ‘image’ icon. You will then be asked to ‘upload’ the image from your PC or from a URL. Once chosen, upload the image and a pop-up screen will appear. Enter the details like title and the caption you want to appear below the image within the post. Decide where you’d like the image to appear: ‘left’, center’, ‘right’ and press ‘insert to post’. Once added, you’ll be able to see the image within your bog post.

 
You can also change the size of the image. When you add an image, WordPress automatically adds a border to the image. Sometimes you may not want a border, so ‘edit’ the image and add ‘0’ in the border field under ‘advance settings’.

 
How to Add videos
Adding a video to your blog is an excellent way to increase traffic if you make it easy for visitors to access. Now adding a video is easy if the video is already on YouTube. Basically you would need to find the video you wish to add to your site, on YouTube. Copy the ‘embed’ code, Paste the code into your blog post via the HTML tab, Save and that’s it, the video will be published on your site. For best presentation, you should align the video center. To do so, just alight the embed code and click on the button that will centralize the code.

 
If you have any further question, you are free to ask me using the comment box provided below. I’ll be waiting to get your questions answered. You are also free to become a subscriber using your email address so that you will get updates delivered into your email address.

 

Originally posted 2012-03-25 12:00:30.