You can often take things for granted when setting up blogs. I instantly know exactly which plugins and settings I need for all my blogs and just install them in minutes. So I thought I would share some of the things I install on my blogs and why.

So here goes…

Akismet – THE Spam Killer

OK so Akismet is already installed on a default WordPress blog but you need to activate it with your API key. I use this because it automatically filters out spam comments from my blogs so I don’t have to wade through them all. It’s constantly being upgraded and works really well.

All In One SEO Pack – Makes Your Blogs SEO Friendly

This free plugin lets you add META tags to each post and also some pretty cool stuff to other sections and pages too. You can choose whether to let the search engines index your categories or archives for instance. Sometimes this can cause duplicate content if you allow them to do this. It’s a great free plugin. Get it from here.

GoCodes – Link Shortener/Cloaker

GoCodes is what I use to cloak my affiliate links. All you do is paste in your affiliate link and choose what to call the new link. It then cloaks it and gives you the choice to track clicks and also add no follow tags to them. Plus all links are now from your own domain name which helps with SEO. Get it from here.

Google XML Sitemaps – Announce Your New Posts!

Not only does this plugin create an XML sitemap for your blog but it also pings the search engines when you add a new post. This can often lead to new posts being indexed within just a few minutes. Seriously! Get it from here.

MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer – Stops Unwanted Pinging

This plugin prevents your blog from pinging services when you are editing or creating draft or scheduled posts. It will only allow pinging when you want it to. Great free plugin that does a necessary job. Get it from here.

So these are 5 plugins I install on every single blog I create.

Tony

In this article I’m going to look at some important tips that will help you to create a successful blog. There are of course hundreds of small things you can do to help but I’ll focus on 5 of the biggest things you’ll need to begin with.

So let’s go:

1. The Topic Must Interest You

If you’re going to have the energy to continue to post new content to your blog, then you must be passionate about the subject. Sure you might say to yourself, ‘well it’s OK I’ll just find the energy and get useful content from somewhere’ but in reality if you aren’t passionate about it then you will start slipping.

Choose a subject you have a genuine interest in and you’ll find it easier in the long run.

2. Be Consistent

Once you attract readers to your blog, you need to keep them coming back. By writing regularly you will keep their interest high and they will come back. If you don’t post often then your blog can fall away and they may never return. So always try and post as often as you can.

Sidenote – I’ll hold my hands up right now and say that posting to my own blog has been not high priority over the last 12 months. Business switched to other areas and my focus has been on that. But now I’m going to switch focus back again and keep some regular posts coming.

3. Inject Your Own Personality

Being yourself is one of the most important things you can do when creating a blog. People will connect with you a lot easier and your content will strike a chord with them as they will empathise with you. Don’t be afraid to have an opinion. That will cause people to give you their opinion too and your comments will add value to your blog. Plus you get to see just what your readers are thinking too.

These are obviously just a small amount of things you should think of before creating a blog. But they are very important and if you get them wrong, your blog might be doomed even before you create your first post.

Back soon!

I follow website sales almost everyday, so am always on Flippa.com checking out what is selling and what isn’t selling.

A few days ago I noticed a blog sold for $20,000 and it got me thinking about how easy it would be to create something similar. The blog in question was www.blogussion.com and you can see the Flippa auction here.

The blog itself makes most of its money by selling a WordPress skin. This has obviously been custom made so unless I wanted to hire a programmer and get one made I would have to look at other alternatives to make money if I was to do something similar.

I was more interested in the content, the age of the blog and where its traffic was coming from.

It seems all the content is unique and there are 436 posts in total. They have been posted for the 2 years it has been running. So basically a post every 2-3 days on average. The traffic comes from the email newsletter which has around 2000 subscribers and the RSS feed which has the same.

Useful point to note – it has built a following.

To Build One Myself

So it would seem that in order to build something similar I would need to be posting a unique article everyday or every couple of days. This might sound difficult but you can quickly write (or rewrite) an article in 30 minutes and post it, so it would take much time. You could of course outsource that for maybe $3 per post. So that would cost $100 a month or so to be 100% hands free.

Obviously I would need to do some keyword research to make sure I’m targeting related and easy keywords to drive in free traffic from the search engines.

I would also need to have a nice looking theme with a newsletter and RSS subscribe feature from the outset. That way I start building up repeat visitors just like the blogussion blog did.

Monetization could be through affiliate banners, CPA ads or a product I buy rights to or get made myself. Monetization is always the easy part.

Not Too Difficult?

This doesn’t have to be in the blogging or make money niche. It could be done for a health blog or a motivation blog. Just set it up right from the outset and continue posting useful and quality content.

Then in a year or two you could potentially sell it for $20,000 or more.

That doesn’t sound too difficult to me at all. Especially when the price of virtual real estate is continuing to rise as investors are seeing the higher rates of return for their money when compared to bricks and mortar investments.

Well it’s certainly given me something to think about….

Let me know your thoughts below.

Tony

I’ve been using quite a lot of videos recently to promote Amazon products. All I have been doing is making short 1-2 minute videos, uploading them to Youtube and adding my affiliate link directly under the video.

Tracking the videos is easy by using bit.ly to shorten the affiliate link and tracks clicks at the same time.

Now there is of course a lot more I could be doing; uploading to even more video sharing sites, making the videos more sexy, experimenting with different titles and keywords. But to be honest, I’m happy with doing what I’m doing. The videos are getting more views and people are clicking through to Amazon via my affiliate link.

They buy something = I earn money.

All without a website.

I actually quite enjoy creating the videos and playing about with Camtasia and Powerpoint. So much so I have started creating these kinds of videos and selling them. You can see them here – Amazon Video Domination Vol 1 & Vol 2. They are available on the Warrior Forum and a crazy low price so that everyone can take advantage of them.

If you want to try this method yourself, just pick 10 products from the Amazon marketplace and make short videos for them. Upload them to Youtube and add your affiliate links directly underneath the videos. You can use bit.ly to shorten the links. That’s pretty much it. You can of course bookmark the videos and get some backlinks, so they will be found higher in the search engines when people search for each product. But Youtube videos don’t need a lot of backlinks to start ranking. That’s why I like using them so much.

Back soon!

Tony

It’s amazing how quick a year can go isn’t it. It’s been nearly 12 months since I posted to this blog. Not that I’ve simply neglected it, just been really busy creating products and selling them.

But now I am going to start this blog going again, sharing blogging tips, site flipping tips and lots of other cool stuff.

I’ll start by mentioning some of the things I’ve been busy with. Our (me and Tony Shepherd) latest sites include Plugin Flips and SiteFlipz. We’ve also been creating lots of WordPress plugins and selling them.

Our mission is to help as many people as we can start their own site flipping businesses. Whether it be creating ‘normal’ websites and selling them or creating products such as WordPress plugins and then selling the entire small business. That’s what we are doing ourselves and getting a lot of benefit from it. We made $7867 in pure profit in a couple of weeks by creating and selling a WordPress plugin. Here’s a free report that details everything we did.

So that’s it for now, just wanted to say that I’ll share as much as I possibly can on this blog and cut through all the B.S that other people like to share.

Well I have now returned from my first ever marketing event and I’ve got to say it was AWESOME!

It was held down in Bristol and hosted by Robert Puddy and Donna Fox. There were so many well known marketers at the event that it was like a real who’s who of faces.

I travelled down with David Chamberlain who introduced me to some of his contacts and friends and the whole thing was so much fun.

I also got to meet Tony Shepherd for the first time (even though we have been business partners for several months!) and Tony is a really great guy. Although it was difficult to talk to him as he is just so tall and I’m quite short, so I had to sit him down to chat!

Here’s a picture of us (me on the left, Tony Shepherd on the right and James Howard at the back):

But it wasn’t just successful people at the event as there were people new to the business there to learn also. The great thing I noticed was how willing most of the successful guys were to talk to the guys just getting started. They were no doubt in the same position in their own past, so they know what it is like.

All in all, I have taken SO much away from the event that I can’t wait for the next one!

If you have ever dismissed going to events yourself, I can honestly say they are REAL life changers so make sure you get yourself along to the next whichever it may be.

Right, better get back to work!

Tony