Instant Shift Technology

If you’re anything like me, when I first set up my blog about a year ago, I had NO CLUE where to start.  Should I use Blogger, Blog spot, Wordpress, or any of the 100’s of other blog platforms that are out there?

I assumed a blog was just a blog.  Boy, did I learn otherwise!

After a lot of research, recommendations, and help from others (that’s the “Network” part of network marketing) I realized that I better go with installing Wordpress for my blog.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with WordPress, it’s a blog platform that gives you a pre-built blog site for free.  But if you REALLY want to boost up your blog marketing – you really need to get a self-hosted Wordpress blog and your own personal domain.  And I’m going to go into more details why here in the list.

As any smart marketer realizes – leave the hard stuff to the professionals.  So that is why I outsourced my blog set-up (which included the graphics, RSS feeds, theme, and connection to all of my social networking sites) to THE professional blog set-up guru I know – Ms. Shannon Shubert at IM Group Marketing.

I also self-hosted my site – and again, to another professional who knows a ton more information about self-hosting and is THE ONLY person I would trust with hosting my blog – Holly Powell at Nonstop Social Media.

If you stop by their sites, tell them I sent you!

Here are my Top 5 Reasons to Use Wordpress for your blog:

1. Google Loves Wordpress – If you’re using a blog for your marketing strategies, you’re probably interested in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – at least a little bit.  If you’re into SEO, then you want and need Google giving your site “some love.”  Now, I could go on and on and on and on and ON about SEO, but the idea is that you want Google ranking your site higher than your competition for any given keyword.  Well, for whatever reason, Google loves Wordpress.  Period.  Game, set, match!  You need a Wordpress blog if you are in SEO strategies.

Yes, you can use other blog sites and still get good ranking, but you typically have to work harder to get the same amount of “love” from Google as your competition.  If you already have a different blog and are so far into it that it would hurt you more than help you, just stick with it and MAKE IT WORK.  But AT LEAST have it self-hosted – which leads me into my next point.

2. Self hosted – I have this in my top 5 reasons, well, for a good reason.  (Oh man I’m witty!)  You can use the free version of wordpress and have no problems and make that work for you just fine.  But you could run into a few problems, the biggest of which is that your blog could be here one day, and gone the next.  If you have a self hosted Wordpress blog, no one can touch it.  It’s yours.  Yes, you’re paying a small monthly hosting fee (usually around $5.00 or less) but it’s WELL worth its value considering the thought that you might lose your blog otherwise.

On top of having your blog self hosted – I would also recommend getting a domain name that is specific to you.  Mine is obviously www.LinusRuzicka.com.  It looks a lot more professional that the generic site URL that Wordpress gives your site.  Having your domain forwarded is essential for branding YOU in this industry.

3. Wordpress Design Themes – Now , do you want the generic WordPress Theme that comes with WordPress, or a custom designed one that is specific only to you?  The default Wordpress theme is perfect if you’re just setting up a blog to have a blog.  BUT, since you’re in this industry to make money and brand you, I suggest a designed custom theme. There are tons of people who design custom WordPress Themes that you can easily upload to your domain, to change the appearance and feel of your WordPress website. Some of the WP Themes are paid versions, but most of them are free.

There are more than 1000 themes loaded directly into the WordPress theme website, from which you can choose, although you are not limited to just the themes loaded into the WordPress website.  Since I outsourced the design and feel of my blog, my designer and I talked bakc and forth for a week or so to grind out the details of what I wanted.  The theme I chose is very SEO friendly (“Monezine” theme), but there are many other to choose from such as “Flexibility” or “Thesis”

4. Plug-ins – This is my favorite.  Plugins are what soups-up your blog and converts it from a 1992 Ford Taurus, into a 2010 Chevy Camaro.  The right plug-in can save you time, make you money, and make your job a WHOLE lot easier.  In fact, I think I’ll make my next post on specific plug-ins just so you can see some of the money making ones you NEED to have on your blog (So make sure to Sign-up to get my blog updates via e-mail so you can get the next one).

Just like with the WordPress Themes, if there is a specific function you want your blog to perform, there are programmers out there who have created WordPress Plugins that will make your job A LOT easier. There are 1000’s of WordPress Plugins on the WordPress.org website (wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ ), which are free and an ever growing amount that are not in the WordPress database.  You just have to go looking for them.

When you find a Plugin you want, just click “Install” on that specific plugin page, and it will automatically download, unzip, and upload it to the right Plugin directory on your blog. After it finished its upload, simply go to the backoffice area of your blog to “activate” the plugin.

5.  Wordpress functionality – Now, I don’t want to lose you here on this one, so I’ll keep it simple.  Wordpress is an HTML based blog platform.  The reason I love that is that it allows you to do SOOOOOOO much more to your blog.  Whan you’re creating a post – you have the ability to add videos, pics, graphics, links, and audio all in HTML format.  The cool thing is, when you create posts, you can create them in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) design – meaning that what you see on the screen is what your readers will see.  Or you can do HTML formating – all with a click of the mouse and flip-flop back and forth.

To Double check and see what your content will look like, you can “Preview” it and see it in real time on your designed blog to double check and make sure it looks the way you want it to.

Blogs(A.K.A. – Weblogs) are the BIGGEST thing going right now online because of there many uses for both the Web Surfer and the Internet Marketer.
But, you probably already know that so for the purpose of this article I’m not going to talk about ‘Blogs’ in general because I’m sure you’ve read enough about them by now and/or you already have a few kicking around the net.
What I’m going to share with you Right Now is something I discovered while surfing the net researching Tag and Ping tactics and Social Bookmarkleting because I run more then a few blogs online and wanted to find out how I could take advantage of this whole Tag and Ping and Social Bookmarkleting thing with as little effort as possible.
If your new to this whole Tag and Ping game then let me give you a quick summary of what a Tag is and what a Ping is so there’s no confusion as you continue through this article.
Tags – Tags are simply category names and are selected by you using keywords around whatever niche your blogging about and are included within each post you make, that is, if your blog is set up for Tags.
Ping – By Pinging your letting the weblog trackers(like Technorati for example) and the search engines now that your blog has been updated with fresh content and is ready for their spiders to come and crawl your blog for indexing into their databases.
This is where the – Tags – come into play for your blogs posts because as soon as the social bookmarkleting service spiders your blog, it will list your post under that given Tag you chose. So it’s very important you choose your Tags wisely.
Now that you know the basics of the Tag and Ping concept, lets now get into what I discovered so you too can incorporate it into your blogging mix, whether you use Wordpress, Blogware or Blogger as your blogging software.
But before I do, lets first talk about what Social Bookmarkleting is for a quick minute.
Social Bookmarkleting, just in case your not quite sure, is simply a collection of your favorite articles, blogs, music, restaurant reviews, photo’s or whatever it is that you find interesting on the web and is saved into your public profile through whatever Social Bookmarkleting service you choose.
Technorati, Digg, del.icio.us, furl are just a few Social Bookmarkleting services available on the web which is why I’m writing this article because I discovered a COOL plugin that you can use on Wordpress, Blogware and Blogger blogs that will connect you to over 50+ social bookmarkleting services through one click of your mouse giving your blog audience multiple options to share your blog post or blog with the world which in turn will increase your traffic and popularity of your blog.
Lets face it, adding 50+ social bookmarkleting buttons to your blog would be a VERY tedious endevour so why not take the short cut for a change and install this plugin and let your reader make his or her choice.
To take advantage of this plugin right now go to Socialize-It.com ==> http://www.socialize-it.com
This plugin is absolutely FREE and only takes minutes to install on your blog.
Make sure your choose your Tag wisely as well. I recommend you go to Technorati – http://www.technorati.com – and look at the TOP 100 tags since Technorati is the BIG Daddy in the blogosphere.
(TIP: The bigger and bolder the Tag the more popular the topic is.)
After you’ve done that, start Blogging.
The more posts you make, the more pages you’ll generate with the “Socialize-It” button helping spread the word about your blog and getting your blog added in whatever Social Bookmarkleting service database your blog reader is apart of.
I hope you found this article helpful and take action on what you have just learned.
Good luck!

Many people would rather make a blog than a website as it can be a lot easier to maintain and update and has all the same rewards. You can get free blogs so that eliminates any outgoings in the early stages when your site isnâ??t earning any money. If you put the effort into it you can make some serious money out of a blog if you keep it updated with unique content on a daily basis. Be sure that you donâ??t copy content from a similar site as this will do you more harm then good and make it harder to become popular.

The best thing about making a blog is that you can use software called wordpress, this allows you to make changes very easily and update it with ease. You can also give people privileges so they can log in and update it for you but are not allowed to change or edit anything sensitive giving you complete security and privacy. Making a wordpress blog is very simple, once you have installed it to your host you can either make your own template or download one of the available themes on the internet which can be used free of charge and away you go!

Once you have done that, make it interesting to get people signing up and returning on a daily basis. You have to make the effort in getting it to rank in the search engines by using basic search engine optimization (seo), but if you do this it will definitely pay off in the long run. You can get many plugins which will make your life easier when it comes to seo.

If you have made your blog very popular and have a strong set of back links you have the ability to sell posts to other site owners which is easy money, you get unique content and get paid for uploading it to your site. The concept is that they integrate some links pointing to their site so they get a quality back link and any targeted traffic you can offer.

FaceBook is at the top of the list whenever Internet marketers mention social networking. The news feed alone makes FaceBook a worthwhile place to be. Now you can share your blog posts with your FaceBook friends without a single keystroke. By setting up this blog feed, your friends will be just one click away. That means hundreds, even thousands of opportunities for new contacts to access to your information.Setting up a blog feed is easy. Just follow these simple steps:1.    Log into your FaceBook account.2.    Go to your Profile Page.3.    In the center of the page is the status box where you can tell everyone what you are doing. To the right of the status box, just beneath the blue rectangle that reads POST, you’ll find a tiny link saying, “Settings” and a tiny asterisk beside it. Click Settings.4.    Under Stories Posted by You, is a line reading, “You can automatically import activity from YouTube, Flickr, and Other Services to your profile.” Click Other Services.5.    Click on Blog/RSS, and a new box will open up.6.    Place your blog’s RSS feed link in the box. In WordPress, the blog RSS feed URL is http://YOURBLOGNAME.com/?feed=rss27.    Click Import.Now when you post to your blog, the entire post will come up in the Notes of your profile page and a news feed will announce the note. You can go to the Notes page and click on SHARE to tag friends in the Note. You can also place the link for the Note into your FaceBook groups’ pages.