Blog Archives

How to Register a Domain Name

Registering a domain name is a simple task that should be done prior to building your website, but it does require a bit of thought. Your domain name should accurately reflect the name of your business rather than using a keyphrase and it shouldn’t involve another company’s trademarked term or name. Other than that, it’s a simple process!

Step One: Search for a Domain Name

Head on over to Domain.com, one of the largest domain registrars on the web. Directly on the home page and above the fold, you’ll find a search bar.

The background image will change regularly, but as long as you follow the link above, you’re at the right place!

Put your company name in the search bar without spaces and without modifiers such as LLC and press the search icon on the right to see what you come up with.

Many common terms and phrases have already been taken, so chances are that the URL you’re looking for might not be available. For example, if you have a small, local landscaping business called Green Lawn, you’ll find that it’s not available with the traditional .com extension, and you might be tempted to go for the same name with a different extension. Don’t do it.

The person/business who owns that domain name in the .com version may have a trademark, and any use of the other versions could land in a lawsuit.

So what do you do? You look for variations! Try hyphens in lieu of spaces and also try using your town or region. It’s easy to find a domain name that will work for your business. Simply adding NH (New Hampshire) to the end of GreenLawn yields an available domain name.

Step Two: Make the Purchase

You can register your domain for one year or more and also add privacy protection. Privacy protection keeps your ownership information private from the general public. This information consists of a name, business contact, address, and email. A benefit is spam protection, but the choice is entirely up to you and not necessary.

Pro Tip: Google and other search engines lend more “Trust Rank” to sites that have longer registrations. A domain that has been registered for five years will be given a small boost in eventual rankings over a site with a domain name that has been only registered for a year.

What about the other extensions like .net? You don’t need them at the moment. Once you build your web presence, and if it gives you peace of mind, you can buy other versions of your site such as .net and point them to your website.

Once you’ve selected your domain, privacy options, and the number of years for registration, march on to check out.

Do I need G Suite email? Domain.com will ask if you would like email through G Suite. If you have hosting already set up (where you build your website) with another company, such as BlueHost, you don’t need to set up email through G Suite. Hosting accounts will often provide you with 5-10 free email accounts. This is up to you.

Pro Tip: G Suite email is easy to use, doesn’t involve complicated MX configurations because Domain.com will do them for you, and is something the layman can set up on his/her own.

Step Three: Keep records

Your domain will eventually come up for re-registration. Make sure to use an email upon checkout that you will always check. It is common for websites to go “down” because domain registration had lapsed. Reminder emails went to email boxes that were no longer checked and the contact information was no longer valid. This has happened to large and small companies alike. Make sure to keep a record of the email address you used to sign up with Domain.com as well as the password used, and any other pertinent information.

Step Four: Point Your Domain

Registering your domain gives you the rights to that name, but it doesn’t get you a website. To get a website online you will need to pair your domain name with web hosting.

I personally recommend using BlueHost. They offer a free domain name when you purchase hosting, so you get everything you need to get your website up and running for $2.75 per month.

For a step-by-step tutorial on creating a website check out my complete guide here.

If you have hosting set up somewhere else, you will need to enter your hosting account and find your nameservers. There should be two or three nameservers used. Find and record this information. Back at Domain.com, you will need to enable the DNS service on your new domain, and then click to edit nameservers. Add your new nameserver names, and that’s it! Your domain is now pointed to your hosting provider which often takes 24 hours to propogate. You will need to add that domain into your hosting account as an add-on domain.

Questions? Let me know in the comments below…

How To Sell Products On Your Blog

This post all about selling products from your blog. In order to follow the process below, you will first need to register and install your blog.

Click here for my free guide to starting your blog (opens in a new tab).

Selling products on your blog is one of the absolute best ways to turn your loyal audience into a consistent revenue stream. In fact, many of my readers set out to start their blogs specifically for the purpose of marketing and selling a product or service.

In this post, I will discuss how to use your blog to sell products. Whether you are selling an existing product of your own or you are using your blog as a hub to sell a product for a company in exchange for a referral fee, I recommend that all bloggers have some kind of product offering.

Whether you have a brand new blog or have already been blogging for years, you might be surprised at the revenue potential of selling products on your blog. Stop overlooking the money making potential of using your blog to sell products, and read on to learn about how simple it can be.

The Keys to Selling Products On Your Blog: Audience and Conversion Rate

The two biggest factors in how successful you can be with offering products on your blog are the size of your audience and the number of your readers that you are able to convert into paying customers (also referred to as your conversion rate). First, we will discuss how easy growing your audience can be.

Building Your Audience Means More Potential Customers

Building a bigger audience is something that every blogger should be focused on at all times. Of course, the best way to build your audience is through quality content that adds real value to the lives of your readers, and of course creating content that is easily shared among people always helps expand the potential visibility of your blog.

This is why I recommend that my readers blog about something that they are already passionate about. Being passionate about a topic makes it more likely that your readers will connect with your content, and it also helps to ensure that you will maintain interest in regularly updating your blog.

When you grow the audience of people who regularly read your blog, you also are growing your potential customer base. The more eyes that you are able to get on your blog, the more potential purchases you will be able to drive. Besides growing your audience, you should also be mindful of the percentage of them you are turning into customers.

Increase Your Conversion Rates by Keeping It Relevant

Increasing the rate of your readers that you convert into purchasers can be tricky, but the best approach is to present a real value proposition with the products you are selling. Even if you create engaging, shareable content that your readers love, offering them a product that has little to nothing to do with what your blog is about is an almost surefire route to failure.

Instead, you should focus your product offerings around things that tie in directly to your blog. If you decided to launch a blog that gives your readers advice or recommendations, find a way to drive your customers towards the products or service that you recommend in your writing. This not only makes your sales pitch seamless, it also makes it much more likely that your readers will take you up on it.

Selling Your Own Products On Your Blog: Turning Readers Into Customers

Many bloggers already have a product that they are looking to sell. This could be something as simple as selling an e-book that you have written, or perhaps selling your time as a consultant or other type of expert within your field.

I have seen many bloggers get overzealous when selling products they own themselves, to the point that they neglect the free portions of their blog that are intended to draw their customers in. My advice is to never lose sight of what brings your readers to you in the first place: excellent content.

After all, the best advertising for any product or service is to give your potential customers a taste of what you have to offer. And there is no better way to do this then in showing your expertise through the blog posts you make available for everyone to read. If you forget this point, you might find that you lose readers before you even have a chance to turn them into customers!

No matter what type of product you are offering, you can leverage your audience into lots of sales by following my advice below.

Don’t Just Sell Products, Sell Yourself

If you are trying to convince a customer to pay you for a product or for your time, showing them a clear example and explaining how this will make their life easier or more fulfilling is an absolute necessity.

Like it or not, we all encounter dozens of advertising messages each day. Because of this, most people train themselves to filter and ignore empty sales pitches that overpromise and underdeliver.

The good news is that you can separate yourself from the pack by making a well founded case for why your readers should purchase what you are offering. I recommend avoiding trying to come up with the perfect sales pitch, and instead making yourself as relatable as possible to your readers. People are more likely to buy from a trusted source, so authenticity is absolutely vital.

Selling Someone Else’s Products On Your Blog

Pointing your readers towards products being offered somewhere else can be extremely lucrative. Typically the company selling the products that you refer customers to will give you a fee in exchange for referring the customer to them. Best of all, you do not have to worry about taking on any of the risk in terms of holding the products.

Rates vary quite a bit depending on the specific product or service, so I always recommend reviewing multiple options so that you can be sure you are going with the most competitive option available. Most e-commerce sites will pay more for bloggers who send them the most customers, so I recommend not getting discouraged if you are not seeing really high conversions in the beginning.

In order to sell as many products as possible I also recommend narrowing your focus to goods and services that directly tie in to what you write about in your blog. One great way to do this is to partner with a major online marketplace, such as Amazon.

Amazon offers a simple referral program that allows you to refer your readers to their products in exchange for a percentage of what your readers spend. Their program is called Amazon Associates.

I recommend Amazon Associates because of the incredible catalog of items that their marketplace has to offer. If you are interested in referring your customers to buy a specific product, odds are that Amazon already has it stocked on their virtual shelves. This also means that you can focus on recommending products that you truly believe in, which I will discuss further below.

Stand Behind Your Recommendations

This point is one that I can almost not stress enough: only recommend products or services that you believe in. There is no value in having your readers associate you and your blog with a product or service that does not work as advertised, so as you begin to offer products on your blog, be sure that you are genuinely recommending the products that you refer your readers to.

Of course, it might be tempting to recommend the product that provides you with the best commission rate, regardless of quality. However, I always advise my readers that there is nothing worth the trade off of staking your reputation behind a bad product.

How To Process Payments

Once you decide to begin selling products on your blog, you will need to make sure that you have a way to process payments from your customers. The simplest way that I have found to process payments on your blog is through the WordPress Simple Paypal Shopping Cart.

This simple to use tool makes it simple for your customers to pay you quickly and securely. Collecting payments is often one of the biggest hurdles for bloggers to begin selling products, and this tool makes it incredibly easy to overcome that and begin collecting money from your readers.

Overall, I strongly recommend that you begin selling products on your blog, and I hope that this guide demonstrates just how easy and profitable it can be.

How to Upload Files with FTP

If you have a website on a hosted server, knowing how to use FTP to access your website files is a great tool to have for many reasons. And guess what? It’s easy!

Reasons Why You Might Need an FTP Connection

There are several reasons why you might need to use FTP to access your hosted files.

1. Upload size restrictions. The back end of popular CMS systems such as WordPress, and even on cPanel in your hosting account, have upload size restrictions. If you need to upload a large file, such as a video, you will need to do so through FTP.

2. Uploading WordPress themes and plugins. While many themes and plugins can be installed through the WordPress dashboard, if you purchase a premium theme or plugin you will need to upload it via FTP.

3. You’ve been hacked. The best way to work through a hacked site, especially when you can no longer access the site as an administrator, is to access the files through FTP and quarantine them.

4. Server migrations. There are easier ways to migrate your website to another server, especially with Content Management Systems, but having the ability to download all of your files just in case is a beneficial option.

5. You can’t get into your hosting account. FTP is your back door!

6. Backups. You can download any or all files in your server for backup purposes in case you’re planning on some big changes.

Creating an FTP Account

The first step is to create an FTP account within your hosting account, usually done through cPanel access. Every hosting provider is different. Within your hosting account and cPanel access (if you don’t have cPanel, there should be a way to access and create FTP accounts on your hosting platform), go to FTP Accounts.

Every cPanel looks different and your FTP Account section may be in a different area under a different header. Search around, you’ll find it!

An FTP account may have been created when you first opened the hosting account. But let’s start fresh and create a new account – one that you will know the password to.

Add in a user name and a password and write them down somewhere beside you. Leave the directory blank so that your new FTP account has full root access. This is the source of confusion for many – when the FTP account is not able to access all folders because it was only given access upon setup to one folder and one subfolder.

After the account is created, it will be listed under your FTP accounts. Very often, you will find a “Configure FTP Client” selector next to your new account. If this is available, click it.

Your FTP Client is simply the software you will be using to connect via FTP.

The Configure FTP Client page provides you with three important pieces of information:

1) Your Log In Name (which you should have written down). *Note: It may include @yourdomain.com
2) Your FTP Host Name (write it down.)
3) Port Number (write it down.)

Now you have your FTP account and access and you’re ready to connect!

Connecting Via FTP

The most commonly used FTP Client is Filezilla. Don’t worry – it’s free! Simply download the latest version and the .exe file will install it for you.

Once you’ve downloaded Filezilla, open the software. To get started, click on FILE and then SITE MANAGER on the top left.

In the next screen, at the bottom, click on NEW SITE. Next, you will need to add your information in the correct order below.

1. Name your site to the left.
2. Add in the information you’ve written down. User name, password, port, and host.
3. Click OK first to save your information.
4. Finally, click CONNECT.

And now you should be in! On your right you will see your website file folders. On your left will be computer file folders. Just like any file manager, you can drag and drop folders and files from your computer to your server and vice versa.

Note: If you are not able to connect, double check the User Name. Very often, you may need to append @yourdomain.com to your user name. If that fails, search for “FTP + Your Hosting Provider” in Google to see if you can find helpful articles.

Now that you’re done with setting up your FTP account and connecting, you won’t have to complete these steps again! Filezilla will keep the account on record, and reconnecting will only take a few seconds.

Uploading Files

In FileZilla, your computer files on the left are a wee bit difficult to navigate. To find your document folders, use the top box on the left to navigate to This PC > C > Users > Your Account Name > Documents. Use the + and – symbols next to each folder to expand and contract. When you click on the folder you want, the subfolders and files will be shown in the bottom box.

Using the same method of finding files on your server indicated on the right, you can simply drag and drop the intended file/folder from your computer on the left into a folder on the right, using either the top or bottom sections.

If you’re wondering where to upload a file to – let’s say a video – your website files which are accessible via your domain are usually listed under a folder called public_html. If you upload the video there, you’ll be able to see the video at yourmaindomain.com/videoname.mp4, for example. If you have multiple websites, look for the folder with that website domain name.

An Alternative for WordPress Users

An alternative to FTP is a plugin called File Manager. This plugin will only work for websites using the WordPress codex on a hosted server (not WordPress.com account holders).

This plugin creates an easy-to-see file manager within the dashboard. This makes it incredibly easy to upload large files and folders right in the back end of WordPress. However, there are still size limitations. For no upload restrictions, stick with traditional FTP.

How to Install AdSense on Your WordPress.org Blog

Google AdSense is the publisher’s component of the world’s most popular pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platform, and as such, it is among the most popular ways to monetize a blog. Its popularity, plus the fact that it is easy to use, is the reason it is my #1 choice for monetizing your first blog (see Step #7 of my blog tutorial).

All you need to do is use the information below to install Adsense on your blog (takes about 10 minutes), and in no time advertisers will be paying you every time one of your blog visitors clicks on an ad!

Once you have had your application approved to use AdSense, you will be provided with a small piece of customizable code for pasting into your website, allowing you to start displaying context-relevant advertisements immediately. In this tutorial, we will explain how to install the AdSense code on your self-hosted WordPress blog. If you don’t have a blog yet, start with Step #1 of my tutorial to create one, and then come back to this article once your blog is setup.

Using AdSense is completely free, but you will need to have a free Google account in order to get started. If you have a Gmail address, you’ll already have one. If not, it only takes a few minutes to sign up. Once you send an AdSense application at google.com/adsense, you should receive a confirmation email, typically within one working day, to confirm that you have passed the review process. Note that you will need to prove to Google that you have a website that follows their terms of use.

1 – Get Your AdSense Code

By creating a new ad unit with AdSense, you will be able to place advertisements on your website immediately. You don’t need to worry about understanding the code either; you can use a simple graphical editor to change the way your ads will look once they’re displayed on your site.

Log into your Google AdSense account once you have been accepted, and click on the “My ads” menu item at the top of the page. Click the “+ New ad unit” button to continue.
Enter any name you want for the ad unit, and choose your preferred ad size and layout from among the thumbnail previews. If you plan to display the ads in the sidebar of your WordPress blog, as most people do, you’ll probably want to choose either the “Large Skyscraper” or “Medium Rectangle” option.
Click on the “Text ad style” button to customize the colour scheme and formatting for your ads.
Click “Save and get code” once you have finished customizing your ads. Wait for a few moments for the code to appear before selecting it and copying it to the clipboard using the CTRL + C keyboard shortcut.

2 – Install the Code in WordPress

Although you can paste the code in just about any page element of your WordPress blog, by far the most popular option is to place it in a sidebar widget so that your ads appear in the right-hand side of your website beside your posts.

Navigate to “Appearance > Widgets” in your WordPress administrator dashboard to open the widgets section.
Scroll down the list of available widgets in the left-side column to find the “Text” widget, and drag it over to the preferred widget area in the right-side column. The number of available widget areas will vary depending on your theme, though most people use the Primary Widget Area to display their ads in the sidebar.
Click on the activated Text widget and enter a title. Always choose a neutral title, as per Google’s terms of uses; “Our Sponsors” tends to work best. The title should never try to directly encourage people to click on the ads.
Paste the AdSense code into the text box, and click “Save”. Context-relevant ads, along with the formatting and colour theme you selected previously, will appear immediately on your blog.

Note that you can have multiple instances of the text widget displayed in one or more widget areas of your WordPress site, allowing you to display multiple ads.

How to Start a Fashion Blog

If you are passionate about fashion, but aren’t sure how to start a fashion blog, then this guide is for you!

A blog is a great way to share your personal style, as well as your take on the latest trends from established designers. A blog that delivers quality content can be a great way to gain recognition as a fashion expert. While only a few bloggers are seen as true fashion icons, many lesser-known fashion blogs have gained quite a bit of mainstream attention recently, effectively launching the fashion careers of the bloggers behind them.

Why Start a Fashion Blog Now?

There are a variety of reasons to start a fashion blog, but the best reason is simply because you are passionate about fashion. I am going to assume that since you are reading this guide you are someone who is already excited about the fashion world.

With that out the way, we can turn our attention to the benefits of starting a fashion a blog.

Reason #1: It’s fun!

By starting a fashion blog not only do you get to share photos, videos, and write about fashion, but you get to connect with other people who share your interests. Communication is at the heart of blogging, so readers may leave comments on your posts. By responding to their comments you can build a sense of community on your blog, will which will allow to develop relationships and learn what types of things your readers would like for you to post about.

Reason #2: Get noticed

As you grow your blog and build up a following you will have the opportunity to network with other fashion bloggers. This not only let’s you meet new people with similar interests, but it also opens the door for publicity. If you have a great blog and put in some time into networking with other fashion bloggers you can grow your blog readership and potentially become a fashion blogging celebrity!

Reason #3: The money

Even if you don’t start your blog for the purpose of making money, it’s nice to know that fashion can be a very lucrative area. To start with, there are millions of people around the world looking for fashion and style information online, so your potential audience is enormous. Combine that with the fact that the fashion industry is quite lucrative, and you have a “perfect storm” for making money from something you love to do.

Do You Have What It Takes to Start a Successful Fashion Blog?

Building a successful fashion blog means taking the time to create and post engaging content for your readers. Typically you should post something new about once per week to start with, and possibly more often as your blog readership grows.

You also need to take the time to network with other blogs to build your readership. I go into more detail on how to do that in Step #6 of my free blogging guide.

How to Start Your Fashion Blog

Perhaps the most challenging first step to starting your blog is to come up with a name. This is known as your “domain name” (this blog’s domain name is theblogstarter.com), and it will become your online identity, so choose wisely. You can always change your domain name in the future if you like, but it is best to get it right the first time.

Once you have a domain name picked out you will need to see if it is available to register. You can check domain availability here. If your domain is available then you have the green light move forward.

The next step will be actually registering your blog and getting it setup. This free blog building tutorial will walk you through every step of the process so that you can be up and running in about 20 minutes, with no technical expertise.

Once you work through the basic steps you can turn your attention to finding an eye-catching design for your blog. If you follow the process in the tutorial you will find that designing a blog is actually very easy. There are pre-designed blog layouts called “themes” that allow you to change and customize your blog design with just a few clicks. There are a thousands of these themes available, so if you are totally lost on which one to choose here are some recommendations:

Recommended Themes for Fashion Blogs

Bandana

Bandana is a simple yet stylish theme designed primarily for fashion and photography blogs. It provides a responsive design, custom background and header and a featured images section. The default dark design is particularly great for framing and drawing attention to visual content.

Oblique

Oblique is another free theme for fashion bloggers. In addition to its responsive design, it also features a parallax header for an interactive scrolling visual experience. Other features include full color controls and direct access to Google Fonts.

fFashion

Another free and fully responsive theme for fashion enthusiasts, fFashion features a highly customizable magazine-style layout. One of its most important features is the scrolling header image as well as the integration of social sharing icons for all of the popular networks.

Clutch

Clutch is a highly original premium theme that helps to promote creativity through its interactive and responsive design. The casual layout features a slideshow-based header that also provides space for an accompanying description and a link for visitors to find out more.

Fashionista

Fashionista is one of the most popular and highest-rated free fashion themes available for WordPress. It’s a bold theme featuring plenty of whitespace to draw attention to things like visual elements and stylish typography, making it particularly suitable for magazine-style blogs.

Recommended Plugins for Fashion Blogs

Plugins provide additional functions and features to your blog, and there are thousands to choose from. While there are a few plugins every blog should have, such as JetPack, others are designed with specific subject matters in mind. This section takes a look at some of the most important plugins available for fashion bloggers.

Every blog should integrate social networking, particularly those that deal with popular topics like fashion. ShareThis provides 120 social sharing buttons, allowing you to choose the ones that are most important for you, and adds them automatically to your posts and pages. It also provides social analytics to help you track your social shares.

Ajax Post Carousel

This plugin displays your recent posts as a carousel with a thumbnail to represent each page of content. The animated widget is particularly good for fashion blogs due to its interactive and visual nature. It is also extensively customizable thanks to the ability to select posts by category, time published or even completely custom taxonomies.

Image Zoomer

Any great fashion blog needs high-resolution images to truly shine, but making them literally jump off the page isn’t always easy. The simple Image Zoomer plugin allows visitors to zoom in on any image on the page simply by moving the mouse pointer over it.

Post Template

Many fashion blogs have one or more daily or weekly features rather like a newspaper or magazine. Post Template allows you to create templates for posts that belong in a series so that you don’t need to format each post separately.

What Now?

The first step to getting started is get your blog registered and online.

Once that is done you can focus on customizing your blog design.

When your customization is complete you will need to start creating content and promoting it. It is important to publish new content regularly (about once per week) and to regularly promote your blog on social media and by networking with other fashion blogs. There are some tips for promoting your blog for free here.

If you are having trouble getting started, or just have a some questions, feel free post in the comments section or contact me.

A Brief History of Blogging

The history of weblogs is often coalesced with the origins of blogs or blogging. What we know as blogs or blogging today is not the same as the original weblog. The first ever weblog was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who is also the inventor of World Wide Web. The World Wide Web should not be confused with the internet, formerly known as the galactic network. The internet predates the creation of the global web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He coined the term in the early nineties. The internet was already nearly a decade old by then. Intranet and other forms of exclusive external networks were developed in the sixties.

The first ever website was created by Sir Berners-Lee when he was at the European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN. This website was basically a list of new websites. The term weblog literally meant a log of the web. The first weblogs were not content driven. They were not online journals or digital versions of the traditional diary. Weblogs did lead to the evolution of blogs and blogging by the late nineties. This is when the clear distinction arose and later became more prominent as we shall explore here.

The First Weblogs

Many weblogs were created through much of the first half of the nineties. Most of them are nonexistent today and hence you would not find them. The weblogs were also not widely known because internet itself was not commonly used and the global web was still in its nascent stages. Most weblogs of the era listed links to websites. NCSA, the company that developed a browser called Mosaic, followed the initiative of Berners-Lee and came up with its own legacy of web logging. Mosaic popularized the internet and the global web in the nineties. The weblog What’s New created by NCSA eventually became the oldest archive of websites, kind of like a directory of links to different sites hosted on the web. This may be deemed as a precursor to the modern search engines like Google and Bing among others, except for the fact that they were mostly lists and not exactly content driven databases.

Gradually, weblogs lead to the evolution of blogs. The lists that only contained links to websites started having commentary. Essays and personal thoughts got added in due course of time. There were many weblogs like What’s New of Mosaic. These types of indexing sites or logs were available online but they were not accessed by common people. This was primarily owing to the technical unawareness. In the nineties, weblogs and online publishing was only accessible to those who knew how to code. It was not as simple as writing something and then pressing a button to submit the content and then hosting it on a webpage using a server that you pay a monthly fee for. People had to own servers, they needed to code to submit anything and effectively create a website.

The Transformation of Weblogs

The first major transformation of weblogs happened when Justin Hall created a website in 1994. Still a student back then, he named the website Justin’s Links from the Underground. This is widely believed to be the first ever personal weblog, the closest predecessor to what we know as a blog today. Justin Hall created the website to publish his personal musings and discoveries as he explored the internet and global web. He also wrote about himself, his family, his relationships and his emotions. He opened the website for commentary from his readers or internet users. This paved the way for the modern forums and online communities. This weblog was operated by Justin Hall for eleven years since its inception.

The Blogging Boom

The practice of web logging boomed in 1999 at the height of the dot com bubble. Pitas.com came up with a tool that enabled internet users to create their own blogs. This helped those who did not know coding or any programming language to create blogs and find a presence online. The availability of this tool made web logging a nearly global rage. People could sign up or register for free, choose a template and use a form to update the blog. Pitas did all the technical work. Blogger, which is today more popular than Pitas, was created in 1999. It was developed by Pyra Labs. Both these platforms empowered students, internet or web enthusiasts, writers and journalists as well as others from various professions to explore a completely new realm.

Weblogs simply granted everyone the right and ability to publish. As early as 2000, people who did not have any way to reach out to the world or a large audience had a simple solution and they could publish, share, connect, communicate and flourish with their unique voices. This was an unprecedented revolution that eventually transformed every industry and the lives of most people on the planet. It did not take much time before celebrities, politicians, institutions and media started using weblogs.

Interesting Facts about Weblogs

There are more than a hundred and fifty million blogs today. According to many estimates, at least one new blog is added or created every second. More than thirty two million people in America read multiple blogs a week. Weblogs are no longer directories or lists of links to websites. There are personal and professional blogs, dedicated blogs for news, hobbies, health, parenting, dating, specific businesses, social and cultural issues, finance and everything you can think of.

While Berners-Lee created the first weblog, Justin Hall created the earliest version of personal blog and Jorn Barger coined the term weblog. The term blog is credited to Peter Merholz, who had simply broken down the term weblog into we blog in 1999. The most popular open source content management system and website builder in the world right now, WordPress, was created in 2003. The program was available before that but not many people known about this. It was then called Café Log, which was basically a weblog with around two thousand blogs.

Since that time WordPress has grown and adapted to become more user friendly. It is now relatively easy to start your own blog or website using WordPress. My tutorial on starting a blog takes all the guesswork out of the equation for new bloggers.