Blogging for beginners

To repay Quadszilla's generosity in including me as here at the SEO BlackHat forums I thought I might start with some of the fundamentals. By way of introduction I'm not known as a blackhat, indeed I'd probably be one of the few ppl here at the SEOBlackhat forums who comes from a publicly White Hat background, although having said that I'm probably more grey that white, after all, who doesn't seriously admit to themselves that they dabble in the dark side, and indeed in my time involved in blogging, things that were frowned upon and considered black hat 3-4 years ago are today mainstream practices. I've previously owned a Technorati Top 100 blog, and also founded a blogging company that took millions of dollars (US of course) in VC funding, so as much as I don't won't to beat my own drum, I've got half an idea.

I don't frown on anything ppl do here. We're all looking for opportunities, and we all have different ways of succeeding. It probably also helps that I use Akismet on all my blogs, therefore I find comment spamming less repugnant because I don't have to deal with it

One thing that I have noted though, amongst some members, is a lack of basic knowledge of blogging. Not everyone, but some. By understanding I mean knowing the fundamentals. Everyone has an idea of what blogging is, but if you understand the fundamentals...well your imagination follows.

So take this as part 1 on the basics, exclusive to the SEO BlackHat forums. . This isn't for everyone, I know for example that for Quadszilla it's a matter of preaching to the converted. But I hope some of you might get something from the series.

Starting a Blog
OK, so you all know that blogs can be good for SEO and revenue. That's the easy part, but where do you start.

Platform
Choice is something you'll never lack when it comes to blogging. The question then becomes: what platform is easy enough to use that still has the potential to rank well with the Search Engines. Blogger was the platform of choice in blackhat and even non-blackhat circles for many years. Free hosting, easy to get indexed etc..., but I would argue that those days have passed. Google has long since decided that splogs on Blogger don't rank, sure, some still do, but we're in a numbers game, and you're chances are getting slimmer every day. You can take a look at some of the alternative free platforms, WordPress.com comes to mind, but talk to anyone who has seriously tried to game it, you're looking at 1/1000 chance of still being there 1 month in, and 1 in a whole lot more after that. My personal recommendation is to go with Wordpress on your own server or hosting account. I've road tested a lot of different blogging platforms, and indeed was a MT user for a couple of years, but for ease of use you cant beat WordPress.

Template
The best thing about using WP is the range of templates available. I can't speak for everyone's niche, but certainly any 3 column template will usually suffice. Take a look at some of the commentary on the particular template if you really want to, because SEO wise they aren't all created equally. The Cutline theme (http://cutline.tubetorial.com/) is my current recommend choice, it's set up really well in terms of SEO. However, if you're looking at maximizing your CTR on ads, I'd edit Cutline so the sidebar is on the left, as opposed to the right. It's not a hard hack to make.

Blogging
Once you've set it all up, you've got the choice between an automated script and blogging yourself. You can go to a site such as http://wp-plugins.net/ for your automated plugins of choice. Personally, they don't cut it for me, but having said that if you've got a little bit of programing knowledge you should be able to tweak one to your liking. (I've got a plugin under development that does a much better job in terms of auto posting....I will let everyone in on it once it's finished, with a decent discount as well). If you don't want to autopost, physically blogging isn't all that hard, indeed it's easy if you want traffic.

Gossip
Here is a secret you wont find most places elsewhere. Gossip=pageviews. Blogging to multiple blogs isn't really hard, if you know where you're looking. The easiest of all topics are celebrities. OK, so they won't top any eCPM lists, but they pay well, and it's easy to get traffic, really, really easy. Your key is to setup a RSS reader account (I personally use Bloglines) that follows the leading celebrity blogging sites. To create content you cut and paste the text, changing it a little naturally, and repost their pictures as well. If you want to be really legit, you'll link to the source, but end of the day, they would have stolen that story from some where else anyway. I've got blogs I haven't posted to in 6 months still making $10-$20 a day for me based on this sort of blogging.

High paying keywords
OK, so everyone has a mesothelioma site. Here's a wise tip, you can try but you won't succeed. Every man and his dog are trying for the "top list". The key with a new blog is to find an under-catered for niche. There are a pile of them out there, particularly amongst blogs. Honesty you can make more money on a mid-range CPM term than you will on a higher paying one.

That's it for now, a rough guide to blogging, more soon.

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