RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Blogging with Wordpress

Blogging with Wordpress is the simplest way for a beginner to start a blog, aka website. Rosalind Gardner has been using Wordpress since before it's inception and knows all the ins and outs of how to create a blog and use the best themes and SEO tactics to attract visitors to your new blog. Learn how to start a Wordpress blog here.

Keep Your Site Looking Fresh Even if You Don’t Update … for Years!

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Getting the following message from a reader was definitely one of those “Uh Oh” moments.

Hi. Just to let you know that your homepage of 101date.com says “What's hot in 2006“. I'm sure 2006 was a very hot year, but what's the temperature going to be like in 2009? – that's what I want to know.

I'm half way through your affiliate book – Fan-Bloody-Tastic, I cannot put it down.

Anyway, must fly, it's been a pleasure.

Ian.

Thank goodness for readers like Ian!!!

Placing dates on your site is a VERY effective technique for improving sales conversions, unless those dates happen to be very, VERY old.

So, I corrected the faux pas immediately, and made it look like this:

Of course, that will be all well and good until 2010 rolls along and I forget again to update the text.

There is a fix however. Embed a date script, just as you would use in the footers of your sites to create the Copyright © (current year) text.

Here's the script:

<script language=”JavaScript”><!– Begin
var time=new Date();
var year=time.getYear();
if ((navigator.appName == “Microsoft Internet Explorer”) && (year < 2000))
year=”19″ + year;
if (navigator.appName == “Netscape”)
year=1900 + year;
document.write(year + “</left>”);
// End –>
</script>

So, there… now you can plan to party hearty on New Year's Eve without having to worry about changing all those dates at midnight. 🙂

Website Design: Should Navigation be on the Right or Left Side?

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Here is a question that I received from one of our readers…

Hi Rosalind,

I'm really enjoying your new book, “Make a Fortune Promoting Other People's Stuff Online: How Affiliate Marketing Can Make You Rich“. I'm an experienced and somewhat successful dating affiliate myself, and I still have been able to find lots of useful information and tips in your latest book. Thank you so much for sharing!

I did want to mention that I believe there's a small typo on page 113 – second paragraph:

“the left side is read before the right side. Therefore, place your primary navigation on the RIGHT side” (Shouldn't it be placed on the left side?). Just wanted to mention this before your book goes into another printing.

Very enjoyable book. Thanks again for being so helpful and generous with sharing your knowledge!

Kind Regards,

Rhonda Ray

Thanks very kind for your question, Rhonda, and no, that wasn't a typo.

From a reader's perspective, I prefer to see content on the left and navigation on the right and that has certainly been the trend in site design for a number of years now.

Too, you want to place site navigation on the right hand side of your blog (or HTML pages) so that search engines read your site content before they get to the often long and always repeated site navigation links.

However, the simplest justification I can give for this is the way WordPress blogs and most WordPress themes are structured out of the box, with navigation on the right side. (see screenshot below of my 101Date.com homepage with it's StudioPress theme loaded and the primary navigation outlined in red).

WordPress blogs are known for their search-engine friendliness, which is due in most part to their dynamic nature.

However, because the WordPress designers are also so search engine savvy, I trust that their choice to typically place navigation on the right side has a great deal to do with enhanced visibility to the engines.

Test Your Blog Offline: Install WordPress on Your PC

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For years I've wanted to setup a server on my computer to test my blog design tinkerings locally before running them live. And surely, if you've been visiting this blog for more than a few months, you've been privy to some of my more stupendous errors – some of which cause the default WordPress theme to activate while others break the blog completely and have resulted in some really exciting HTTP Error codes.

With excellent technical people (thank you a gazillion times Steve!) on my side, I've always felt free to ‘play' with the live blogs and have never been worried about destroying anything completely. The home computer was another matter entirely, however. Like, who you gonna call at 2am?

However, after being told that a pc-based server setup could be problematic – and I think they were implying ‘for you', I decided to take on the challenge of installation myself… and trust me, I am NO geek. Indeed, the word ‘server' used to strike fear in my heart.

Well, that is no longer the case and I couldn't believe how quick and easy it was to do the pc-based server setup!!! It took me 30 minutes to install WordPress on a WampServer on my PC and it only took that long because I had to sort my way through a few problems of my own creation (uh, like not following instructions step-by-step and trying to jump ahead).

Here are the steps I took, MINUS the skip-ahead problems. 🙂

Install a WampServer

WampServerDownload the WampServer and then double click on the downloaded file to run the automatic installation keeping the default options (installed to C:wampwww). The package comes with the latest releases of Apache, MySQL and PHP included. When the installation is complete, click the WampServer icon now displayed in your taskbar and click “Put Online” as shown in the graphic to the right.

Setting up the server requires a few more steps, but rather than reprint the instructions here, I'll direct you to John of UrbanGiraffe whose instructions led me through the process of getting the WampServer all setup for WordPress.

Install WordPress on the WampServer

  1. Download WordPress, extract the files and drag the WordPress folder into your C:wampwww directory by opening the directory from the WampServer icon in the tray.

  2. Open PHPmyadmin from within Wamp and create a new database for your blog. Just enter the name of the database, e.g. ‘blog' and click Create.

    phpmyadmin Interface

  3. Return to the main PHPmyadmin page, click Privileges and click Add a New User. Enter a username (leaving Use text field: in the dropdown menu). Next to Host, select Local and enter ‘localhost'. Choose a password and again leave Use text field: in the dropdown menu. Click “Go”.

  4. Go back to Privileges and click “Edit Privileges” beside the User you just created. Select All. Now click the name of the database you created and make sure that all privileges for that database have been ascribed to that user. Click “Go”.

  5. Rename the wp-config-sample.php within your WordPress file folder to wp-config.php. Open the file and fill in the following information:

    • DB_NAME – The name of the database you created, e.g. blog
    • DB_USER – The username you created for WordPress, e.g. admin
    • DB_PASSWORD – The password you chose.
    • DB_HOST – The hostname – probably ‘localhost'

    Save the file.

  6. Run the installation script from your browser using this link:

    http://localhost/blog/wp-admin/install.php

Ta da!! You should be all done and ready to play!

Of course, if you use a site builder like BizZites, you won't have to ever worry about mucking up your blog design for all the world to see.

The interface includes well-placed warnings to newbies ‘not to touch' certain aspects of code until they're sufficiently advanced.

I wish my copy of WordPress did that on occasion. 🙂

How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog?

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How Much Does it cost to start a blog?

How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog?

Well, Get just TWO items and you can set up a blog and be in business as an affiliate marketer.

One thing I love best about affiliate marketing is that the financial barrier to entry is low. In other words, it doesn't cost much at all, meaning that anyone with a little bit of money can start a business as an affiliate marketer.

Assuming that you already have a computer that is connected to the Internet, the TWO most basic services that you'll need are a domain name and a web host.

YES!!! you absolutely MUST have your own domain name and pay for hosting or you are NOT going to be in business for so many reasons, not least of which is that you will not be accepted to promote most products if you operate a free website.

Here are just a couple of the articles I've written about the perils of free hosting. I get much more explicit about the ‘whys' in my Super Affiliate Handbook.

So, here are the basic costs associated with setting up your own website / blog.

  1. A domain name.

    You can register your domain name at GoDaddy for as little as $9.99 for a .com name, or get it included when you set up your web hosting service (see next item).

  2. A Web Hosting Service

    I list a number of recommended web hosts here. Some like, Bluehost, include your domain registration fee for one year in the purchase price of your web hosting service. Others offer improved SEO (search engine optimization) capabilities and customer service.

Of course, these are the most basic services.

In time, you'll need to add other services such as an autoresponder and perhaps buy some content for your site if you don't like to write.

But just getting blog started doesn't require anything beyond having a domain name and web hosting.

Total cost?

About $7.00 a month – or $27.00 per month with the autoresponder service.

Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,
sig-ros

How to Fix Those “Squishy” Headlines

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Here the CSS trick for fixing those squished headlines on your blog such as the H1 Heading shown in the screenshot below.

Squished Headline

The original code in the CSS (cascading style sheet) for that H1 was as follows:

#content h1 {
font-size: 25px;
color:#036;
background: transparent;
font-family: Verdana, ‘Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
margin: 0px 0px 5px 0px;
padding: 10px 0px 0px 0px;
}

To increase the height of the line, I added “line-height: 28px;” as shown in bold in the code below. Because the font size is 25px, I simply added 3 pixels to the line height to put some space in between the lines.

#content h1 {
font-size: 25px;
line-height: 28px;
color:#036;
background: transparent;
font-family: Verdana, ‘Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
margin: 0px 0px 5px 0px;
padding: 10px 0px 0px 0px;
}

Alternatively, you can set the line height using a number value, e.g. “line-height: 1.2;” The standard line-height is 1, so 1.2 increases the line height. You can also shrink a line height by half as well by using the value 0.5… and so on and so forth.

Here's how the H1 Heading looked when I set the line height to 1.2.

Unsquished Headline

The other alternative is to use a percent value, i.e. 100% is standard line height and 200% would double the size.

OK, now go fix your headlines! 🙂

You Can Now Publish Your Blog on Amazon Kindle

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Do you have a popular blog? Think people will pay either 99 cents or $1.99 per month to read it on their Kindle? Then you might want to try Kindle Publishing for Blogs, a new Amazon service which launched yesterday.

Kindle Publishing for Blogs

Set up is pretty simple. You have to open a new account with Amazon (as you can't use your existing affiliate or Amazon account username and password) and enter your blog feed url, title, tagline, description, your full name and a screenshot of your blog.

Once you've done that, you can save the settings, see a preview and then submit your blog for review to Amazon. Amazon advises that reviews will normally be processed in 24-48 hours.

OK, you won't be doing it for the money!

Compensation works out to 30% of the subscription price. How many folks will read your blog on their Kindle when they can access it for free online is anyone's guess unless you're publishing a TechCrunch or writing about Kitchen Contraptions. Or maybe your mother will read it on her Kindle, just like Mashable's Ben Parr.

Moreover, international publishers will pay a hefty $8 per check sent out by Amazon.

So if not fortune… publish your blog on Kindle for the fame. Perhaps you'll gain just a little more traction and free traffic to your blog and that's always a good thing.


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