Are You Not Blogging Yet Because You Don’t Know Where to Start? Here’s a Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a WordPress Blog

Blogging isn’t necessary for everyone in network marketing, and there are certainly a variety of methods available to market online, including article marketing and social networking.

But for a powerfully easy way to begin building your online presence, blogging is something that should at least be considered.

It is without a doubt the best way to create a central hub, a place for people to get to know you, and for you to share your value. It is only after providing value that you build trust, and would expect people to provide their information in any capture form you might have.

So Why Wait?

You don’t need to be a pro at copyrighting to get started, and with the best blog authoring platform, you can do it without knowing PHP or even HTML.

In fact, a large percentage of your prospects may not have these skills, particularly if they have been building their business using traditional methods.

If you plan on blogging for the long term then you’ll definitely want to host your own blog, but if you’re just not sure and want to give it a try, the same WordPress editor and control panel that you may have available at your own hosting site is also available for free at WordPress.com.

I highly recommend WordPress for blogging for several reasons, including the ability to track visitor stats, vet comments and a host of other features. Although the free site link above is a great way to get your feet wet, you definitely want to ultimately host your own blog at HostGator.com or GoDaddy.com eventually, paying for hosting at around $9/mo.

It could be the most important aspect of your internet marketing presence. Your blog is yours, not under the control of social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, and can let people get a real sense of who you are (building the ‘know-like-and-trust’ that you should by now realize is the cornerstone of your business.

Go Ahead and Give it a Try!

So if you haven’t tried blogging yet for fear of it being difficult, or just not knowing where to start, here are a few 5 minute videos that will let you see just how simple it is.  With only the basics tools you will have the ability to create a simple, customizable blog. If you have just started there may even be a tip in here you might find helpful.

These videos begin with the assumption that you have either created your free account at WordPress.com, or have access to your WordPress dashboard through your hosting service. When you create the title of your blog, it is not permanent and can be changed later.

Each video has an option for you to save the it locally if you want to reply it a few times until you are comfortable with that topic. Also, I apologize for having my  screen resolution larger than I realized, so you may have to scroll to see the far right or bottom of the screen in some cases

Part 1:  Intro to the Dashboard and Adding a New Page

Part 2: Editing Pages

Part 3: Adding Posts

Part 4: Themes

Part 5: Widgets

Part 6: Text Widget and HTML

Part 7: WordPress Comment Moderation

Part 8: Statistics

There is great support in the WordPress.com forums area, and also has some more tutorial videos which are great if you want to explore that once you get comfortable with the basics. If you really get stuck, emailing support@wordpress.com can be helpful as well.

Happy Blogging!

PS : Here is some sample HTML code that you can use for adding links into your Text Widget: just replace the href=”text” with your own URL, and the text in between the <a href=”text> and </A> tags with your own text.

<P align=”center”><a href=”http://twitter.com/YOUR_TWITTER_ID”><IMG SRC=”http://LOCATION-OF-TWITTER-ICON” ALT=”Follow Me on Twitter”></a>

<P align=”center”><a href=”http://facebook.com/YOUR_FACEBOOK_NAME”><IMG SRC=”http://LOCATION-OF-FACEBOOK-ICON” ALT=”Connect with Me on Facebook”></A>