A couple of days ago I added a feed to my website so visitors can subscribe to my blog. So far I have one subscriber. Me. I subscribed to test that it was working properly. When I got my first update yesterday I noticed a couple of things I wanted to change about the email, like making the headline more interesting and eye catching.

One of the great things about having no traffic is you can make mistakes and tweak things without anybody knowing. There is only one critic, you.

That’s what I did this morning, but while changing the settings on Feedburner I noticed an option to post updates to my feed on Twitter. I don’t even have a Twitter account.

OK that’s not quite true.

In fact I have two that I set up in the past couple of years. But that’s all I did, I set them up. I haven’t logged into either account since.

Maybe it is time to do Twitter properly. And since Feedburner has offered to do it for me every time I add a post, well, it seems foolish not to.

Setting up a Twitter account is fast and easy. I now have 3 accounts! My latest, @IvanisLearning, I will use just for internet marketing and anything related to this site.

I Googled “best internet marketers to follow on Twitter” and found this list of Top 25 Online Marketers to Follow on Twitter.

I picked 10 of them and started following them.

I then wrote my first Tweet with a link to Day 1 of my path to making money online. This is it:

Next I went back to Feedburner and activated the option to send feed updates as Tweets. Easy. You can add standard text that will appear before the post title name and of course a link to the post will be included.

Last thing that needed to be done was to add a Twitter follow button to the website. This was easy with my Prose theme from StudioPress. There is a widget just for that very purpose. Enter your Twitter name and it does the rest.

I’m starting to wonder what other goodies my Genesis theme has that regular WordPress themes don’t have. Am I spoiled but don’t even know it? Someday when I’ve time I’ll do a comparison and see if it was worth the 80 bucks.

But right now I got to say I’m pretty pleased with myself. 3 hours ago Twitter scared me. I didn’t understand it.

Now I’m beginning to. And I’m excited!

And you know the craziest thing? I have 20 followers already!

I have spent the last number of days learning everything I can about WordPress.

Today, I’m starting a guide – how to set up a WordPress blog – so I don’t forget everything I’ve learned so far. I also know that I still have lots to learn so I intend to start the guide today, but I will come back and update this page whenever I learn something new.

I also invite you to make suggestions. What have I missed? What else should be included? Please tell me!

OK without further to do..

Ivan’s Guide: How To Set Up a WordPress Blog

This guide does not cover installing WordPress or choosing a theme. Instead this guide answers the question, what do I do next?

1. Change your WordPress Permalink settings to a more SEO friendly format.

Why to do it and how to do it is covered in detail in this post.

2. Install these Essential Plugins:

Akismet              

Prevents comment spam. It comes pre-installed with WordPress, but you must purchase an API key to activate it. The API key is free for non-business sites. Get it here.

WP Super Cache

Makes your blog load faster.  Make sure you change this setting so you can see your blog updates immediately.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate an XML sitemap which makes it easier for search engines to index your blog. It will also notify them whenever you publish a new post.

All in One SEO Pack

Automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for search engines. I do not use this plugin myself as most of what it does is included in the Genesis framework as standard. However, for SEO, the All in One plugin seems to be the one recommended by almost everyone. Here’s a video that explains how to use the All in One SEO Pack plugin.

AddToAny

This is a social bookmarking plugin that adds share buttons to the bottom of your posts. I looked at lots of different social plugins and could not find one that I really liked. I’m not crazy about AddToAny either. There are too many options. If you have a social plugin that you love, I would love to hear about it.

3. Learn Some Basic WordPress SEO

Don’t think that just because you installed a plugin you no longer have to think about SEO. In order for your blog to be successful it must be found. SEO is the art (or science) of being found and ranked by search engines. To be successful online you need to understand SEO.

There are SEO guidelines that apply to all websites and there are specific rules for WordPress websites. Here are the best WordPress SEO resources I have found so far.

Jim Westergren’s SEO for WordPress – The Complete Guide
The Blogger’s Guide to SEO from SeoBook.com
The Beginners Guide to SEO from SEOmoz.org
The Definitive Guide To Higher Rankings For Your Blog from yoast.com

Each guide comes at SEO from a slightly different angle so all are worth checking out. If you follow all their advice, nothing will stop you charging up the rankings!

4. Set Your Preferred Domain

This is part of SEO, but is something you should do from the outset so I’m highlighting it separately. You domain can be either:

http://www.mydomain.com

or

http://mydomain.com

If someone enters either address in their web browser they will make it to your home page. However, having two versions can dilute your popularity with search engines. It may also dilute the power of your backlinks if some are pointing at one version and some at another. To solve this problem you need to do two things:

1. On the WordPress General Settings page, make your WordPress address (URL) and Site address (URL) the same, both either with or without the www.

2. Tell Google your Preferred Domain. You do this by creating a Google Webmaster Tools account.

Log in, click Add a site, then Continue. You will have to verify that you are the owner of the website. This is immediate if you already have Google Analytics tracking code installed on your site. You need to add and verify both versions of your website (www and non-www). Next, click on the version you want as your preferred domain, then from the menu on the right choose Site Configuration >> Settings. Under Preferred domain, check the version you want and click Save.

5. Learn How to Use WordPress Tags and Categories Properly

Again this is part of SEO, but is important to know from the very outset. This page explains it pretty well, How to Use Tags for WordPress SEO

6. Add an RSS Feed to Your WordPress Blog

Here’s an easy to follow step by step guide to adding a feed using Feedburner. Feedburner is owned by Google, so apparently you would be crazy to use anything else.

********************

OK that’s it so far. I will be adding more as I discover it.

But please, please tell me what I am missing. I’m a WordPress newbie, I’m only just getting started.

Here’s one problem I found a simple solution to:

Problem

You make changes to your website in WordPress admin. You flick over to the website to see how it looks, but the changes haven’t taken effect. Sometimes you have to wait hours before your site updates. Very frustrating if you are just starting to build your website and are making lots of changes.

Solution

In WordPress Admin, go to:

WP Super Cache>>Settings>>Advanced

Tick the box that reads “Don’t cache pages for known users.”

 

Problem solved.

I have learned a lot about WordPress in the last couple of days, but I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m wandering from setting to setting in Admin, changing things willy nilly without any real plan. I would love a more structured approach, but I cannot find one to follow.

Maybe I will try and create a step by step guide on how to set up a WordPress blog.

To get the ball rolling, my next post is going to be a summary of everything I have learned about WordPress so far.

Yesterday, I completed Chris Farrell’s video course, Create Your First Website by 3.45 This Afternoon. I was very impressed. Today, I am back following his 21 Days to Success videos. I race through Day 5, 6 and 7. Much of it is a repeat of what I learned in the create your own website course.

I am anxious to move forward, learn something new. Day 8 is about monetizing your website. I’m looking forward to that!

But I have a problem.

I haven’t been completely honest with you.

OK, here’s the problem.

So far I have been maintaining this blog offline in MS Word. Why? Because when I started I did not know how to set up a blog! Now I realise this is pretty stupid, I should be publishing in real time.

So what to do? You are reading this online, but on the actual Day 11 of my path to making money online none of this blog was online.

Confused?

Don’t be, it is just a minor crack in the blog-time continuum. It’s my problem, but it needs to be sorted out all the same. I want to get to where I am publishing in real time, otherwise I feel like I’m constantly trying to catch up with myself. It’s not a pleasant feeling!

So here’s what I propose.

I’m going to take some days “off” to figure out how to get this blog online. These days will still count of course. It is all part of my internet marketing education and it is part of my path to making money online. But instead of publishing a post for every day I am going to combine some days together and summarize what I’ve been up to. Or maybe post a few times each day.

So through the miracle of blog time travel, in just a few days from now, I will be all caught up.

What other secrets have I been keeping from you?

None, I promise.

Tomorrow, I will see if it is possible to learn WordPress in a day.

 

Transparent Internet Marketing:  The links to Chris Farrell Membership on this page are affiliate links. I changed them from regular to affiliate links 3 weeks after joining. Based on my experience so far I am happy to recommend his membership site for internet marketing beginners. See other posts about my experiences inside Chris Farrell Membership