Top 10 Steps for Creating a Free Blog for Your Business (Optional Extra: a Journalism Degree)

May 21, 2010 • Atlanta, GA USA – If you want to start a blog for your business – and like “the look” of my blog — here are the free blogging tools I use to create it (and why):

• WordPress – our tech installed WordPress on the same server (on our network) that hosts www.GREATtv.com. (Our internet connection is via AT&T U-verse service with 24 Mbps down/3 Mbps up.) While it is probably easier to set up a WordPress account at WordPress.com, in the long run, you’ll be happier – and be able to do more things – if you set up WordPress to run on your server. While it helps, you don’t need to know a thing about html – nor do you need tech help – to do the following …
• HeatMap Ads Theme for WordPress by Stuart Wider – allows me to easily add and organize: Google AdSense; affiliate referral commission plans such as Amazon Associates; has 12 widget positions; connects easily with Google Analytics and Google FeedBurner; and is SEO optimized. Stuart’s HeatMap User Guide is easy-to-follow. While there is no free support (Hey! The Theme is free!), you can opt for a $35 12-month HeatMap Insider Forum 12-month membership for support and additional theme options. I use the following widgets that are included in HeatMap: 1) GREAT! Blog Categories; 2) GREAT! Blog Calendar; 3) GREAT! Blog Archives; Subscribe by Email; 4) Site Admin feature at the bottom of my blog; 5) GREAT Blog Tags (Cloud).
• Google Adsense Widget – While I make a few pennies every time you click on the display ad to the right or click on the Ads by Google links at the bottom of this page, I like seeing the nicely designed content-relevant display ads on my blog such as a Starwood hotel on my blog Travel page.  The Ads by Google content-relevant links at the bottom of the page help anchor the page. It’s free to set up a Google Adsense account.
• Google Custom Search Engine – With the HeatMap theme, it’s easy to ad the Google Custom Search contest relevant bar just above the headline. While searching Google means that you will likely exit my blog, it just feels right to add this feature to my blog. Plus, if you try a search, you’ll see Ads by Google listed at the top of your search and a display ads in the column to the right-bottom.
• Amazon Associates Affiliate Program – If you would like to make money with an affiliate program – look for “Affiliate Program” at the bottom of nearly every shopping website – Amazon is probably not the way to go. While I earn 4 percent a month for Amazon purchases – and sometimes more depending on monthly volume – nearly every other Affiliate Programs pays more. I like the the look of the Amazon display ads to the right: 1) GREAT! Recommends (books); 2) playing and buying .mp3 files and for providing; and 3) Amazon.com search “pre-filled” with my choice of words: “social media.” It’s free to set up an Amazon Associates affiliate account. If you buy a lot of books and/or merchandise from Amazon, it’s worth setting up the Amazon Associates affiliate account for your personal Amazon purchases. (If not, feel free to buy from Amazon through my Amazon Associates affiliate account by searching Amazon in the column to the right. Thank you, in advance!)
• TweetRoll by Tweetburn Widget – while there are many widget choices for displaying tweets on a blog, I like the inclusion of the “My Friends” photos and that it was easy to re-size this widget to fill the column width to the right.
• FeedBurner Widget – The FeedBurner widget is displayed in the top left of each post to my blog. Feedburner makes it easy for you to receive an email of each new blog post (or read via your favorite RSS Reader such as Google Reader). I also used the FeedBurner widget for the GREAT! Blog Subscription option in the bottom-right. This widget allows me to see the email address of my subscribers. If you click on the link for FeedBurner widget, scroll down for English.
• ShareThis Plugin – I place the Share This Story icon and text at the bottom of each blog posts. This happens automatically, once set-up.  (You can change the text or which icon to use.) ShareThis provides free metrics. I liked the ShareThis Widget the best of the social media sharing widgets that I tried. It’s simple. It works.
• Surveys Plugin – To see an example of my use of the Survey Widget, please click on January 2010 in the GREAT! Blog Calendar to the right. You’ll see my post about “First Every Booth Babes Bingo Held at 2010 CES Trade Show in Las Vegas – ‘We Have A Bingo!’” … Scroll to the end of this blog post to see —> Vote Now for your Booth Babes Bingo Top 10 (Pick Up To 10) …Then select Submit Survey. I tried other survey widgets. This Surveys Plugin works with the HeatMap Ads Theme for WordPress. Compatibilities of Widgets with a specific theme can be a challenge.
• Topsy Retweet Button Plugin – While this button – top-right of this story – is redundant to the ShareThis Button, I like how it looks and it makes it easy to re-Tweet this blog post; and to see whom has re-Tweeted the blog post. (And, thank you for re-Tweeting …) Again, not all re-Tweet Widgets that I tried worked with the HeatMap Ads Theme, so this was a bit of trial and error, to pick one that I like … and works!
• Tweet This Link – You’ll see this link at the bottom of each blog post. It is redundant to both the ShareThis Button and Topsy Retweet Button Plugin, but it still looks like it belongs where I placed it. And, once you set it up, it’s placed automatically.
• Viper’s Video Quicktags Plugin — While I know how to embed YouTube html code, I’d rather stay in the visual mode of the WordPress edit posting view. Alex’s (“Viper007Bond“) widget makes it easy to share video simply by doing a “copy and paste” of the video’s URL. (Plus, it works the same way to embed videos in the blog from 10 other video sources such as Vimeo, Google Video, Viddler, Veoh and MetaCafe. The ease-of-use of this widget for embeding videos outweighs some of the loss of customization you get by working directly with the html code.
• Akismet Widget – spam filter blocks hundreds of spam comments to my blog post. (Thanks Reggie for showing me how to implement this Widget at the Atlanta Bloggers WordPress night.) This is a “must have” widget, or you will spend hours deleting comments to your blog that are spam! It’s amazing how much spam arrives as comments to my blog posts.

Careful about adding too many Google AdSense display ads, widgets and plug-ins. While these tools can make your blog look great – pun intended – and blog creation easier; page load times can get out-of-control resulting in your visitors leaving your blog even before your page finish loading.

And, while all the tools listed above are free, it does cost extra to get a Bachelor of Arts Journalism degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Go Tar Heels!

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Editor’s Note (5/21/10):

The Atlanta Bloggers Monthly Meetup 6:30 pm Wednesday, June 2, 2010 is all about using WordPress; including templates, plug-ins and more. This Atlanta Bloggers event is free. Search #atlblog on Twitter for updates on this event.  As many as 100 of 500+ Atlanta Bloggers members turn out for these meetups and we’re all delighted to answer (and ask) questions. This upcoming Atlanta Bloggers meetup – plus the questions that I get about my blog – inspired this blog post. This Meetup will be moderated by Marna Friedman – who along with Mike Schinkel – are the co-organizers of The Business of WordPress Conference.

If you are interested in a “deep dive” into WordPress, check out The Business of WordPress Conference in Atlanta June 22-23, 2010. The conference is about using WordPress for business: not about blogging. If you would like to recommend WordPress resources that would be helpful to share with those just getting started with WordPress, please Comment to this blog post.

While I have not read WordPress for Dummies, it’s probably a great resource to help get you started. (And, you can order it via my Amazon Associates affiliate website to the right and I’ll receive at least 4 percent of your purchase.)

Editor’s Note (5/25/10):

If you would like WordPress training, check out OSTraining.com. I met Open Source Training Director of Training Steve Burge at the ATDC Startup Showcase on Monday (5/24/10) in Atlanta.