Creating a blog for online business can be a challenge for newbies. My advice to those who are technically challenged (like me!) is to get someone else to do it for you. I can line you up with an associate of mine, Garry Parkes, who will install your Wordpress blog for FREE!

If you haven’t read my previous post (yesterday) you will first need to reserve a domain name. ie the name you have chosen for your blog. You can get the best deal from www.namecheap.com (under $10 per year). Remember that it’s always best if you can get a .com name.

You will also require a hosting company (the place in cyberspace where your blog "lives") and the best price on the internet is $4 a month and is only available by referral, through Garry’s special discounted hosting package at Hostgator (one of the most reliable hosting companies around).

If you’d like to be put in touch with Garry, please email me at Gaielle@SharpMarketingMethod.com .

After your basic blog has been installed you will want to personalize it with one of the thousands of different free Wordpress themes. My advice is to go to http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ where there are over 500 tried and tested themes. Select one that is "widget ready". This means that it is already set up with certain functions such as "archives", "blogroll", "comments" etc. The ones you won’t need can be disabled quite easily after installation.

If you are unable to follow the instructions in setting up your theme in Wordpress, don’t panic - help is available. I wasted a week trying to do it myself and then I took the advice of my mentor, Alex Jeffreys. He says that if you can’t work it out, don’t waste your time - just pay someone else to do it. I went to www.getafreelance.com and within 10 minutes I had over a dozen willing helpers. I chose one who had perfect feedback and only quoted me $40 to get my blog how I desired plus ongoing support if I had any further questions after I’d settled in. It’s the best $40 I’ve spent so far in my business-building journey.

If you do need any help, I can hook you up with my $40 techno-guy. Just email me at: gaielle@sharpmarketingmethod.com .

My next piece of advice is to download the FREE ebook from Alex Jeffreys if you haven’t already done so. In it you will find out all about the steps involved in getting started in your online business. Enter your name & email in the box at the right of this page.

The main reason for a business blog is to offer other people help and information. Your mindset needs to be in "Building an online business to provide VALUE for your readers." People are always searching for either HELP or ANSWERS or INFORMATION. Your blog should be geared towards giving them what they NEED.

If you continue to provide GREAT CONTENT in your blog you will build trust and loyalty. People will keep coming back to your blog. Now you may be wondering how you can make an income from giving away information. This is the exciting part! You should offer something for FREE - like an newsletter or an ebook. In order for your readers to obtain access to whatever it is, they would need to register their first name and email address in an OPT-IN box, to enable you to send it to them.

This is done via an autoresponder service. What happens is that their details are sent to your autoresponder which then sends an email (automatically) asking them to confirm that they do want the information. When they confirm, the autoresponder sends another email with the LINK (address) to click on to get that book or service. Meanwhile you now have a name and email address in your LIST.

You will gradually start to build a nice list of "subscribers" whom you know are interested in the topic of your blog. This LIST will become the major source of your income. If you look after your subscribers, they will be eager to hear from you and trust that you are there to assist them. In due course you will begin marketing to your list. That’s where the saying comes from "THE MONEY IS IN THE LIST".

In the next post I’ll talk about the best autoresponder there is: aWeber. It is the safest and most user friendly autoresponder on the internet. The best marketers use aWeber. It is well worth $19.95 a month because it will automate many of your tasks and help you keep your subscribers informed.

For now, your homework is to get your blog to this first stage

• Register your domain name at http://www.namecheap.com/
• Get you hosting company and point your domain name to it (remember, Garry is offering $4 a month from Hostgator)
• Get your blog from Wordpress http://wordpress.com/ (let Garry do this for you & have it installed to your host for FREE)
• Find the theme you want at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ and make a note of the name
• Sign up for an aWeber account at http://www.aweber.com/?308836
• Configure the theme to look the way you want (if you need, my techno-guy can do that for $40, including support. Email me on gaielle@sharpmarketingmethod.com )

So for now, have fun with this and remember that there is help available if you need it.

Gaielle.
http://www.SharpMarketingMethod.com/newbies-guide-to-creating-a-blog-for-online-business

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