Before you read this, if you are hoping to do this with no endeavor on your part, think again. To be well-informed on any topic you need to spend some time getting familiar with it.

Often a practical approach works best, for example to become a competent web designer, you need to get crafting up some simple websites to get familiar with coding techniques. Initially you will make many mistakes, but after a period of time things will start to make sense and ultimately the prize will be yours.

Besides following a practical method, there is a lot you can do to become more conversant on any subject.

The first method – Google Searching (Doh!)

I Google for any information any that may to give me some answers to the subject I’m researching. A large percentage of the time I find my answers on the spot. It might not work on the first query I do, but refining the search or trowling through some returned links point me to valuable tutorials or answers to get what I was looking for on my subject.

Ask Google and you shall be given enlightment!

Second method – asking a guru for help is often a great way to get your answers and get it explained to a comprehensible manner. But before you ask, make sure you tried everything possible to learn the answers without help.

One common theme the experts recommend is the conviction that too many people are too lazy to help themselves, so most people turn to the expert instead to find the answer the lazy way.  This isn’t the best way to learn.

No expert will turn you down if you can prove to them that you tried find an answer to a problem by first trying to Google it, or at least spent hours trying to figure out a technical problem.  Besides, most experts love to share knowledge.

Third method - Read industry books

Visit the local library or purchase some good books on your topic of interest, ensure they are focused on your area and explain the concepts at your current level of understanding.

There are lots of books which can help you to design your first site, learn a new programming language in days or even make you an expert WordPress user (maybe I better start reading).

Fourth Method – Share your tips with others

Let others benefit from you areas of experience, sharing knowledge is a great way to learn from others.

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It’s time to check your older posts for some cool content, search for the ones that for some reason strange or wonderful reason the whole world ignored, and recycle them. Here’s some tips on how to do it:

1. First off, change the publish date to today, simple one
2. Then, update any broken links and images, making sure it all looks good
3. Refresh any content areas that are outdated, times do change
   strengthen your content to make it more readable and improve related tags
4. Check your post title, is it catchy – if not how can you improve it?
5. Video content is really cool, so add a YouTube video
6. Link keywords between the refreshed post and other articles, this assists with improving your sites SEO
7. Tart it all up by adding an few images, wrapping the text around them
8. Re-Publish it!

Don’t be afraid to re-use some of your old but great content. Perhaps it wasn’t the right time previously but I’m sure it is now.

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• http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
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• http://api.feedster.com/ping
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• http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
• http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
• http://bblog.com/ping.php
• http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
• http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
• http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
• http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
• http://coreblog.org/ping/
• http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
• http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
• http://ping.amagle.com/
• http://ping.bitacoras.com
• http://ping.blo.gs/
• http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
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• http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
• http://ping.feedburner.com
• http://ping.myblog.jp
• http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
• http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
• http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
• http://ping.weblogs.se/
• http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
• http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
• http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
• http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
• http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
• http://rpc.newsgator.com/
• http://rpc.pingomatic.com
• http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
• http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
• http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
• http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
• http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
• http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
• http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
• http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
• http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
• http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
• http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
• http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
• http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
• http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
• http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
• http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
• http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
• http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
• http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
• http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
• http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
• http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

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Akismet

The must have spam catcher and it’s included in the WordPress distribution. If you haven’t activated it, do it ASAP before the spammers start hitting your site.

Comment Luv

This plugin is responsible for placing the link to your latest posts on comments. Nice plugin, it crawls your site (from the info you submit while commenting), and get’s the latest URL, parse it as HTML beneath your name.Bad thing – To tweak the text that appears with it, there are no options menu, and you have to edit the code. Not too many are comfortable doing it.

No Revisions Plugin

WordPress 2.6 and higher, one new feature that has yet to bite too many people is post revisions. Whenever you save a change in a post in WordPress 2.6, it saves a copy of the old version as well as your changed version. If you hit ’save’ a lot while writing, that can add up to a lot of extra crud in your database.  It was alot sloppier to fix it before this plugin.  You simply install and activate:

Again, make sure you’re turned on plugins are actually useful, either for the additional functionality in your blog or your visitors pleasure.  The more work your blog has to take when loading plugins, can slow down it’s performance. 

Related Posts Plugin

Great plugin thats default configuration is good to go out of the box.  Some capability to customize every part of what related posts automatically generate.  You can insert related post in your posts, pages, and RSS feed.  Great tool for building your blog’s internal linking, but also to increase reader loyalty.

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RSS feeds are generally being utilized in blogs or news sites, although any website wanting to publish information to their readers should use them. Once new content is sent, it will contain a headline, a small portion of text, and either a rundown or a brief review of the news or story. A link is needed be clicked upon to read further.

RSS feeds are widely used everyday by individuals who understand and appreciate the accessibility of fast reports and news that can be readily read and only read certain updates that appeals to them.

Why make a feed available?

You will have more readers of your site, since now, your viewers can conveniently see your site without even going out and looking via browser bookmarks etc.. While at first, it may seem shady, it will in fact enhance the visibility of your site; this is so because users can easily keep up or keep tract with your site, to allow them to view in a way that they want to; it’s more likely that guests are aware should something that is in their interest is available or accessible on your site.

For instance, every month your website broadcasts a new feature. Having no feed, your readers will always have to keep in mind to go to your site in a certain time to see if they discover something new; that is, if they can remember, and if they still have the time. However, if you supply a feed for your readers, they can just point to their preferred aggregator and it will instantly provide them a link along with a description of happenings or events at your site immediately.

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Once you have your web site finished and you have selected and purchased a great domain name, you need to start thinking about what sort of Hosting Package will best suit your business needs. There are all sorts of things to think about; web space, data transfer, applications (PHP and MySQL), web statistics, mail boxes, the list goes on. But what are all these concepts and how do you work it all out so you can find out if a hosting provider supplies your requirements.

Web Space

This relates to the amount of disk storage space in megabytes (MB) that the hosting provider allocates for your web site / storing your e-mail and web log files on their server.

Data Transfer (Bandwidth)

This is the amount of traffic your web site is allowed to receive per month. Discuss with your hosting provider will your requirements and they should then advise you which package would best suit your needs.

Mail Boxes

A mail box captures and stores all e-mails you receive.  These in turn can be retrieved by traditional clients such as Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird. The hosting provider should provide all details required to setup your mail client.  This is done by attaching your e-mail address to the mail server. Remember, you may require a number of mail boxes, Ie. One for each staff member in your business. 

SSL – secure server access

This facility allows provides the ability to encrypt data between you and your customers, allowing you to accept data securely on your website, like credit card transactions, without fear of someone else getting hold of it.

MySQL

MySQL is a database server that stores information used in the construction or operation of your web site. Not all hosting packages provide this facility. Your wed site designer should provide requirements if this is needed, then check with your chosen provider for details on setup.

Web Statistics

These packages allow you to check how many visitors your website receives, what browsers they are using, the referring website and a whole host of other information. It’s a worth while addition to your website. Some hosting providers offer this feature for free. Check with them for information.

There are lots of other features that come with web hosting packages and this information can usually be found on the provider’s website.

Control Panel

For ease of maintenance, a feature called a Control Panel is a necessity; this tool will normally allow for regular maintenance, be it email mailbox additions/deletions, password resets, web additions, web count reports, statistics and so on. If the site is for any sort of business, this is an absolute must.

Customer support

Web site hosting service isn’t just all these technical things. Based on personal experience, even a top-notch service with all the bells and whistles is worthless without customer support. If you own a business website, your hosting provider needs to be there for you 24/7 and give you instant access to the technicians you need to solve your problem; otherwise, you may end up losing customers and money.

Availability guarantee and service monitoring

Having a personal website go down is a minor inconvenience; but having a business website go down can be a serious matter – lots customers, potential revenue etc. What amount of profit would you lose if your site had been down for a week? Long downtime may be very harmful to today’s companies which spend large amounts of money on advertising their websites. Essentially, there are two rules regarding reliability that one should look at:

1. You should check if there is an availability guarantee offered. A true customer service focused provider will also give a money-back guarantee, offering a discount or free service as compensation for downtime. Any company which avoids taking responsibility won’t put much effort into the service.

2. I definitely wouldn’t go with a company claiming 100% availability, as there is no such thing as a server with 100% uptime. If anyone ever claims their server has a 100% uptime they are either lying or they don’t perform the necessary upgrades that prevent a machine from being compromised.

Acceptable use policy

Web hosts may have 200-300 or more different clients (and more actual web sites) per server; there is no exact number, as companies have different hardware and each hosted web site has different resource usage. There always is a possibility that a few of those customers host illegal content. There are web hosts who have had their servers unplugged, resulting in all websites going down. I’m sure you don’t want to put your business at risk and have your website hosted on the same server together with illegal material and software sites, so check host’s acceptable use policy to find out, if the host takes care of what’s hosted on their servers.

Hosting your site on an uncared-for server will also result in a low speed. If somebody on the same server sends spam, the server’s IP address will be blacklisted and you’ll have serious problems as recipients stop receiving your emails. Use the “Spam database lookup” feature on www.DNSstuff.com to check if a web hosting company is blacklisted. Spam is being sent almost everywhere, so having one or two red records isn’t that bad; but, if there are more, it may become a problem later on.

Differences between Free or Paid Hosting Providers

Some hosting providers offer free hosting packages but there are usually terms and conditions attached to them. They could include the following:

Free

1. The URL or website address could show signs of free hosting like www.freewebhosting.myhost.co.uk. These sorts of URL’s are not very professional and you loose your company image and identity.

2. Web space and Data transfer are both usually low. Your website could be taken offline until the following month if bandwidth is exceeded or you could be charged for any bandwidth used over your allowance. Always read the terms and conditions.

3. Hosting providers offering free packages usually place banner or pop up advertising on your website. This can be very confusing and annoying you and your customers and drive them away from your site.

4. Advanced features such as PHP, MySQL databases, sub domains, SSL secure server access are usually not available when using free website hosting.

Paid

1. You can use your own domain name (URL) with the hosting package. You can also usually purchase them direct from the provider.

2. You can usually get 24/7 support, see my comments below.

3. Server availability or uptime is the amount of time the web hosting servers are online. Sometimes maintenance work can mean their servers are offline for a short while.  See my comments below.

4. You can choose a package that supplies the correct amount of web space and data transfer.

5. Lots of advanced features are usually offers. Check with the provider.

6. A control panel is usually offered so that you are in control of managing your hosting package.

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Gotcha #1 Contact Information

You need to provide your contact information, phone numbers (if the site is attached to a physical business), e-mail addresses, and physical address. The reason for this is if a potential customer wants to contact you for whatever reason they can!

Gotcha #2 Poor Structured

Make sure your website is well structured and that all links are obvious. You should even use sub-headings to make it even more clear where content is on the site. You don’t want to have to make people search.

Gotcha #3 Checkout

Make the checkout process straightforward and easy. Too many times people get to the checkout and it is tricky, asks for a lot of pointless information, and generally takes longer than the potential purchaser wants to spend buying the product. As a result, the customer (think of the shopping trolley left in the aisle!) leaves your site to buy the product or service elsewhere. Don’t let this happen to you; make your checkout fast and easy!

Gotcha #4 Typos

If your website has typographical errors, it will be noticed by your visitors. Many people consider this a sign of a greenhorn, not a professional who is in business trying to make a living. If your website is full of typos, people are not going to believe that you take your site seriously and as a result they won’t either.

Gotcha #5 Hidden Content

Do not hide content. You as a webmaster might not think the content is hidden, but if it is easy to find or visible it might as well be hidden. Make all information obvious and easy to find.

Gotcha #6 Personal Information

Do not ask for personal information, and if you do explain why and make it optional (unless required for delivery etc.). Many times customers will want to buy your product and get to the checkout page only to have to answer lots of personal questions that don’t relate to the product or service nor the actual sale. This will send people to other less inquisitive pages.

Gotcha #7 Too Many Forms

Keep it simple (KISS – Keep it simple stupid!). If you are asking for memberships, checkouts, or anything that requires information, do not use a lot of forms. Figure out what questions you really need to ask and keep it short and sweet.  Also, only ask the question once, don’t keep re-asking for previously captured information.

Gotcha #8 Customer Focus (You, not We)

Focus on your customers, their needs and desires, and what you can do for them. Your customer is not going to your site to find out about you, but what product or service you have for them. Remember this and if you have to put a web history about yourself (Vanity!), then do so in a special section where people can opt to read it.

Gotcha #9 Guide the customers decision making process

Potential customers might not know what they want when they go to your web site, sounds like my shopping experiences. So, guide them, make suggestions about products, and provide backgrounds and uses for different products.

Gotcha #10 Site Theme

Make sure the focus of your site is obvious and clear throughout the site.

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Imagine if you are running an off-line company. Would you allow your sales staff to be dressed in scruffy or informal clothes when they are dealing with your customers? By making your staff wear clothes suitable for their role, you are telling your customers that you do care about quality and services. This works simply because first impressions matter.

Similarly, the same case is with your web site. If your web site is put together shabbily and looks like a 5 minute knock up job, you are literally screaming to your visitors that you are not professional and you do not care for quality.

However, if you have a entirely professional looking web site layout, you are giving your visitors the view that you have given thorough attention to every detail and you care about professionalism. You are organized, focused and you really mean business. 

You should also have anything related to your company well designed. From business cards to sales letters to letterheads to promotional brochures, every little bit is important. This is because as you grow your business, these items become the face of your business; your customers continuously refer to them. Once again, think of the “sales staff dressed shabbily” analogy, and you will get my point.

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Although the great features that WP offers to make your blog decent you need some plugins that are free to download.  These are the ones I most commonly use:

• All In One Seo Pack :   It’s a plugin that makes instant SEO to your blog post. The post are optimized in Search Engines and submitted very fast.  Let’s you set MetaData for your blog, in a single place.
• All in One Adsense and YPN: automatically inserts google adsense ads or yahoo publisher network (YPN) ads in to your posts on the fly.
• Google Analyticator: adds the necessary JavaScript code to enable Google Analytics logging on any WordPress blog.
• FeedBurner FeedSmith :   This plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed account so you can track every possible subscriber.  

• Google XML Sitemaps : This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO.
• Really Simple Sitemap: lists all of your published posts so that a user (or search engine) is never more that 2 clicks away from any post on your blog.
• Sociable: Adds social media buttons to your posts.  Adding this plugins to your default WP blog provides a solid foundation to your new blog. They are very easy to install and require not very high skills to configure. 

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Wordpress is free software for blogging which easy to use, provide a variety of themes, and excellent support. In this article you can begin to discover how effective this software as a tool for creating your blog, tips on starting a blog, and the support offered by Wordpress.

• There are a lot of reasons why Wordpress is the perfect choice to start a blog. 
• One of the reason is Wordpress is open source software, means the use of this software is free. 
• The setup process is fast and the software is easy to use.
• The ability to tag posts and categorize easily.
• Great variety of templates.
• The ability to post text, video and audio files.
• Features for instance spell check, auto save and previews.
• There are about hundreds of free plugin available to support variety of functions.

Bloggers with no programming experience may benefit from these features while experience bloggers may be more interested in advance options.

You can start a blog with Wordpress within minutes. You have only these simple things to do in order to publist your article:

• Login to your blog.
• Write your thoughts and ideas
• Click a button to publish your thoughts.

Many people don’t want to deal with a long or complicated process to start their blog. Before you start your new blog, you have to fill the sign up form. You need a username and valid email address and after receive a password, you can start blogging immediately.

There are 3 types of Wordpress:

• Wordpress.com is a version hosted by Wordpress.  Your blog URL will be a http://yourblog.wordpress.com
• Self installed Wordpress. This version available at wordpress.org . You can install the software on your own web server with your own domain. Fantastico feature at cpanel makes the installation easier for newbie.
• Wordpress MU available at mu.wordpres.org. This version is just right for corporations because with one installation you can run multiple blogs on one domain. Unfortunately it is not free.

For those with little or no experience on blogging, the support by Wordpress is vital. The supports include a large member’s community through online forum, or make contact with the support staff.

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