How To Split An Atom

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Ostensibly, How to Split An Atom is about Web 2.0 and its surrounding technologies. In reality, since Web 2.0 is such a loosely defined and all together useless buzz-word, I pretty much have the freedom to write about anything. Today, I am going to answer the question that has been on all of your mind since you got on the interweb. How do I become a Web 2.0 Millionaire, or How to Blog: A Definitive Guide.

This is not a guide for your casual blogger who wants little more out of the experience than to create a platform to share opinions and maybe attract a reader or two in the process. If you fall into this category, the guide can be summarized as such:

• Go to Tumblr.com.
• Sign up for an account.
• Add content until you are blue in the face.
• Get bored.
• Retire from blogging.

For everyone else with the dream of becoming the next John Chow or Mike Arrington (famous bloggers, for those who have just stepped onto the internet), then read on.

Assess Your Skills

Here is a quick checklist to see whether or not you have what it takes to become a famous blogger. The more of these that you can answer yes to the better your odds are going to be. If you score less than two on this impromptu quiz, might I suggest going into a different industry. I hear Oil Futures are really hot these days.

• Do you like to write?
• Do you know how to write?
• Do you have a working knowledge of a specific subject matter or the willingness to learn?
• Do you have a lot of free time on your hands?
• Are you patient?

Number three and number five are by far the most important. The most important skill a blogger, especially a blogger who wants to make a living at this, can have is the willingness to learn. Sometimes, you’ll find yourself reading your 500th guide to increasing your traffic, ready to kill the next person who links you the list of free directories that you must submit your site to when you’ll stumble upon a really exciting tip that you can put to good use.

Patience comes a very close second to the willingness to learn. For a while, unless you are some kind of SEO superstar or you have enough insider information to draw crowds to come read the latest fruit to fall from your grapevine, your traffic is going to be bad. No, let me expand on that, it is going to be really bad. You need to know how to accept this and keep chugging away.

Tip: Blog Carnivals are places where you can submit articles. If you are accepted, links to these articles will be posted on the host site. Not only does this generate traffic but because of the number of carnivals that are syndicated, it will also generate quite a few links back to your site.

Find A Niche

So you are sitting at home wondering: what can I write about? Well, the answer is anything really. As long as you are passionate about the subject matter and know enough about it to write fresh content everyday, the skies are open to you.

Now, lets say you are trying to make money. Then, your options are more limited. Let me tell you a little story about how keywords are sold which might help you choose your niche more wisely.

Advertisers pay the most money for keywords that are going to generate the most profit. Thus, if you write a blog about cutting edge technology like High Definition Television or Premium Stereo Equipment then you are much more likely to generate revenue from the major contextual advertising networks than if you wrote a blog about cheese graters. A few more high yield subjects are:

Law
Real Estate
SEO / Online Marketing
Consumer Electronics

Just think about any blog you have ever seen that has made you want to cringe, either because it looked like it was slapped together from a child’s Make Your First Website kit, or because the content managed to be both mindless and repetitive at the same time. Chances are it is only one of 50 other sites that someone created simply to host Adsense because they knew that the keyword that this site was optimized for would generate high paying contextual advertising.

For all of you who are thinking of taking this route, don’t. Google is taking a pretty hard line against Adsense Arbitrage (see above) and there is no reason to waste time trying to game the system, when the real long term benefit comes from writing about your passions.

Tip: Use mod-rewrite to change the way that your permalinks are presented. Having your articles labeled with www.domain.com/?p=111 is a great way to ruin your search engine placement. If you’re using Wordpress go to Admin->Options->Permalink to change how your permalinks are displayed to something prettier, I’d suggest /%category/%postname/.

Pick A Domain

Tip: The most important SEO tip that you can possible get: make sure that your domain name contains the keywords that you want to be found in search engines for.

Buy Your Domain

Now that you have a subject matter to write about, it’s time to pick a domain name. Since this is a definitive guide, I’m going to make your job easier. Use www.GoDaddy.com
(this link has my affiliate id in it, share the love). Not only does it provide some of the best service when it comes to domain name registration, but you can also find coupon codes just littering the internet. Most of these codes will save you about a dollar.

Tip: Use code gdbb776 to save 10% off of your next GoDaddy purchase.

Also, on GoDaddy’s website they have a tool that allows you to see whether your award winning name has already been taken. Chances are good that it has been, but here are a few hints to picking an alternative.

Try to pick a name relating to your subject. If you are writing a Tech Blog, pick something techie.

Try to pick something that is easily brandable. If you can’t get a keyword into your domain, at least pick one that you can generate a coherent brand around.

Use your name. When in doubt, use your name. John Chow did it, and he certainly isn’t complaining.

Do not use numbers, obscure references, or anything that looks like the subject line to your last spam email.

Finally, .com is your friend. When you are worrying about building traffic, you will find that it is the most well known and thus the easiest to build around. If you have the option between a slightly less ideal .com name and the perfect .tv name, I’d suggest picking the .com.

Now, as far as their hosting is concerned I am less thrilled, but for hosting you should be using Steel Pixel (hint, hint) anyway.

Choosing Your Platform

Tip: Download the All in One SEO Pack to help get your basic Wordpress install ready for the search engines.

There are just about as many blogging platforms as there are ways to fail at blogging. I would go through them all, but the only ones that are worth mentioning are Wordpress, Typepad and Blogger and if I were to choose hands down which platform that you should pick it would be Wordpress.

Wordpress is your friend

Why Wordpress? That’s easy, it has a thriving community, a constantly updated codebase, and more plugins than you can shake a stick at. Not only that, it is so easy to install that even if your last big internet project was setting up Aunt Myrtle’s AOL account, you probably will be able to figure it out just from reading their guide.

Before even trying to install Wordpress you should pick up an FTP Client. Refer to the guide I linked to above for more information about how they work.

Picking A Template

Tip: Find piles of Wordpress Templates here and some substantially more interesting ones here

For me, this is the most important part, primarily because a lot of it is a stylistic decision. Some general tips when picking a template are:

Pick something that makes your text stand out. People are going to your site to read your content. You want to put that content at center stage.

Keep it simple. There are a lot of very complicated themes out there, again it is important to remember that your product is text and you don’t want to distract from that with a lot of flash.

Two columns or three columns? This a difficult choice. The two column look is classic, simple and usually provides amble room for anything you might want to place in a sidebar. Three columns has the advantage of giving you more room for ads at the expense of looking more cluttered.

A theme is like a marriage, once you pick one you should stick to it. People become used to a certain look and feel from your site. If you dramatically change your theme, be sure to warn your readers ahead of time. Also know that changing your theme is like a divorce and chances are there will be fallout (in the form of losing all the tweeks you made to the old theme).

Look at that, if you made it all the way through the first part of this guide you should have a fully functioning blog that is only missing text to make it complete. Tune in next time for the different types of blog content, how to write them and what you should do to make yourself the next Web 2.0 superstar.