How do I get started Blogging??

[m 'n c]

Hey guys. The chattywomen are going to get this thread going tonight to help anyone interested in blogging get started. I'm making a place holder so that everyone knows where to start looking for information.

After reading our starting out tips, if you still want to give it a shot let us know in the newbie thread (in the family issues section) and someone will pm you for your information so that we can set you up on The Chatter (the prerequisite for invitation to Chattywomen).

[m 'n c]

Ok here we go. I'm going to start out with digg.com

Digg.com is a site where you submit your posts for others to read and if they like it they will "digg" it and if they don't they will "bury" you. This site is a great way to get traffic flowing to your site.

So to begin:

Go to digg.com and either Join Digg or sign in using your username and password.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/lsubatgirl/diggphoto1.jpg

Next, go to Friends’ Activity. Here you can see what your friends have been digging or submitting lately. If you don’t have any friends you can add them here. See below:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/lsubatgirl/diggphoto2.jpg

To Add a friend you can either send email invites by linking to your email address book or search by email or username on digg. When you find them you just click on the button that says Add Friend.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/lsubatgirl/diggphoto3.jpg

Once you have set your friends up you can start digging their posts like so:
From the top bar go to Friends’ Activity, click diggs, then you will see a list of recent diggs. You click on the blog title (sentence in blue below next to the big numbers) and go to the next screen.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/lsubatgirl/diggphoto4-1.jpg

digging to be continued...

[m 'n c]

This is the “digg” screen where you go to digg posts. When you haven’t dugg a post right under the number of diggs the button will say digg. Once you have dugg it, it will change to dugg.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/lsubatgirl/diggphoto5.jpg

Well that is how you use digg. It is not hard at all and you can digg more than just your friends’ posts by surfing around the site. You can digg anyone’s posts you like. The importance of using digg and rating your friends’ posts is that it increases the general traffic to your site and thus your page rank gets lowered (which is good). When you have a low page rank you get more opportunities on PPP and other similar sites.

Up next is how to submit a post to digg (make sure you check that it hasn't been submitted before)

[m 'n c]

Now to the fun part of digg! How to submit a blog posting. The first thing you should do is make sure one of your friends has not already submitted your post for you because sometimes they will. The easiest way to do that is look at your friends’ recent activities. If you see your blog post’s title in there its already added and all you need to do is digg it.

If it is not already listed then here is what you need to do:

Go to Submit New in the top toolbar and click. On this page you will need to enter the webpage url of that post and click news article then continue:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/lsubatgirl/diggphoto6.jpg

Next you will need to add in a brief description of the post you are "digging" so that people will want to read it and rate it.
hmm well Hedy already dugg this example for me and I don't have any others right this moment. :rotfl:

Basically a text box will appear, you'll put in a description, then you will retype a code they give you and click submit and its all done.

[nicholfamily5]

I did a tutorial on getting started with ClickThru.com

There is a lot to this site, so I broke it up into set up and starting to earn page views.

Enjoy! And please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

[nicholfamily5]

I'd like to introduce a blogging tool to those who are just starting out, or for established bloggers who are looking for free ways to increase traffic to their blogs. You may be wondering why you want more traffic to your blog. If you have any interest in earning FREE money by writing about your everyday life, well, then you want to be marketing your blog!

One tool in particular has been working out really well so far for the girls at Chattywomen. It is www.clickthru.com (http://www.clickthru.com)

Click Thru is a web surfing site that rewards you for each website you view through their surf remote. You can earn .01 per site; sometimes get special bonuses, which you can then use to purchase unique views for your own site. Even better, you could also choose to use those credits towards buying items.

[nicholfamily5]

Here is a guide to signing up for click thru and adding your blog:

1. Surf on over to www.clickthru.com (psst if you are feeling generous go through one of the existing chattywomens links they'll get a little sumpin sumpin for your referral)

2. In the upper left corner you will see a gray box with steps to follow. Step 1 is to sign up! Click on that link and it will take you to a sign up page.

3. Type in your email address, choose a user name and password, and then read the agreement. When you complete that, go ahead and click the I agree button.

4. Follow the instructions regarding the setup of your account. You will need to choose up to 20 categories. Don't stress about this step. Just pick some categories that you would be interested in reading about. It won't affect your blog at all.

5. Once you get through that step you come to the main browsing page. Go ahead and click on the last tab at the top that says advertise. It will bring you to a page that says you must register a web page to access this page. Go ahead and click on that link.

[nicholfamily5]

6. You will need the URL for your MAIN PAGE make sure you are not pulling the URL from one of your posts! This is very important. You will also enter your site title i.e. The Active Family, and then a brief description of what your site covers. This helps when people are deciding what sites to surf, so make it interesting!

7. Keep the Uniqueness to 1 Day. This just means that people will only see your site once a day, rather than have it cycle through and not see it for a few days.

8. Hit save changes. You may or may not get a message that clickthru couldn't find your URL, simply click on the provided link to have them manually check. Follow the site directions to choose categories that your site will be listed under. Go broad with this; you will limit your potential views if you get too specific.

9. From here you just click all the little boxes for the keywords, and check the Untargeted Page Views box.

10. Finally, you will have the option to surf for advertising or purchase advertising. Click your choice and hit finish setup!

Your web site is now set up. See the next tutorial on how to start earning free views for your site!

[nicholfamily5]

You are now ready to start surfing and earning!

1. Go to the Earn Cash tab at the top. This will bring you to a page with a list of categories. There is also a link towards the left that says surf favorites now. You can either click that link, or choose another category that appeals to you.

2. At the top right will be a yellow box that gives three choices. Click surf these sites!

3. Your browser will open up a new window with a black remote control in the left side panel. Click on the surf now button and it will begin the web cycle. In the right panel a web site will load. All you have to do is check out the site for more than 30 seconds (there is a tiny little clock on the remote that resets with each web page) and then rate the website as good or bad.

4. Don't feel bad if you feel the website should get a bad rating. It helps the monitors target which pages are just pure ads and which could be dead pages.

5. Also, if you hit a rating before the 30 secs you will not get credit. Feel free to stay on a page as long as you like! I've found some really interesting stuff out there through this manner.

6. When you are through surfing, click the power button at the top of the remote. It will then give you a breakdown of how much you earned!
From the remote you can choose to buy page views for your own web page. Simply click on the views button. The page will close and bring you to a clickthru page with your website listed. There is a box sort of in the middle that will have your clickthru cash listed under assign views. You can raise or lower that amount to whatever you wish; you can even add your own views for the listed prices.

7. Hit the submit changes button and you are done! Your page should go into rotation starting the next day.


Those are the basics! There is a lot more to the site, so tool around a bit and see what you discover. I'll cover more topics in a later post as this one seems a bit overwhelming!

[jnorth1007]

Here is the how to on using Wordpress which is the program we use to blog:

Maintaining your Word Press blog program:

When you log in to the wordpress site you will see that there are several tabs at the top. The one that will be most used is the WRITE tab where you will write your posts. The first box of course is for your title and the body goes into the bigger box. Once you have completed your post you can save, save and continue to edit or publish. Publish is the one that will post it to the site. The others only save it to where you can see it. On the right hand side is a space for categories. There will be some that are already set up but you can create your own based upon what your posts are going to be about. These are used to separate your posts by category. Your posts will appear on your front page in order from newest to oldest. The categories allow someone to go in and just look at the posts you have made that you have designated to that category. The next tab on the write page is for Discussion and allows you to accept comments and pings. You want to accept both so that others can participate in your blog. The only other one I have used on this page is the Post Timestamp tab. This is the time and date that post will publish. You can go in and create as many posts as you want and save them instead of publish and then set the timestamp on them for the date and time you want them to post. You can also go in and change the date and time on the timestamp if you need to move the posts around. If you want to switch the order you just change the timestamp to a time that proceeds the time you want to move ahead of.

Another that I use often is managing and it is listed under MANAGE. This one allows you to see a list of your posts and you can view, edit or delete the posts that you have already published. This is also a place to manage your categories beyond just adding new ones.

The next tab is COMMENT. This one should be checked at least every day. When people post a comment to your posts you have to go in and approve, delete, edit or spam those posts. The posts that have not been approved yet will be in a gray shade and those that have been approved will be in darker shades. You go in and click on approve in order to approve a post and then it will show up on your blog as a comment to your blog.

Blogroll is the next tab and it is where you would add , edit or delete those blogs of other people or links to other sites that you want to have appear on the toolbar of your site.

Presentation is where you would go to start adding images and links to your site. These would be widgets and blog directory buttons and things like that. Once in Presentation you go to Widgets and you will be shown the set up for your two sidebars. When the time comes that you want to add information here it is best to get someone to give you specific instructions for the type of information you are adding. Please contact one of the administrators or CW bloggers with experience to help you do this.

That sums up the extent to which I have used the Wordpress so far. I hope this helps in aiding you guys in starting to blog. Good Luck!

[Mom2aPrincess]

Buzzfuse is a community where you can promote your website for free. Below you will find instructions to help you get started using this tool.


1. Join or sign in at Buzzfuse.com
–In the top right corner you will see the option to register. Click here.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/register.jpg
–Fill in your email address and check that you agree to the terms and conditions.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/register2.jpg
–A message will appear that you must confirm your email address within 24 hours.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/confirmation.jpg

[Mom2aPrincess]

2. Confirm your email address and complete registration
–You receive an email similar to this one. Click the confirmation link.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/email.jpg
–When you click the email you should see a website similar to this where you will continue telling them your personal information:
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/activation.jpg
–At this point you have a couple options. The easiest option is 1) Click “click here to skip this step.” The better option is probably 2) “enter contacts manually” if you know (or can PM and get) emails of those who you think would like to read and vote for your blogs. By doing this they can receive emails each time you post something new. (Note: either way is acceptable; you can always come back later and add emails if you like. So don’t hold up signing up while you wait on email addresses).
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/contacts2.jpg

–CONGRATULATIONS!! You are signed up with Buzzfuse

Next Post: Using Buzzfuse to Market Yourself

[Mom2aPrincess]

Congratulations, you are now signed up with Buzzfuse, and now it's time to begin marketing yourself to the Buzzfuse community so that hopefully you can find a few more active readers of your post and also make your rankings slightly better.

1. Write your post in your blog as you normally would and then leave it open in a separate browser or tab.

2. Login to Buzzfuse and gather the code needed to market you post.
--click the red "market content" button on the top of the page
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/marketcontent.jpg

--In the middle of your screen, there will be a box full of html code (if you're not familiar with html code, it'll look like a box of jumbled mess)
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/marketcode-1.jpg

--You're going to need to select everything in that box and copy it! (A short cut I use is I click in the box, and then push "ctrl-a" on my keyboard to "select all" and then "ctrl-c" to copy.)

3. Return to your blog post to paste this code. (As Chatty Women, use Word Press, I'm going to give instructions/screen shots for that software)
--Normally, you write posts in "visual" view, but you'll need to change to "code" view
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/wordpresscodeview.jpg

--Go to the bottom of your post (or wherever you want the buzzfuse box to appear), and paste.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/BuzzCodePasted.jpg

--Now Click "Publish" button as you normally do when you are ready to make your post visible to the public.

[Mom2aPrincess]

4. Activating Your Post (The Final Step)--The first step that I forget about half of the time here is that you need to first click on your post so that you are only seeing that one post (in other words in your browser address bar it should say saying like http://chattywomen.com/busymom/2008/03/31/how-to-promoting-your-blog-with-buzzfuse-part-1/ not just http://www.chattywomen.com/busymom)

--Click the gray colored buzzfuse box in the post (this will cause a pop up screen that takes you to buzzfuse)
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/postactivation.jpg

--In the pop up box, you will find a place to enter the details surrounding your post:
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/popup1.jpg

--Enter the Information about your post and click the "save" button (be sure that the URL is correct and goes to your post, not your entire blog)
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/popup2.jpg

--After clicking "save" the screen will change slightly, and you will then click "publish"
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/publish.jpg

[Mom2aPrincess]

4. Continued--Now you should receive a message thanking you for your submission
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/thankyou.jpg

I know this may seem long (I just gave very specific instructions) and compiicated at first glance, but I promise it's easier than it seems and gets easier every time you do it. Good luck and feel free to ask any questions.

Next: How to Help Promote Your Friends

[Mom2aPrincess]

If you’ve read the first two tutorials in this series, you have joined Buzzfuse and you know how to put the widget at the bottom of your posts so that your posts can receive votes. You are putting this widget in hopes that other Buzzfuse members will read your posts and kindly vote for you. The fair thing to do to be a part of the community is to also vote yourself for posts that have been submitted. While the title of this tutorial is “Promoting Your Friends’ Blogs,” please note that by friends I don’t necessarily mean those that you already know, but also those that you will get to know by being an active member at Buzzfuse.

1. When you login to Buzzfuse, you’ll see a screen such as the one below:
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/Voting1.jpg

2. Click on one title of the post that interests you (I’m going to read the first one) and the actual blog post will be displayed in a pop up screen for you to read.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/Voting2.jpg

3. At the bottom of the post, you’ll see the Buzzfuse widget. Click on that widget.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/voting3.jpg

4. You will now see a screen such as the one below where you can rate the post you just read.
–On this screen, you can rate the post with 1 - 10 stars.
–You can also click “add recomendation” if you liked it and would recommend that others read it.
–Finally if you would like to be notified via email every time this person submits a new post, you can click “add me as fan.”
-For this post, you’ll see that I gave it 10 stars and I’ve added it to my recommendations
-Notice you also have a place that you can add comments if you like.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i238/SHS_Alumni/Buzzfuse/voting4.jpg

Congratulations. If you have followed these directions, you have now ranked your first Buzzfuse post. Remember we are a community and you should check back, read a variety of posts and rank your new Buzzfuse friends.

[nicholfamily5]

Step 1: You need to create a new email, or use an existing email if you prefer. I would suggest you come up with a new email name related to your blog. You can use gmail, yahoo, or any other email server you like.

Step 2: Go to http://services.nexodyne.com/email/index.php (http://services.nexodyne.com/email/index.php) Enter your new email address and choose from the drop down menu the server name.

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd92/nicholfam5/generate.png

[nicholfamily5]

Step 3: Click the Generate button and a red colored URL will show.

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd92/nicholfam5/display.png

Step 4: Highlight the entire URL and right click to copy. Next open your dashboard on ChattyWomen. Click Presentation, then Widgets.

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd92/nicholfam5/presentation.png

[nicholfamily5]

Step 5: Drag a new text box onto one of the sidebars where you want your email button to show. If you need more text boxes, add one at the bottom.

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd92/nicholfam5/dragtext.png

Step 6: Click on the notepad icon in the new text box. A dialog box will open.

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd92/nicholfam5/text.png

[nicholfamily5]

Step 7: Here's where it gets the tiniest bit tricky. In the dialog box, paste the URL that you copied earlier. Place your cursor at the very beginning of the URL and add the code: <img src="
EXACTLY like that!
At the very end of the URL, add the code: "alt="insertyouremailhere@gmail.com" />

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd92/nicholfam5/addimg.png

Obviously where you see MY email, you want to put in YOUR email. Click Save Changes, and then view your site. The email button should be generated where you want it! If you don't like where it is, you can simply drag the text box to another position in your sidebar, save changes, and that's it! The code will remain in the text box, so no need to redo the whole thing.

If you have any questions, or my instructions aren't clear, please pm me.

[nicholfamily5]

Also, the button generator site requests that you add a link to their site if you use their work, reasonably enough. I added the link in my directory folder, but you could place it right under the button if you like, just leave a space between the code, and copy/paste their link. It should appear right under your button.