Supplemental Guide for the Wedemic Course

Blogging for Authors

Jason Matthews

Dedicated to new and developing blog owners. May you reach people all over the world.

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your

friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial

purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form.

Table of Contents

Section 1: Introduction

Welcome to Blogging

Best Settings and Free PDF Guide

Meet Me

Benefits of Blogging

Section 2: Hosting Options

Platform Options

Examples

Section 3: Getting Started

Domain Name Planning

Creating a Blog at Wordpress (com) and Blogger

Starting with Wordpress (.org)

Choosing a Template

Adding Pages

Section 4: Keywords

Keyword Research

Custom Domains and Support

Section 5: Blogging Elements

Choosing a Topic

Adding Text

Getting Images

Adding Images

Adding Video

Section 6: Sidebars

Sidebar Items

Updates

Section 7: Social Media

Social Media Icons

Social Media 2

Connect Sites and Enable Sharing

Section 8: Let’s Publish!

Publishing Posts

Go Dashboard Diving!

Add Tidbits

Finale and Get Featured on My Blog

Other Courses with Coupon Codes

About the Author and his Books

Section 1: Introduction

Use this guide as a compliment to the video course. The following section titles correspond to the lessons within the video course and are in the same order. All of the important hyperlinks are listed within for the matching lesson where they appear in the video. They are active hyperlinks, so you can click on them to visit those websites instead of retyping.

Welcome to Blogging

Hello and welcome to Blogging for Authors, where we’re going to put the power of blogs to work for you.

I’m Jason Matthews, and I’ll be sharing my tips for making a blog that assists any author with online platform. Get ready for a major boost to your internet visibility and help with your main objective: getting more people reading your words.

For authors who don’t yet have a blog, we’re going to help you create a great one. For authors who already have one but could use some help, we’re going to improve it and make it work for you even better.

First of all, good for you for taking an in interest in blogging. You can be proud of the effort you're making to improve your author platform. Also let me assure you that I know blogs can be intimidating for newbies. They sound technical and they sound time-consuming. While that can be the case for some people, it doesn’t have to be for you, and we’re going to create awesome blogs that are easy for anyone to maintain in a manner that fits into your schedule.

We’ll be working with the two main blogging platforms: Wordpress and Blogger. Both are free blogging venues with no monthly hosting costs, although Wordpress has two versions: Wordpress.com that is self-hosted and entirely free, and Wordpress.org which has free templates but requires hosting elsewhere which is likely to cost you money. Wordpress.org does have more features though most users will need to pay monthly hosting fees wherever they decide to host the blog. That’s a fine choice for authors with deeper pockets, but we’ll use our free options for most of the examples in this video: Blogger and Wordpress.com. For people who use Wordpress.org templates or blog through another venue, they can still use all of the lessons from this course for their blogs. I personally have had two free blogs for several years, one with Wordpress.com and the other with Blogger, and I love them both and the fact that they’re free.

Hyperlinks:

Best Settings and Free PDF Guide

It’s extremely helpful to watch this course in the best settings: full screen and HD (high definition). At most retailers the default setting may be a smaller screen with video quality that is less than optimal, so you can change that by clicking the full screen button as well as the HD (high definition) button. They are usually in the lower right area but you may find them elsewhere depending on your retailer.

It’s also helpful to download the free PDF guide that goes with this course (or you may be reading it now). It contains key text concepts as well as the important hyperlinks for the websites mentioned so you won’t have to retype them. Download it and save it to your computer.

Meet Me

Allow myself to introduce… myself. - Austin Powers

I’m Jason Matthews, an author, speaker and publishing coach working with writers around the world. My specialties include building author platform, selling at retailers, social media, blogging and SEO. I’ve helped thousands of writers with their goals, and I can help you too.

Like you, I’m a writer first, and I got started in this business because I wanted more people reading my books. I first wrote two novels and decided to self-publish because I found the traditional route difficult to navigate, but I also liked the freedoms, higher royalties and immediate gratification of self-publishing. Plus I loved the revolution that was happening within the publishing industry and wanted to be a part of it.

The Little Universe and Jim’s Life were my first books, full length novels that I was proud of. Since I knew marketing the books was my responsibility, I began doing a bit of everything I could find to accomplish the task. That meant participating in social media, press releases, advertising, even creating a website and a blog. Back then I had no idea how important the blog would become to my marketing efforts, it was just something I heard was a smart thing to do. In time I learned it was the most powerful resource I had, and the surprising thing about it was that it was free of monthly costs, although I did pay a nominal annual fee for a custom domain name. That blog has been a fantastic way for me to stay active with writing while marketing my books and networking with people all over the world. It helped me step out of the shadows and into a brighter role as a new author, being discovered by a growing number of readers.

My experiences with self-publishing led me to mentor other writers and eventually produce more books, these on things related to what authors could do to accomplish their goals. I wrote How to Make, Market and Sell Ebooks All for Free, How to Make Your Own Free Website and Your Free Blog Too, and Get On Google Front Page: SEO Tips for Online Marketing. I also created a blog dedicated to those things and decided to do it absolutely for free as an example of some of the things I teach. The blog URL is ebooksuccess4free.wordpress.com and has grown to have over 350 posts with thousands of subscribers.

I’m excited to share what I've learned along the way. It’s going to help you whether you’re just getting started or hoping to get more out of an existing blog. We’ll do things the right way, and with methods that fit into your schedule.

So I hope you’re as eager to begin as I am. Blogging is not only a powerful means for promoting yourself online, it’s also fun. Are you ready to have a more powerful internet presence? I hope you said yes, because I have a lot to share. Let’s get to it!

Hyperlinks:

(Jason’s original Blogger blog, free hosting with custom domain name at $10/year)

(Jason’s Wordpress.com blog, entirely free)

Benefits of Blogging

You’ve probably heard how important it is for an author to have a blog. There’s good reason behind those claims including a growing list of agents and publishers who prefer their authors to keep a blog. The benefits of a good blog are numerous. First and foremost, they keep you writing. Authors need that as athletes need exercise and musicians need to make music.

Blogs are also a great way to direct traffic to your books at retailers like Amazon. Think about the potentials from an interesting article related to a topic within your book. Readers who enjoyed that post will also see a link for your book nearby. In many instances, visitors will click on that link where they can be directed to a retailer and buy your book.

We all know how important networking through social media is, and this is especially true for authors. Your blog can have easy-to-click icons for all of your social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube and more. People who enjoy your posts can easily connect with you, which is a great way to build author platform.

Because everything can exist on your blog that is about you and your books, along with regular updates, think of your blog like a headquarters for any and all information you want people to know. No other single website will have that kind of power--not Facebook, not Twitter, not even a static website. Blogs are the ultimate one-stop for everything about you and can easily be linked to all those other online locations.

Another great feature about blog posts is the fact that they act like perpetual billboards over time. You may write hundreds of posts in just a few years or less, and those posts will still get found by visitors from all over the world who will visit your blog and check out what you have to offer. The potentials are unlimited.

For all of these reasons, your blog can have excellent SEO factors (search engine optimization), and it will become a top result for a myriad of search terms that have to do with you, your books, and most importantly the subject matter of what you write about. In time, thousands of varied search terms will bring visitors from all over the world to your blog. If you like the concept of more bang for your buck, then blogging will reward your cyber investment better than anything else over time.

Section 2: Hosting Options

Platform Options

Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org and Blogger are the most common choices for blogging platforms. There are plenty of other fine options though, including the ability of many existing websites to also contain a blog within them. Some of the decisions will be made easier as you determine how much freedom, technological abilities and maintenance responsibility you'd like to have in your blog. Wordpress.org is the most advanced option but requires you to host and maintain it, while Wordpress.com and Blogger are self-hosted, a bit easier to get started with but are a bit less advanced with some functions.

Ultimately, all of these blogs can be extremely professional and make great choices.

Hyperlinks:

Examples

The more you look around at blogs hosted by other people, the clearer it will be what you like or don't like and how that might affect the design and layout of your own blog. Of course, everyone has different tastes and you have the right to design a blog any way you see fit, but one thing to keep in mind is the ease of use and visual friendliness of the navigation, social media links and other things that you'll want your visitors to find and click on.

Section 3: Getting Started

Domain Name Planning

Picking a domain name is one of the first things you’ll be asked, but it’s wise to do some basic research ahead of time. Do not rush into this! It’s really smart to take your time. There are many places where you can register a domain name or check its availability, like GoDaddy, and you can often register a name through the platform where you’re blogging, like with Wordpress. Sometimes a slight alteration of the name, or the use of dashes between words or the use of a difference suffix, like .info, makes the difference between a domain name being available or not.

Also recognize that a custom domain name will help with SEO factors, though it’s not mandatory. Custom domain names can be used with any blog, even free ones, and they typically cost between $10 and $18 per year depending on where you get them.

Before choosing a domain name consider if you’re branding your name or a subject. Take time researching at registrars for the domain name you want, as in mycoolblog.com. Also do some research at Google Keyword Planner for this, which will be a good habit later when you’re making blog posts and coming up with titles, categories and tags.

Hyperlinks:

(for info on suffixes, like .net, .biz, .info, .co)

(for checking popularity of search terms)

Creating a Blog at Wordpress (com) and Blogger

After doing research for a great domain name, you can begin the process of starting a blog. If you haven’t created one, Wordpress and Blogger are excellent choices. It’s surprisingly simple to start a blog at both venues, basically just a matter of going to the websites and following the prompts.

Hyperlinks:

Starting with Wordpress (.org)

If you decide on a Wordpress (.org) blog, you’ll need to download the software and find a host. They recommend 3 common choices as great hosts at varied prices, like Bluehost, but there are plenty of other options including absolutely free venues. However, you’ll be required to handle your own maintenance if you ever have issues. There are fortunately forums and support pages for just about any possible question or issue you might experience.

Hyperlinks:

(recommended by Wordpress.org, paid monthly hosting)

(free monthly hosting, less support)

Choosing a Template

After starting a blog you’ll be ready to pick a template, which is the layout and design or how the blog looks. There are hundreds of options from how things are placed on the web page to color schemes, text fonts, backgrounds and more with custom features. It’s okay to pick a template even if you haven’t settled in on an favorite design because this is something that can easily be changed later as often as you like without losing any work you’ve done.

Notice that there are both free and premium templates. Premium ones cost money, but you might not know exactly what your blog will need for the first few weeks. For this reason, I strongly recommend choosing a free template when you first begin. That way you can play around with ideas, looks, backgrounds and more, and you change the template as frequently as you want. Eventually when you have an idea of what you really like and want, and if there’s a premium template that fits those needs better, then that will be a fine time to go premium or to stick with a free one. Just so you know, my blogs (I now have 4) all have free templates and I’ve always been able to find suitable ones.

Go ahead and choose a template, make some changes and check the look again. Don’t worry about visitors at this point because almost nobody will be visiting before you market it. Have fun and play around!

Hyperlinks:

(Wordpress example for this course)

(Blogger example for this course)

Adding Pages

Most blogs have additional pages and yours probably will too. This is another time to think about what common features you may want, like an About and Contact page, in addition to pages that are uniquely yours. It’s also a smart time to revisit some other blogs to get a sense of what’s working for others.

Adding Pages will be done through your dashboard, by clicking Dashboard in Wordpress or Design in Blogger. Click on New Page and give it a title. Don’t worry too much about filling it with content for now, but you can type anything in there if you want. Clicking the Publish button will make it live. Do that for a few pages with titles that you think you’ll want on your site. Again, these can always be changed later and it doesn’t matter if they’re mostly empty webpages. The point is for you to see them as part of the navigation options in the menu.

With Blogger you might need to go through the Layout section and Add a Gadget by choosing the one called Pages. After opening the Pages Gadget, you should see the option to put check marks in boxes next to the pages you just created, and then Save those to add them to the navigation items. You can go back to that Pages Gadget to drag and drop for a change of order and will also need to revisit that to add more pages in the future.

At Wordpress you may find an About page automatically inserted if you have a Gravatar account. Regardless of that, create new pages just by clicking Add New in the Pages tab of the dashboard. Title a new page and Publish it. Most Wordpress templates will automatically show your new page in the navigation.