By now, most of my regular readers have a pretty good handle on the ‘business model’ of this blog.  In a nutshell, my strategy is simple: I write one article per week, post it, then spend the next six days trying to get people to actually read it.  This recurring series of events can be a grind for an article marketer, but there is good news: it is definitely possible to significantly increase the distribution of your posts, articles and white papers WITHOUT spending every minute of your free time in front of a Netbook at Starbucks.

Now before I get too far into this, I need to make two very important points:

1. This strategy will take some time to implement.
2. If you stick with it, your results WILL improve every single month.

Translation: if you are lazy or impatient, you may stop reading immediately.

Regardless of what the sales rep at your local SEO company says, there is nothing quick, easy, or foolproof when it comes to capturing Internet traffic.  It took me nearly 9 months to reach my 1,000th article Retweet (feel free to count them) and almost one-third were acquired in months 8 and 9.  The sooner you realize actual effort will be required on your part, the more successful you will be in the long-term.

With the above in mind, here is an easy-to-follow, Twitter-based Article Marketing strategy involving our good friend, the Retweet.

Step #1: Use Your Existing Content to Fish for Retweets. If you’re a decent writer with a reasonable amount of real-world experience, chances are your blog already offers some pretty valuable content.  Using your existing articles to generate a few Retweets will allow you to not only hit the ground running, but build a Retweet base for future articles (discussed in Step #3).

Because most serious article readers use hashtags to filter content, adding one to each of your Tweets is a no-brainer.  If you write articles about gardening, end each Tweet with #gardening.  If you write about coffee, use #coffee.  Depending upon the nature of your articles, consider Tweeting an article several times during the course of a week, rotating between a handful of hashtags.  Spending some quality time at Hashtags.org will generate plenty of great options to choose from.

To further boost your chances of a Retweet, many experts (OK, mostly me) believe labeling your Tweets with the word “Article” at the beginning can increase RT frequency from article readers.  So can putting the words “RTs Welcome!” at the end.  In addition, be sure to avoid the mistake of leaving too little room at the end of each article-related Tweet.  Remember: most RT buttons add “RT @YourTwitterName” at the beginning of a Retweet, and serial Retweeters typically add comments like “Good read!” or “Nice article” to the end.  Be sure to leave room for both.

Step #2: Show Your Retweeters Some Love. Once you acquire your first few Retweeters, the next step is to hang onto them.  Like regular customers at a restaurant, Retweeters will return time and time again—as long as they are treated well.  Every time someone Retweets a link to one of your articles, is it critical that you both acknowledge their effort and return the favor by:

1. @Replying them a “Thank You.”
2. Adding them to a special Retweeter Twitter List.
3. Retweeting something of theirs.
4. Giving them at least one #FollowFriday recommendation.

In an effort to lead by example, this past week I sent over 80 Thank You messages and recommended nearly 150 people with a #FollowFriday mention. Sure, 95% of Twitter users don’t bother doing ANY of these things, but we are article marketers.  And the world expects more from us.

It is also important to note that some (but not all) of this process can be automated.  Although I used to complete Step #2 manually, today I use a tool called SocialOomph (now offering a Free 6-Day Trial).  SocialOomph not only handles much of this for me, but manages to find me nearly 50 targeted followers per day.  To date, it’s the most valuable $29 per month I spend on article Marketing.  I am also quickly becoming a fan of a new social marketing automation tool called Buzzom Premium, which offers the same features as SocialOomph—plus a ridiculous amount of social analytics—for just 10 bucks per month.  To me, you can’t go wrong using either or both tools.

Step #3: Ask Your List Members to Help Distribute New Articles. Effective article marketing involves elements of both “giving” and “receiving.”  Here in Step 3 the receiving finally begins, and all of your hard work will begin to pay off . . . if you have been following the rules.  Remember that Retweeter List I asked you to start building is Step 2?  If you send each of these people a quick Direct Message on days when you release something new, odds are they will be more than willing to Retweet it to their followers.  Be sure to ask nicely, and provide a shortened version of the URL using a service like TinyURL or bit.ly (otherwise tools like SocialOomph and Buzzom will automatically do this for you).

Also note that Retweets often generate more Retweets, so be sure to use a good dashboard tool to filter and monitor @mentions and DMs.  People who Retweet a Retweet (does your head hurt yet?) are just as valuable as the members of your List, and should be shown the same courtesy outlined in Step #2—a Thank You, a List, an RT, and a #FollowFriday mention.

If you want to build a community around your content, there is going to be some work involved in developing an active and loyal follower base.  But a system like this can get  you going in no time.  I know this not because I’m guessing, but because this is exactly what I do every single week.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• 5 Free Twitter Tools for the Busy Small Company Marketer
• An Interview with Buzzom CEO Bhupendra Khanal (Part 2)
• Social Marketing Automation: Interview with the CEO of Buzzom
• 5 More Unbreakable Rules for Using Twitter as a Business Tool
• 5 Visually Appealing Plugins for the Lazy Blog Designer

When I wrote my very first post in October of 2008, I knew there would be a few things to learn about blogging.  Back then, I figured my 16 years of small company marketing experience could take me most of the way, and I would simply fill in the gaps with a handful of articles and one good book from Amazon.com.  Little did I know how much time I would waste, how many mistakes I would make, and how many roadblocks I would encounter between then and now.

As many of my regular readers know, I have a habit of being introspective about my blogging (see 7 Reasons Why I Suck at Blogging, and What I’m Going to Do About It for more information) and would like to continue this theme by sharing a few more lessons I learned . . . the hard way.

Lesson #1: In Order to Keep Going, I Need to Believe More in What I’m Doing. After almost a year and a half as a blogger, I have come to a conclusion: writing good content is easy.  That said, writing good content when no one is reading it is the equivalent of getting kicked in the stomach.  To date, some of my best and most heart-felt articles have zero comments, no search engine rankings, and no measurable traffic.  Does this tend to de-motivate me?  Almost every single day.  But whether or not it’s true, I have convinced myself that people WANT to read what I write. If I didn’t believe this, I would be spending my 30+ hours of free time each week doing other things.  Like sleeping, for example.

Lesson #2: I Can Either Produce Good Content, or Make Money—But Not Both. As a part-time blogger with a full-time day job, I have a pretty good handle on what I can accomplish over the course of a week.  During any seven-day period I usually have enough time to write a new article, maintain my Twitter account, comment on a few blog postings, and make a design change or two on my blog.  But all of the search engine work, back linking, social networking and keyword optimization necessary to make a few bucks on my pay-per-click and affiliate ads often detracts from the quality of my writing.  And because I care more about content than I do about a quarterly $100 check from Google, I have chosen to concentrate on my writing . . . until I go broke or lose my day job.

Lesson #3: I Will Never Run Out of Ideas for Articles. Thinking back to when I first started this blog, I can’t help but laugh at how worried I was about running out of content.  Truth be told, I was so afraid of ‘going dark’ that I wrote seventeen complete articles (about 20,000 words) before I made my blog live.  Because my 4-month case of writer’s block never actually materialized, today I am sitting on enough drafts, research and backup articles to start selling term papers to MBA students ( hmm. . . ).  Was running out of ideas really ever a problem?  Nope.  But running out of time to write them all down is a daily challenge.

Lesson #4: There are Ten Times More A-Holes in the World than I Ever Imagined. When it comes to blogging, one of the most common misconceptions is that bloggers hide behind a website and write, with no consequences and very little stress.  This may be the case for some, but in my case owning and hosting a blog has put me out there for literally anyone on the planet to find . . . and screw with.  Since starting my blog in October of 2008 I have had to completely rebuild it from the ground up—three times—because of hackers.  I have also been banned from Google, kicked out of Technorati, and lost my best performing links to something called ‘open URl redirection.’  Being a blogger is not the stress-free experience most people believe it is, and I have hundreds of tech support emails to Google, Technorati and Network Solutions to prove it.

Lesson #5:  Sometimes, I Have to Ask for Things—No Matter How Uncomfortable It Might for Me. As a guy who grew up with very little, I’ve always been hesitant to ask people for things.  My parents were staunch advocates of the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” motto, which espoused things like pride and independence and self-sufficiency.  Although these were great core values as a child, in my adult years they resulted in a lonely and un-successful blogger.  It took me almost a year to realize I couldn’t build a successful blog by myself, and have since started asking for help.  When I need Retweets, I contact my Twitter followers directly.  When I’m short on article comments, I email my site members.  And when I believe an article is good enough to be published, I send it to all of the Editors I’ve come to know over the last few months.  Although asking doesn’t work every time, it’s worked well enough to generate dozens of comments, hundreds of Retweets, and four syndicated articles.  By the way . . . any chance you could push the “Retweet” button at the beginning of the article?

Lesson #6: The Only Way to Get Something From My Social Network is to Give Something First. Forging relationships has never been easy for me in person.  And surprisingly, it has been difficult online as well.  In retrospect, I now realize I spent too much social networking time selfishly trying to make the Internet work for me.  For example, I am embarrassed to admit that during my first year as a blogger I managed to get over 200 article Retweets . . . and never issued a single “Thank You.”  During that same period over 300 people took the time to comment on my articles—and again, I was non-responsive.  I also never posted comments for other bloggers, never Retweeted anything unless it was mine, and never signed up for a single RSS feed.  This overt selfishness stunted my blog’s early growth, but since making a few changes I have watched my blog post triple-digit increases in web traffic, site registrations and Twitter followers over the last few months.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• Article Marketing on Twitter: The Art of the Retweet
• 5 Visually Appealing Plugins for the Lazy Blog Designer
• 15 Things I Did When My Blog Was Hacked: A Recovery Plan
• How I Became a Mediocre Blogger for Only $9.95 per Month
• 7 Reasons I Suck at Blogging, and What I’m Going to Do About It

To me, one of the keys to my blogging success thus far (“success” being a term I use loosely in this case) is that I am keenly aware of both my strengths AND my weaknesses.  On the Strengths side of the ledger, I have two things going for me—I can write, and I can market myself.  But on the Weaknesses side, I have one major hole in my skill set: I can’t design my way out of a wet paper bag.  To prove my point, I encourage you to compare my blog design with my friend Ira’s blog, GlassyEyes.com.  His site is what a creative, professionally-designed blog can (and should) look like.  It also stands as a constant reminder that a few Art classes in college probably wouldn’t have killed me.

So . . . once we artistically-deficient bloggers finally switch from the default blog template to something a bit more customizable, how do we add at least SOME visual appeal without having to spend $1,100 on Macromedia Creative Suite and another $2,000 learning how to use it?  Plugins, of course!  Sure, most plugins are designed to work behind the scenes by protecting our blogs from spam, managing our databases, and running our traffic reports.  But a select few can actually add things like formatting, graphic elements, and even a bit of interactivity—without tempting us to download a pirated copy of Photoshop.

With the above in mind, below are five types of plugins that can add some sorely-needed visual appeal to any blog, with very little design effort or skill involved.

PLUGIN #1: ANY SORT OF RETWEET BUTTON

Most people view Tweet-related plugins as a great way to encourage republication of blog postings (please feel free to click on mine, by the way—scroll UP).  But those of us with no design skills see this plugin and think one thing: page anchor.  Everyone knows that starting a post with a graphic or a blue bird makes your content three to five times more interesting to readers.  And more importantly, keeping a running count of your Retweets is a great way to give yourself a quick ego boost when you realize how crappy your blog design really is.  Added Bonus: buttons can often be presented in different sizes and colors for enhanced appeal.

PLUGIN #2: GOOGLE ADSENSE

Moneymaker?  Sure.  But design element?  Damn right.  Unlike Retweet buttons, Google Adsense plugins give bloggers not one, but THREE opportunities to add customizable colored squares to any post or page.  And colored squares are good.  The “Mid-Post Ad” setting in Google Adsense also gives blog readers an opportunity to briefly pause and ignore something obnoxious halfway through literally any blog posting.  Added Bonus: the perfect ‘triple-threat’ when it comes to plugins—revenue generator, design element, and content breaker-upper.

PLUGIN #3: CAPTCHA

In preparation of a Trivial Pursuit game ten years from now, you need to know that the acronym CAPTCHA actually stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.  Translation: this plugin protects our blogs from automated comment spam and iFrame injections.  But more than that, CAPTCHA almost always includes a really cool graphic with a bunch of letters and lines in it, where our blogs are most in need of a little ‘flair’—at the very bottom of the page.  Added Bonus: CAPTCHA functionality on a blog makes the owner look sophisticated.

PLUGIN #4: AN ‘ABOUT THE AUTHOR’ BLOCK

If there is one thing most blogs lack regardless of platform, it is boxes.  I love boxes.  And quite frankly, it frustrates me that you can’t just insert a box or table into a blog posting whenever you want.  That said, an About the Author plugin not only allows you to make a box in your blog, but also put your picture in it.  And who doesn’t love looking at a great headshot of themselves?  Added Bonus: will save you the trouble of creating a “Profile” page for yourself.

PLUGIN #5: SOCIAL BOOKMARKING

Depending upon which one you use, a Social Bookmarking plugin could allow the addition of between 4 and 400 icons to your blog—the equivalent of winning the lottery for any lazy blogger.  And more importantly, each of these icons is professionally designed, and completely customizable in terms of placement.  Some Social Bookmarking plugins even include a bit of animation, as evidenced by the six-pack at the bottom of this post (how cools is THAT?).  Added Bonus: use of multiple Social Media plugins will ensure even the most obscure social networking sites are forever represented on your blog.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• Article Marketing on Twitter: The Art of the Retweet
• What Does a Social Marketing Manager REALLY Do?
• 5 Free Twitter Tools for the Busy Small Company Marketer
• An Interview with Buzzom CEO Bhupendra Khanal (Part 2)
• Social Marketing Automation: Interview with the CEO of Buzzom

I don’t usually make a habit of getting emotional in my blog postings.  But for reasons I will explain shortly, the last three weeks have changed me.  Although I could never be considered an overly positive person, I certainly have never been a negative one.  I trust people when they earn it, and believe for the most part that the blogosphere is a safe place to learn new things and develop my skills as a writer.  But recently, a person I never met decided to destroy my blog, for no other reason than his own twisted entertainment.

And now, I’m just pissed.

Without going into too much detail, I will tell you that in a matter of minutes I lost an entire year’s worth of work.  Ten pages, 55 posts, 19 drafts, hundreds of tags, and over 2,000 comments were gone in an instant—replaced with nothing more than a simple redirect to a Hungarian-hosted adult website, and a nasty virus (a Trojan, actually) on my computer.  Exactly how the hacker destroyed my XML data file and all of my server-side backups is a complete mystery to me; and why he did it is something I will never be able to understand.

But on the bright side, after three weeks of sleepless nights rewriting articles from memory and scouring the web for reposts,  my blog is finally live again—but not before multiple (read: five) failed attempts at go-live.  Since early October I have repeatedly brought my site back online, only to discover the hacker somehow worked his way back in each time. But this time, I think I’ve finally figured him out . . . because if I didn’t, you’d be looking at porn right now.

If I learned one thing during the recovery process, it is this:  information on preventing a blog hack is everywhere, but good information on recovering from a blog hack is nearly impossible to find.  So in the interest of helping those of you who are going through (or eventually will go through) the same thing, I would like to share my 15-step recovery strategy, in as much detail as I possibly can.  I sincerely hope this article helps you in some way—even a small piece of it—and if you have any questions PLEASE do not hesitate to email me directly at eric@thesmallcompanyblog.com.

15 Steps I Took to Recover from a Blog Hack

Step #1: Shut Down Your Blog. Immediately – Trust me when I say that this process will go MUCH more smoothly if you rip the Band-Aid off in one pull.  Sure, it’s painful to take your site completely offline, but compared to 3,000 people sending you nasty emails and putting you on a “high-risk website” list, it is best to bite the bullet up-front. And don’t just replace your home page with an “Under Construction” sign—unassign your domain.  I shouldn’t have to remind you of this, but someone with an unlimited amount of free time has control of your blog.  If you want to regain control, you need to cut off his access first.

Step #2: Clean Out Your HTDOCS Directory – As a first step in combating a hacker, some experts (e.g. Level 2 Hosting Support at Network Solutions) will recommend you uninstall your blog software.  Do not listen to these idiots.  The uninstall process might cripple your blog, but it won’t kill it.  In Wordpress especially, the uninstall process leaves dozens of files (and in some cases entire folders) completely intact.  Many of these files cannot physically be un-installed, because the hacker has either hid them or modified their file permissions.  If you really want to do this the right way, call your ISP and have them clean out your HTDOCS directory on the server side.  But however you do it, don’t leave anything lying around.

Step #3: Run a Virus Scan On Your Primary Blogging Computer – Although all of these steps are important, Step #3 is critical when it comes to preventing re-infection.  Many attacks made on blogs start with a virus on your computer—one that has very quietly picked off your FTP username and password and sent it to a third party.  This step might cost you a tiny bit of money (less than $40 total) but this is not a time to start operating on a budget.  Here is what you do: first, boot up in Safe mode.  Run a full scan of Malwarebytes, then reboot in Safe Mode.  Run a full scan of Super-Anti Spyware.  Reboot in Safe Mode.  Run CC Cleaner (CC Cleaner is freeware).  Reboot in Safe Mode.  Wash . . . rinse . . . repeat.  Also, a friendly piece of advice: do not even consider using any other virus and/or Trojan-removal products.  The virus on my computer not only crippled both Symantec and Windows Defender, but rewired them to give me false information.

Step #4: Change All of Your Blog-Related Passwords – Now that your computer is no longer spying on you, any logins you use for blogging-related purposes  MUST be changed, with no exceptions.  This includes the login for your FTP tool, the computer you use to manage your blog, your host login (Network Solutions, GoDaddy, etc.) and your blog itself—which you will be re-installing shortly.  Also, a note of caution: it is important that you not perform this step too early.  If you change your passwords before your blog is offline, your blog folder is empty and your virus scans have been run, you WILL be hacked again.  How I know this is not relevant.

Step #5: Reinstall Your Blog Software from Scratch – While your domain is still unassigned and the hacker can’t find you, re-install your blog software from the beginning.  But before you do, upgrade to the absolute latest version of whatever platform you use.  Also, resist the temptation to cut your blog live as soon as the installation is done.  You’ve still got a lot of work to do, and staying invisible is key.

Step #6: Re-Acquire and Re-Install Each of Your Plugins and Widgets from Scratch – If you’re anything like me, your happiness is dependent upon having at least 20 different plugins and widgets running on your blog.  Unfortunately, this is where your willingness to try new things bites you right in the ass—because you need to re-download, re-install and re-configure every single one of them.  Each one needs to be downloaded from a credible website, preferably the main site for your blog platform (Wordpress.org, TypePad.com, etc.).  And while you’re shopping, pick up a plugin or widget that regulary inspects your blog for malicious code and secret backdoors, like “AntiVirus” for Wordpress.

Step #7: Re-Acquire and Re-Install Your Theme from Scratch – Similar to Step #6 above, visit the branded site that developed your blog and download your theme file again before reinstalling.  Many previously uninformed people (like me) fell into the trap of acquiring a theme by typing “free blog themes” into Google, and clicked on the first few links that came up.  But did you know that many of these themes  are already pre-infected?  Now you do.  If you find a cool them on a not-so-credible website, chances are it’s been downloaded from a branded blog site and modified in some way.

Step #8: Make All of Your Theme Mods – Remember all of those really cool theme modifications you made over the last few months?  I hope so, because you’re going to have to make them again.  But this time, make a list of modifications as you go—a quick description of the modification and the template or CSS file you modified in each case is a great start.

Step #9: Turn Off Comments on All of Your Posts – If there is one thing blog platform developers do NOT want you to know, it is this: your blog’s XML database can be hacked and infected by simply entering the right combination of characters into the comment field of one of your posts.  Even if your blog is set to not display a comment until you approve it, anything—and I mean ANYTHING—typed into your blog’s comment field is still permanently written to your XML database, and occupies the same file space as your posts, tags, cagetories and other comments.  Until you see the CEO of your blog platform on MSNBC declaring that their ‘comments hole’ has been closed, turn off your comments.  And leave them off.

Step #10: Turn off Your Blog’s Search Feature – In similar fashion to the Comments Field, your blog’s Search Field is just as vulnerable to a hack.  This article from Network World does a great job of explaining how your blog site can be taken over via the Search field.  If your blog does not have a simple “On/Off” switch for search, you may need to manually remove the code from your page templates before the field actually goes away.

Step #11: Re-Upload Your Content - If you have no idea when your blog was actually infected, do not blindly re-upload an old backup XML file of your database and assume everything will be fine.  Before you load any XML data back into your blog, past the entire file into Notepad and look for phrases like “iFrame” and “redir” (redirect).  Also, check all of the “http” references within the file, and make sure you know where each link in your data file is pointing.  If you find too many scary things in your XML, or if you aren’t comfortable cleaning the file yourself, DO NOT UPLOAD IT.  Instead, it’s time to start the painful and slow process of re-creating each post thru copy and paste.  If you need to resort to this, here is a tip: start with the articles themselves, and save the comments for a day when you have less going on in your life.

Step #12: Change Your Blog’s Config File – I can’t directly speak for other platforms, but within a Wordpress  installation there will be a file named wp-config.php, which carries important information related to site cookies (and therefore site access).  Some hackers utilize this file to gain Administrator rights to your blog, but making few quick changes to your config file will invalidate all cookies on your site, and force people to re-log in using new credentials.  As someone who is not a .PHP developer, I can’t say exactly how important this step is.  But I have found this tip referenced on a number of sites where security-type nerds love to hang out.

Step #13: Turn it All Back On – The moment of truth has arrived, and now it is indeed time for you to a) cross your fingers, b) say a little prayer to whatever God you believe in, and c) make your blog live again.  Depending upon how long your blog was down, it may take some time for your site to actually show up on the web again after you re-assign your domain.  But if it takes longer than 2 hours, contact your ISP immediately.

Step #14: Create and Upload a New Sitemap – If you’re even remotely capable of following step-by-step instructions, your sitemap should have been blown away back in Step #2.   With this in mind, the search engines have likely stopped by for a visit between then and now, which means your site is sitting in the Internet penalty box known as the dreaded “unverified” bin.  Creating a new sitemap and uploading is the only way to tell Google and MSN that your blog is alive and kicking again.

Step #15: Let Your Readers Know What’s Up – For various reasons, most bloggers who get hacked are embarrassed to admit it . . . which is why articles like this are so hard to find.  But rest assured, there are tens of thousands of people out there who already went through the same thing, and all of them will be amazingly supportive of your efforts to recover.  Once your blog has been running hacker-free for a few days, let your site members and social networking followers know what happened.  Not only will this explain why you disappeared from the web, but it will encourage them to hang in there if you get hacked and have to take your site down again.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• 7 Reasons I Suck at Blogging, and What I’m Going to Do About It
• Article Marketing on Twitter: The Art of the Retweet
• 6 Blogging Lessons I Learned the Hard Way
• 33 Changes for the Small Company Manager
• 5 Visually Appealing Plugins for the Lazy Blog Designer

Although it has only been a year, it seems like an eternity since I made the semi-life changing decision to become a blogger.  I had always dreamed of writing for the masses—showing people how smart I was, how clever I could be, and how many things I learned during my years in the working world.  Blogging appeared to be the next logical step in a career as storied and successful as mine, and I was ready to pass on my experience to anyone who could benefit.  After all, no one on the planet had seen what I had seen, or done what I had done.  At least that’s what I told myself.

Fast-forward to today, and it appears I am not exactly taking the blogosphere by storm with my 1300 Twitter followers, 2100 RSS feed subscribers and 10,000 monthly page views.  But on the bright side, there are plenty of people doing worse than me.  Hopefully.  So to celebrate my first full year of blogging I decided to take a look back, in an attempt to answer the question “How did I  become the extremely average blogger I am today?”  This roadmap is short, easy to follow, and absolutely free to anyone striving for blogger mediocrity.

Step 1: I Chose a Domain Name.

This step was not only the easiest, but also the most fun.  I spent about two hours messing around with the domain name search function at GoDaddy.com (top right-hand corner), until I finally came up with a domain that wasn’t already taken.  In retrospect, I wish I would have chosen something a bit more creative (read: less obvious).  But domain names are cheap, and I can always pluck someone else’s great idea off of the expired domain name pile some time down the road.

Step 2: I Found a Host for My Blog.

Let’s get something straight: I enjoy ogling Danica Patrick in a tank top as much as any other guy who is attracted to short, bitchy, high-maintenance women.  That said, I had some concerns that GoDaddy.com might not be able to properly host a website that doesn’t involve girl-on-girl action, cork-heeled stripper shoes or massive amounts of cleavage.  So I chose the Standard Hosting Package from Network Solutions, for the low price of $9.95 per month.  Pros: quick setup, easy FTP access, and a proactive and knowledgeable customer service department.  Cons: slow Wordpress upgrades (still forced to use v2.5), sorely inadequate web stats, and separate logins for EVERYTHING.

Step 3: I Started Writing.

For those of you who have never dipped a toe into the raging river that is the blogosphere, trust me when I say that a blogger’s three worst nightmares are as follows and in this order: 1) having your blog crash BEFORE you back it up, 2) watching your content get ripped off and monetized by some dirt bag affiliate advertiser, and 3) running out of things to say.  In an effort to avoid number 3, I cranked out two months worth of articles before I actually activated my blog, on the off-chance that a nasty case of writer’s block was headed my way.  In retrospect, this was one of the better decisions I made as a blogger.  Not because I eventually suffered from writer’s block, but because I often lack motivation to write.  Maybe this blogging thing wasn’t the best idea . . .

Step 4: I Switched to a Better Theme.

After running the wheels off of ‘Wordpress Default’ for the first six months, the blogging world literally opened up to me when a friend turned me on to Wordpress Themes.  Between hundreds of themes available for free on the Wordpress site and thousands generally downloadable on the web, I was able to find six themes centered around my favorite color orange, and narrowed it down to one that had all of the features I wasn’t getting in Wordpress Default—like configurability, a header graphic, a color palette with more than one color, and general visual appeal.  If I made one mis-step here, it was underestimating the amount of time it would take me to switch themes.  Depending upon the structure of a blog, uploading a new theme can be the equivalent of a full-scale site redesign.  Don’t ask me why I know that.

Step 5: I Installed Some Useful Plugins.

One of the best parts about using a Wordpress blog is there are literally thousands of people out there developing little pieces of functionality that can be ‘plugged in’ to your blog with very little effort.  Sure, there are plenty of stupid plugins out there (the plugin that replaces a spammer’s Avatar with a douchebag is one of my personal favorites) but there are also many with legitimate business uses. In my case I started with the All In One SEO Pack, which all joking aside has made a HUGE difference in my web traffic.  I then added plugins for Statcounter (a free web stats tool) and Sphinn (a social bookmarking site for web marketers), and finished it off with one of the most popular plugins of all time: YARPP (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin).  After running all of these together for a month or so, I eventually hacked the Sphinn plugin and added code for Retweets and Stumbles . . . which shut down my RSS Feed for 16 days, AND locked my Wordpress editor in “HTML Mode” for almost two months.  Did I mention I’m still in the process of learning PHP programming?

So in a nutshell, that’s how I did it.  If you have any additional tips for becoming a mediocre blogger in the first year, please reply to this post. Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• Article Marketing on Twitter: The Art of the Retweet
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As many of you know, the first year as a blogger can be an extremely rewarding time when it comes to learning.  If I compare my current knowledge of Internet marketing to what I thought I knew 12 months ago, I’m almost embarrassed at how behind I really was.  This isn’t to say I’m caught up, but at least now I feel like I’m making some progress.

With that said, my first year has also been a hectic mix of mistakes: mistakes related to technology issues, content development, website design, and various attempts at marketing myself.  Some were made due to a lack of time, some were made because I over-estimated my abilities, and some were made because I just didn’t know what the hell I was doing.  As I start my second year of blogging, I have made a promise that I will implement a few changes—seven, to be exact—in the way I approach my blogging going forward.  Hopefully, this list will be useful to others who are walking the same path.

Change #1: I’m Going to Make More Friends Online

Forging relationships has never been easy for me in person, and it has been surprsingly difficult online as well.  In retrospect, I believe my problem stems from the fact that I spent too much time during my first year trying to make the Internet work for me, and not enough time giving back.  During my second year as a blogger I need to do more commenting on other people’s posts, networking with people who are targeting the same audience, and handing out more encouragement and kudos to people who deserve it.

Change #2: I’m Going to Stay Focused on My Audience

Every once in awhile, it happens: I write a post, upload it to my blog, then read it one last time and wonder “What the hell I was thinking?”  Over the course of my first year as a blogger I got distracted a few times, and let my writing go to places my target audience wasn’t willing to follow me.  Going forward, I promise to do a better job of choosing my topics, and will ask my readers what they want instead of shoving content down their throats.

Change #3: I’m Going to Stop Watching My Web Traffic

If there were a rehab program for bloggers, there would definitely be at least one group session titled “Breaking the Addiction of Web Statistics.”  At the present time I run no less than three (3) tracking programs side-by-side, which is a huge mistake for me—not because three tracking programs is too many for me to handle, but because I spend half of my day wondering why the data they’re collecting doesn’t seem to match.  Starting today I resolve to spend more time writing than watching, and vow to not live and die minute-to-minute based on what my traffic reports say.

Change #4: I’m Going to Find a Better Filing System

At the time of this post I estimate my blog contains between 40,000 and 50,000 words of original content.  I have no idea how I managed to push out this much writing by myself, but the fact is it’s there—presented as one big list of posts in the left and right-hand columns of my blog.  This current layout frustrates me quite a bit, and I know in order to take the next step I have to come up with a better solution.  During my second year as a blogger I hope to find a new tool, or upload a new theme that makes my posts easier to find for my readers.  If you have any suggestions for me in this area, PLEASE feel free to reply to this post.

Change #5: I’m Going to Trim Down the People I Follow on Twitter

Over my first year as a blogger, I fell into the same trap many Twitter users do.  With the exception of porn sites and pyramid schemers, I literally followed back EVERYONE who followed me.  Now I realize I need to stop this practice, and significantly decrease the number of people I currently follow . . . starting with the people who Tweet me garbage.  Starting today I won’t care if I lose followers on Twitter—especially if they’re wasting my time—and will concentrate on building a community with the followers who truly add value to my world.

Change #6: I’m Going to Write Something Different Once in Awhile

Since I started writing at my current pace (two new posts per week, every single week) I have written exactly one article that could be considered off-topic: The Dumbest Marketing Campaigns of 2008.  This post had nothing to do with small company growth or strategy or marketing, but writing it felt like I took a vacation from blogging.  And I need to do more of that.  Going forward I will admit that I can’t save the world with every single post, and blow off some steam once in awhile by writing about something unrelated to small businesses.

Change #7: I’m Going to Think Bigger

During my first year as a blogger, I spent a significant portion of my time looking for a Digg or a Sphinn or a Stumble, hoping I could slowly grow readership by an extra dozen people per week. But recently it occurred to me that my goal doesn’t involve spending the rest of my life increasing my web traffic.  I want to be syndicated.  I want to see one of my articles on the home page of Slate or Fast Company or MSN some day.  My goal is to write things for large groups of people, not to drive clicks to a 150 x 150 graphic on my home page.  Ultimately, I want to write for millions of people, and unfortunately I haven’t done a darn thing in the past year to make that happen.  As of this very moment I resolve to keep my head out of the little stuff, take more chances, and not be satisfied writing for a few hundred people per week.

Would you like to share a past mistake you made as a blogger?  Have you made any adjustments or changes in the way you approach your blogging career?  Feel free to post them here, and I’ll gladly publish your story—along with your name and a link to your blog if you wish to provide one.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

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• 15 Things I Did When My Blog Was Hacked: A Recovery Plan
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This past summer I attended a 3-day marketing conference.  I spent most of my time in the e-Commerce and Web Marketing Track, hoping to learn more about increasing the effectiveness of my internet-based campaigns, generating additional web traffic, and maximizing new web technologies for marketing and online sales.  One of my favorite sessions was a panel presentation and Q&A on the topic of blogs.  The panel was loaded with heavy-hitting experts from Website Optimization firms (different than Search Engine Optimization firms) who not only made it their business to know how to manufacture website traffic, but had direct phone numbers and email addressees for people at Google and MSN—insiders who would willingly pick up the phone whenever they called.

Instead of simply passing on my notes from the session, I’ll boil them down into one, broad-reaching conclusion:

If your company can justify a blog as part of its website presence, add one. Soon.

So why are blogs so important for website traffic?  To begin, making a site-relevant blog entry every three or four days refreshes your website with new content and keywords—something both Google and MSN love to see.  In fact, even if no one actually reads your blog entries, by maintaining a blog you are still proving two things to major search engines: 1) that you regularly pay attention to your website, and 2) that you are continually adding relevant content.  To avoid breaking down the super top secret algorithms that search engines use to display results, suffice it to say websites get ‘extra credit’ for these things (NOTE: I understand this is a bit of an over-simplification, but this posting is not written for the sophisticated search engine marketer—so please forgive the generalizations).

And of course, if people do actually begin to read your company’s blog, there are obviously advantages as well.  Blogs can be used as a way to more deeply educate website visitors on company-related topics, or to convey information that doesn’t really ‘fit’ on your main site.  Also, with a company blog you can sometimes get away with saying things about your products, your industry, and your competitors that would not necessarily be well-received if presented on other parts of your website.  In other words, if you view your website as a newspaper, your company blog can be used as the editorial column.

However, if you decide to incorporate a blog as part of your corporate website, there is one caveat: your posts must be relevant to what your company is selling.  If you run an IT consulting business, don’t blog about your new Sleep Number bed.  If you own a boutique candle store, avoid the temptation to give readers a preview of your upcoming vacation. There is nothing search engines hate more than displaying non-relevant results.  Loading your company blog with unrelated content won’t just drive the wrong people to your site, but could cause your site as a whole to lose ground when it comes to its search engine rankings.

If I receive good response to this post, I will likely continue by diving deeper into blog-related issues—selection, implementation, marketing issues, keyword use and so on.  If you would like me to go in this direction, please feel free to comment on this post.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

Related Articles You Might Enjoy:

• Article Marketing on Twitter: The Art of the Retweet
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• 15 Things I Did When My Blog Was Hacked: A Recovery Plan