Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.Steve Jobs
Chapter 1: Mindset & Niche
Chapter 2: Domain
Chapter 3: CMS
Chapter 4: Hosting
Chapter 5: Design & Content
Chapter 6: Essential Tools
Bonus
Things don’t have to change the world to be important.Steve Jobs
If you are like many people including my previous self, you probably want to do something but not sure what that something is yet! You keep dreaming and thinking about it but guess what? Nothing has happened so far and you haven’t taken any action. Some other people know exactly what they want but still they do not know when how or where to being.
Here is the key, if you want to start absolutely anything online, you must have a Website/Social Media. Ok so you probably know that already.
Oops unless you are a beginner? Haven’t ever started a website or business before? You don’t have the time, right? These are all just meaningless excuses that keep you away from making your dream a reality. Do you remember the earlier versions of Facebook? What about Instagram or even Dropbox! They all started from nothing, and I mean nothing, and developed over time. There was no money, no capital, no office, no experience and no resources in the beginning
The good news is, you also can do something right now! You do not have to aim to own a huge company but you can be really comfortable in life and even quit your job if you want to. If you really want to do something, I believe you can and you have to believe it as well. I believe that any person on the planet can be something great if only they try. You have got to take action and start immediately. It doesn’t matter if the first time you try you fail. You get back up and try again until you succeed. You will learn a lot more information and gain much more experience through failure than you ever would studying for an MBA.
So let’s get you started!
I will explain in detail here exactly how you can start a blog, even if you don’t have any idea. Here are few chapters for you to start reading right now, and you better bookmark this for your future reference!
I am going to consider that you are an absolute beginner so I will explain every step in small detail.
In my next blog I will write about how you can make money out of your blog so keep an eye out for that!. I am also going to give you action list so you know exactly what you must do.
YOU SHOULD READ THE WHOLE BLOG FIRST BEFORE YOU START.
If you serious about making money from your blog, this guy can definitely help you, he makes fortune from his blog and affiliate marketing.
Chapter 1: Mindset & Niche
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If you don’t have confidence you will always find a way to lose.Peter Voogd
This is the most important step, Your Mindset. you must change your mindset before you even start reading.
You must believe that you really can build a successful website, it does not matter if you do not know how yet, you will get to it, but for now, you should be sold at doing this.
If you have already an idea, you still need to read this chapter as you may find a better one.
So how you can choose a niche to start a blog?
First Step
Simple answer, ask yourself the following question and write the answers down right now, not later, now;
What subjects do I most like to read, listen or talk about? For example, clubbing, food, healthy lifestyle, yoga, business, history, marriage, children, school…etc. Write down only 3 subjects.
Don’t move on until you have written down the 3 subjects.. You couldn’t find any? Ok, now answer these questions to help give your more ideas:
What do you talk to your partner about?
What do you like to talk about over a beer or coffee?
What do you often search about in Google?
What subjects do you pay attention to on TV or Radio,? Is it cars, relationships, stock market, six packs?
There must have something that interests you! Write down 3 of them right now.
Did you write any? Still no ideas? Now let’s try this, let’s do it the other way around, what you do NOT like? Write down 10 subjects you do not like to talk about, and you get bored of when your friends start talking about. I’m sure you are wondering how will that help, but believe me, it will definitely help. While you are brainstorming topics you do not like, you will find it easier to identify which ones you do like, it has been proven as a strategy that works by me many times.
Still struggling to come up with an idea? comment right now, and I will help, not later, NOW! I will help you find an idea that you can use. However, if you have already written down 3 ideas as I said, then let’s keep moving.
Now you will need to study these 3 topics for about 2 minutes, no talking, no whats app or Facebook, 2 minutes of silent concentration. What subject do you see yourself on a stage talking about? know a lot of people are terrified of public speaking including me, but just try to imagine!
Now, you have got to choose ONLY 1 subject that you are really passionate about. Choose only 1 subject.
Still can’t choose out of the 3? Try this; what subject would you like to write a book about? Still, no luck, leave a comment below and I will help you out.
Second Step
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.Thomas A. Edison
Now for the second step; let’s assume your subject is clubbing. Let’s breakdown the subject a bit. Why? I’ll tell you. People like experts in a specific area, not someone who thinks they know everything! Readers are very clever nowadays, and the smaller your niche, the more loyal readers you will get.
If you write about anything and everything, it is going to be really difficult to get loyal readers, it isn’t impossible but it is really hard. So the best way is to start with a smaller niche and grow and expand on your journey.
How can you break your subject down to smaller niche?
Let’s talk about clubbing for example, ask yourself the following questions:
What type of music do I like? Rock, Pop, Rap…etc.
What type of crowd I am comfortable to be around? Young, mainly male, female, straight, gay…etc.
What type of drinks do I like? Cocktails, Whiskey, local beer…etc
You will need to breakdown your niche to 3 smaller niches (mini niches).
Do you get it? Narrow it down so you do not have clubbing as a main topic for your blog. You have got to narrow it down to a smaller niche, for example, music in clubbing. So now you know that you will be blogging about ONLY ‘Music in Clubs’. No other topics for the first 10 blogs at least.
And then what? Simple, write about the other niches, for example, the crowd. Talk about the type of people in each club, believe me people will love to hear about these more specific details than a very ordinary blog of “Top 10 clubs in NY”.If you are niche oriented, people will love you.
Keep following this formula, small niche after small niche…. just keep doing this over and over again… the number of niches within a topic is countless!
I will now consider that you understand what you want to write about, if you do not, please go up and read this again, do not just hover, I am here to help you start your own successful blog.
To recap Chapter 1:
Write down 3 subjects you like to talk about i.g. clubbing, food, business.
Take a minute and choose only 1 of these 3. Let’s say clubbing.
Break this down to 3 mini niches, as I said i.g. music, crowd and drinks.
Choose one of these 3 mini niches and this will be your NICHE TO START.
Congratulations! You have just chosen a business idea that you like and you will enjoy writing about
Do not get overwhelmed or confused about what you will write and how would you do it! For now just keep reading.
What if you do not like writing and you want to start a different online business. Well here I am specifically discussing blogs, however you can start another type of online business by reading this blog, I have personally done it 3 times
Before we move to the next chapter where I am going to tell you how to start your blog name and having things like shortcuts in getting domains and getting traffic that many people do not understand, here are some FAQ and excuses related to the above chapter. If you have any questions, please go through them, as we both know you have some, just as I used when I was getting started.
FAQ and excuses
I do not have time to blog, I will start when I can.
Really? You don’t have 1 spare hour per day! You only need 1 hour a day to get started, and this is what you need to commit to. If you don’t start taking the actions I have mentioned above right now, you won’t start it, and guess what!? You will be in exactly the same position next year reading similar posts and saying the same thing. Stop procrastinating and just start now, write your subject right now.
I do not have money.
Um, who said you need to have any money to get started? I am going to tell you how to start with few dollars like for the price of a beer or and also some more costly options if you have savings you can put into the idea. So please don’t worry about money right now.
I do not have anyone to help me with it.
Seriously, writing a blog is as easy as reading it now. You do not need someone to co-found your blog! Having said that you will need some people to help you while you are growing and I will tell you how and where to find them, that part is easy..
I still can’t think of any topic to write about.
Do me a favour, read the above sections again, if you still can’t find an idea, please leave a comment below, and I will help you.
What do I need to start a blog?
Believe me, only read this blog right through until the end. That’s all you need.
Chapter 2: Domain
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In this Chapter, I will show you how to choose a name and domain for your blog using the Entrepreneurial Method.
There are some platforms and websites that are offering free domains such as Yahoo, WordPress, which I do not like and it will seriously limit your ability to create an amazing and grow. In addition you will must have a domain like YourDomain.Yahoo.com or YourDomain.WordPress.com, so please do not go in that direction! Buying a domain does not cost more than $10 per year! I seriously recommend you to read this chapter carefully and follow every step to be able to have a perfect domain using The Entrepreneurial Method.
From my experience a domain does not have to be the same name as the blog name, your domain can be JohnSmithBlog.com and called a “Vegan life blog” or “School is my life” or even “Six Packs shortcut”, it does not really matter.
I will leave the blog name aside now as I do not see it as important as choosing a domain.
How most of the people choose a domain?
Let me tell you first what most people do when they want to buy a new domain, they go to very giant websites like godaddy.com and search for a domain name, they do not find it of course so they try different combination until they find one they like.
It sounds good right? No! Using the Entrepreneurial Method, you and I don’t do that way because we are not like other people, we are here to think differently. Earl Nightingale once said “ If you really want to be successful and you do not have any mentor or guidance, you can get ahead and get started by looking at what everybody else is doing and do the opposite.”
Hopefully you consider yourself lucky now to be reading this blog and I am honoured to be a part of your journey. Anyway enough of that, let’s see what wrong in the above approach of choosing godaddy.com and buying a new domain, well simple the answer is: SEO, SEO and SEO – Search Engine Optimisation. I do not really want to talk about SEO now as it is a really overwhelming topic.
However if you buy a new domain, I can guarantee you one thing, you will not be able to have your blog appear in Google for months if not couple of years! Why? Because of the following reasons (it is ok if you do not understand the following information):
Google gives more weight to old domains than new domains when they appear in search engines.
The new domain will have ZERO backlinks which is the most important factor for Google to show your website in the first page.
Domain and Page authority for the new domain is absolute ZERO.
As mentioned above, please do not get frustrated if you did not understand, in fact many people have not even heard about what’s written above. Don’t worry. I will write a full detailed SEO blog very soon and I will let you know about.
For now, you must trust me and DO NOT buy a new domain. Go for old and expired domains instead. However, if you are not bothered and not in hurry to get your blog in the first page of Google, you can simply purchase a domain from any domain providers like million of other people, for example from godaddy.com .
What’s the expired domains?
They are domains that have been owned by people/companies before however they did not get renewed. So some other people were using those domain before.
In case you want to know why these domains are expired, here we go:
The domain may be related to a business or website that’s no longer in business
The domain’s owner has forgotten to re-register the domain
The domain’s owner has bought it to sell it later however he did not find a buyer
The domain’s owner has lost interest in the website/blog and does not want to use it anymore
How to get an expired domain?
Follow only 3 steps:
How to find expired domains
How to filter them to get the best domain
Buy it now!
1 – How to find expired domains
Watch this video I have made, it should explain to you in very short time how to find expired domains.
Steps in the video:
Go to: ExpiredDomains.net
Signup FREE to get the full features.
Write your subject in the search box, for example, music, club, food or any other name/term you may have thought of. Here you may need to use a wider search term, you remember what you did when you were choosing a subject for your blog? You had to break down the idea into 2 mini niches. Here you do not have to do this, you can choose the main niche name or even a wider name like nightlife for example.
Choose no Fake PR and Available Domain Only
Write 10 in PA and DA
Now you have got thousands of expired domains to choose from. Good job! You are 70% of the way to choosing the right domain that will appear in Google like a magnet.
2 – How to filter them to get the best domain
I will now tell you how to filter the domains even more to get the best domain ever for your business quickly and easily, read below:
A – Download and install Google Chrome Browser (if you are not already using it)
B – Install Majestic Backlink Analyzer Extension for chrome.
C – Click on any domain you like that you have found
D – Now look at Citation Flow (CF) and Trust Flow (TF)
For example, see below:
E – Now the perfect domain for you is the one that has BOTH of the following criteria:
It has score of CF and TF that is equal to or bigger than 10. The higher number is always better, if you found any domain above 20, you should buy it now!
CF/TC ratio is equal to or lower than 3 or even better 2. The closer this value is to 1, the better it is.
What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.Timothy Ferriss
Ok, you have found a domain yet? If not, please repeat what’s mentioned above. Don’t just move on and read, as you have got to follow the steps. Otherwise you are going to get very overwhelmed and end up doing nothing.
If you have tried and really could not find any good domains, please a comment below, and I will help.
3 – Buy it now!
Great job! You made it this far, so let’s get you a domain registered under your name now. After you have found the perfect domain for you, click on the domain name and you will see list of third party websites to buy the domain from. Remember you can’t buy a domain from ExpiredDomains.net but it is a great tool to show you what’s the best available that a lot of people are missing.
You will then see a list of companies such as godaddy.com, namecheap.com,…etc. Just click on any one of them (Godaddy is recommended as it is the easiest way and we will use it also for hosting and other services). You will, of course, need to register, but it just takes few seconds and then you are all set to buy the domain.
Here are some FAQ related to the domains chapter, you will find very common questions that people usually ask. In the next chapter I am going to tell you how and where you should start hosting your blog (step by step).
To recap Chapter 2:
Find expired domains at ExpiredDomains.net at your niche.
Filter them to ensure they are not hacked (steps above).
Buy only 1 domain and name your blog then whatever you want.
FAQ
What if I do not want to buy an expired domain?
Really? You don’t have 1 spare hour per day! You only need 1 hour a day to get started, and this is what you need to commit to. If you don’t start taking the actions I have mentioned above right now, you won’t start it, and guess what!? You will be in exactly the same position next year reading similar posts and saying the same thing. Stop procrastinating and just start now, write your subject right now.
I do not have money.
If you want have a blog using The Entrepreneurial Method, you should buy an expired domain. However you can buy a new domain from any domain provider such as:
GoDaddy.com
NameCheap.com
Names.co.uk
Register.com
Or simply just Google “buy a domain”
I cannot find a good expired domain that I like, what should I do?
Leave a comment and I will help, REMEMBER, if you do not ask, the answer is always NO!
Does the domain’s name have to be exactly as the blog name?
No, it does not have to. You can have your domain as Ilovecooking.com and then call the domain “My daily recipes”.
Make Sure to Set a Title
They can be the same or not, it really does not matter. A domain name can simply be anything memorable, a name that people can really remember and Google later on. For example, MyRoutineForSuccess.com is much better than EnterprisesFacilitiesToSucceed.com. Try to keep it as simple as possible. However the blog name is something that represents you personally, a message or what you actually do. So for the above example MyRoutineForSuccess.com the blog name could be something like; Change your life, quit your job, start your own business, I will help you to be successful, the entrepreneur blog,…etc.
Make Sure to Set a Title
It varies from $1 to thousands, so please do not spend much money on the domain name as it is really not that important, it is what you do with the domain that makes you a successful person with successful blogging and online revenue. I would say find something that does not cost you more than $10-20.
Chapter 3: CMS
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Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory. George S. Patton
CSM stands for Content Management system. This must be decided before you go forward. I am no going to talk a lot about here in this chapter, however in Design and Content chapter I will in details, I just want to give you a general idea in this chapter about CMS. It’s totally fine if you are familiar with a specific CMS and you are more comfortable using it, However it is still advisable to have a quick read through this chapter, perhaps you may change your mind! who knows! And rememeber, any questions? leave a comment and I will help! Good luck!
Let me tell you first what the heck is the CSM?
Do you have an oven at home? If not I am sure you have seen one before. CSM is like an oven, you can’t cook without it even if you have all ingredients and recipes ready, right?
So what will you write (blogs) are the ingredients and recipes but you will need an oven (CSM) to cook it and make it ready to eat.
Got it? you can always write any question you have in the comments section below if you have any.
As there are a lot of oven manufacturers, there are a lot of CSM providers for blogging, I will mention the best ones below:
WordPress
Blogger
Tumblr
Medium
Weebly
Ghost
There are many more, however as I am writing this blog for beginners to start with The Entrepreneurial Method, I highly recommend to start by using WordPress only.
Why do I recommend WordPress?
Very easy to use for non-technical people.
Thousands of themes available to choose from based on your tastes and needs.
Thousands of plugins to uplift your blog and get more traffic.
Very SEO friendly.
Used by millions of bloggers all over the world.
Recently a lot of hosting providers are offering specific hosting “Managed WordPress” or “WordPress hosting” specifically for WordPress. (I will explain this in more detail in the hosting chapter).
I can go on and on about CSM for a long tim but it would only confuse you and distract you from our main goal: start blogging using The Entrepreneurial Method. Our goals here is not to read about the whole online CSM, it is to start quickly using the best tools out there that people spend months to find and understand.
So no you do not need to read or Google the other CSMs, just listen to me, the best way to take an action is to take action. I will show you how, read on.
I will tell you more about WordPress, how to install, what’s it and how to design a website and have your first blog online at Design & Content chapter.
Chapter 4: Hosting
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I will explain to you here what’s the hosting, its type, why you need one and how can you get the best hosting to start.
Let’s define what is hosting first
Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.Francis of Assisi
I do not like to complicate things and you are probably not going to have a PHD in hosting, so let’s make it simple. Hosting is where your website contents and coding will be stored, you know your computer is hosting all your movies, music, files..etc. So obviously your website needs to be hosted somewhere right? Yes.
The good news is you do not have to buy a computer to host your website, you can get such a service online with a few bucks per month. Boom it’s really that easy.
What are the types of hosting?
There are 5 main types:
Free Hosting
Shared Hosting
Virtual Private Server (VPS)
Dedicated Server
Cloud Hosting
I will tell you all about it and I will also identify cons and pros of each, if you have any concerns, please leave your question below and I will answer it.
1 – Free Hosting —–> Suitable for people who are not looking to earn money
Do you remember what I said at the start of domains chapter about free domains? The same applies here, if you get free hosting, you will also get forced to have aa domain like YourDomain.WordPress.com. You will never be able to get a domain for yourself without advertising the big giant domains like Yahoo and WordPress as well. In addition, you will either be forced to allow advertising on your blog or you will have annoying limitations on your blog so that you will never be able to do what you really want to. You will feel that you have NO CONTROLover your own blog.Please do yourself a favour and spend a few bucks, I will explain exactly how in this chapter.So to summarize do not choose this option if you are serious about making money from your blog.
2 – Shared Hosting —–> Suitable for Beginner and new blogs.
This is probably the most famous kind of hosting and it is highly recommended for new websites and blogs. Let’s say the hosting company has 10 servers (computers), they will host your blog along with tens/hundreds of other websites/blogs on the same server. It may sound not very good but it is very common practice so don’t worry.
Recently, some big hosting providers added a sub-category of shared hosting called “Managed WordPress” or “WordPress hosting”. This is hosting that is designed specifically for people who want to start a blog using WordPress. As I mentioned in the previous chapter ‘Platform (CSM)’, the big companies realized how popular WordPress had become so they made special hosting for it.
I still recommend you to start using WordPress. I will tell you in detail how to get that hosting further down.
Pros:
Cheap, it costs usually around $2-6 monthly.
Very easy admin and control panel for beginners.
You do not have to worry about how to manage the server (it is really not easy to do this yourself).
You can be up and running within few minutes once you have paid.
It is often integrated with another famous platform like WordPress and Joomla (I will explain this later)
Cons:
There is usually daily or monthly traffic limitation, if your blog gets over 3,000 user visits every month, you will need to move to another hosting plan, however let’s face it, at the start you will get not be getting that amount of traffic.
Small disk size in the server, not really important as you will not have that much content to start with.
You will have no control over the performance of the server but again this concerns only people who install specific software on the server, you will not need this at all.
Your blog is affected by other blogs/websites that are hosted in the same server, so if one of these, somehow manages to manipulate Google, every blog/website on the same server MAY get blocked as well. This is really a very rare case that over 75% of bloggers have not experienced, but I have to tell you the all cons.
3 – Virtual Private Server (VPS) —–> Suitable for small/medium business that are already generating high traffic.
You will still be sharing your blog with other blogs/websites but fewer. However you will share with good quality websites that are often known for what they are doing. This is often used by small/medium size companies but not beginners.
Pros:
You will have more control on your server to install some applications and software. This will only concern websites with some sophisticated applications which we (bloggers) very rarely use.
Can accommodate a larger amount of traffic than shared hosting, it is hard to say exactly how many visitors but you can have at least 50,000 visitors monthly without any problems.
It is faster than shared hosting and that will make your website a bit faster too. This makes sense because the server will be used by fewer websites than the shared hosting.
You will have complete control over the security of your blog, including the ability to utilize a customized firewall and dedicated mail server (Am I talking in another language? Probably yes! You do not need to worry about it anyway but it is a good thing.
Cons:
You will need a bit of basic knowledge of managing servers.
More expensive than shared hosting, varies around $15-70 monthly, there are a lot of factors that influence the price such as server RAM, memory, disk space and support.
4 – Dedicated Server —–> Suitable to large websites that generating very high traffic
Did you guess it? Yes you will have the whole server to yourself, you may do whatever you want to. You can also restart the sever if you want to in case if there is troubleshooting but really this is not for you to start with. This used by really big people and companies out there that are getting hundreds of thousands of visitors every month.
Pros:
You have a full control over your server and its security.
No one is sharing your server.
You can get millions of visitors monthly.
Faster and better performance
Cons:
You either must have good knowledge of managing servers or pay to the hosting company to manage it.
Expensive. It may cost around $150-1,000+ monthly, again a lot of factors are involved based on the server specification and level of support.
It can really get messy if you do not know how to manage the server, hackers will take advantage of non-secured servers and load it with thousands of spam pages.
5 – Cloud Hosting —–> Not recommended for beginner but can be used by small and large websites
Some people call this the the future of hosting, and some are really concerned about the security.There is a lot debate in the market between experts that see it as a good or bad option. I have not really used it before to judge but here is what you need to know; IT IS NOT FOR BEGINNERS.
Pros:
You pay as you go, like your mobile contract, so for example if you are paying X amount monthly for cloud hosting and suddenly in a month the traffic got doubled, you will be paying more for that month and the same if the traffic decreased as well, so Pay as You Go, got it?
The best option for scalable as you can use as much memory, RAM and disk space as you need, no restrictions at all.
Cons:
There is a lot of talking about the security as all of your data is somewhere up there in the cloud (virtual space).
If you are a beginner, this is not for you as you need a bit of hosting knowledge.
It is a new technology that still in beta phase.
I started as a mommy