Change Of Servers

This important post is to update you all about the change that I have made in my hosting service. The current blog, Ad PushUp is dead and shall not receive any new posts.

I took this decision because it was difficult to control blogger, often I would loose valued readers just because of lousy servers. So, I made a concrete decision to change my hosting service from Blogger To Weebly.

This blog shall remain available for the next one month. After that, I shall delete this blog permanently. But, don't worry, I have already arranged for a replacement. And I'm even willing to bet that you people would love my new blog from the first look itself.

Please do visit my new blog, and keep checking it out for new posts. You can visit my blog here. I shall be looking for you to join soon!!

Basics Of WordPress

Let me explain some of the basic things & some basic settings in WordPress so that you can immediately start posting on your blog.

There are 2 main things in WordPress. The first one is Themes & the second Plugins.

Themes

A Theme is the overall design of a site and encompasses color, graphics, and text. A Theme is sometimes called the skin. WordPress Themes can provide much more control over the look and presentation of the material on your website.

A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog. These files are called template files.

You can change your default WordPress theme anytime from the WordPress dashboard. You will find different options in different themes which you can use to change the look & feel of your website.

There are thousands of WordPress themes available which are developed by hundreds of web developers around the world. Some are free and some are paid.

There are thousands of free themes available. Just click on Appearance & then themes & then install themes to check the themes. You will select different options to find different themes.

You can click on Preview to preview the themes, check Details & if you like one of the theme click ‘Install Now’ option. You can further customize your theme from ‘Theme options’ link.

Plugins

Plugins allow you to add new features to your WordPress websites that don’t come standard with the default installation. There are a rich variety of Available Plugins for WordPress. You can add, remove or check installed plugins from the ‘Plugins’ link on the left side in your WordPress dashboard.

Here are some of the plugins you must use while making your website. They do wonderful job for your blog.

Akismet:

Already Installed – just need to activate it. Search for this plugin & click on activate plugin. Don’t forget to add ‘Akismet API Key’ which you can get free from the link available in the Akismet Configuration.

All in One SEO:

Search for this, install and activate. This is one of the best plugin for SEO benefits. Just refer the image above to understand how I installed ‘All in One SEO Pack’ plugin.

Contact Form 7:

This is the standard plugin for creating a quick and easy contact page. Just go into the plugin settings, copy the auto generated short code and paste into a new page (doesn’t have to be in HTML mode).

Code looks like this (where x is the form ID): [contact-form-7 id=”XXXX” title=”Contact form 1″]

JetPack Plugin:

JetPack can do the job of many plugins alone. You need to create a free account at WordPress.com in order to activate this plugin after installation. Click on ‘Connect to WordPress.com’ once you install & after authorizing you can start using this plugin.

Important Settings in Creating a WordPress site

You may have any reason to create your website but all reasons have the 'common' interest of getting traffic on their website. When we talk about traffic, we only focus on Big Boss ‘Google’.

So its very important to write original & valuable contents on regular basis on your website. The updated contents will be published on your blog page. Either you can use the blog on the home page or create a separate blog page where all your new contents will be published.

You need to do some simple settings in your WordPress dashboard for this.

·         Click on Settings –>Readings

·         You will see there 2 options. First ‘Your Latest Posts’ & Second ‘A static page’.

·         If you like to publish all your contents on the home page then choose the first option.

·         If you want to publish a different static page on home page & your new content on separate page then choose second option.

·         You need to create a new blank page from Pages –>Add New. Name this page as ‘Blog’ & click publish.

·         Now choose the page you want for front page (homepage) as the one you created for homepage & posts page as the Blog page.

Just refer this image for more clarification;

Another important setting is the permalink structure. By default, WordPress uses question mark (?) & numbers in the URL for all the contents you publish. This is not good for users & for search engines.

You can create your own custom structures of your URL. Click ‘Settings’ & then ‘Permalinks’.  You will many options there. Check the last option ‘Custom Structure’.

Now write /%postname%/ in the box & click ‘Save Changes’ & you are done.

HomeWork:-

Experiment with your blog. Try different themes, plugins & settings so that you will know how it affects your WordPress blog with some changes in your settings.

Check the WordPress sites & blogs of other people. Read more about WordPress, themes & simple designing tweaks on other blogs. Come to a final WordPress site of yours.

I am sure, once you become an expert, it won’t take more than 30 minutes to create any of your website or blog.

If you have any doubt regarding this topic, please feel feel to clarify it using the 'Contact Me' form at the end.

Think I missed something? Please remind me of it using the comments section.

How to Create a Website in Just 30 Minutes

If internet has changed something dramatically in the last decade, then it’s the simplicity of how to create a website or a blog. There are number of ways, you can make your website online. One of the easiest way is through WordPress.

Just like you create a notepad or word file and save it in your PC, you can create a website or a blog with the help of WordPress. Whether you want to start a website for your small business, an ecommerce website, a commercial blog to monetize with AdSense or affiliate marketing  or even a personal blog, WordPress is your answer.

In this guide, you will learn how easy is to create a website through WordPress and how to make any website or blog with WordPress in just 30 minutes.

How to create a website?

If you are really interested in making your own website then first thing you need to find the purpose of creating your site. Different people have different purpose, so if you are clear about your goal then it will be easy to move forward.

You may want to create your site or a blog –

1.     for making some money through AdSense or other ad network.

2.     for selling your own products.

3.     or as a hobby of sharing your passion with the world.

4.     create a membership site.

You can create the best websites or blog with WordPress in all the above situations & that too in less than 30 minutes.

Before I begin with creating a site, I will give you a brief idea of WordPress.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is a very powerful blogging tool & content management system (CMS). WordPress is used by more than 17.5% of all the websites. The market share of WordPress CMS is 55%. It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system.

WordPress is a free software but you need your own hosting to install. Once installed, you can create very beautiful sites with ease.

Why WordPress?

·         WordPress is very powerful CMS.

·         Creating a website or blog using WordPress is like child’s play. You don’t need any programming or technical knowledge to create a WordPress site.

·         You can easily enhance the design, look & feel & the capabilities of your WordPress site using hundreds of best & free themes & plugins.

·         You can save your thousands of dollars by designing WordPress blogs on your own, which otherwise you would have to pay to the web developers.

·         WordPress is very search engine friendly and will play an important role in search engine ranking.

·         Once setup which hardly takes 30 minutes to 1 hr, you just need to copy & paste your article and publish. It’s that easy.

How To Setup a WordPress website or blog?

The first step in setting up a WordPress site is buying a domain name & hosting. There are many famous companies you can buy your domain & hosting from.

Buying a domain name

You can buy a domain name either from GoDaddy.com, NameCheap.com, BigRock.in or any other domain registrar. I prefer to buy most of my domains from GoDaddy.

For hosting either, you can buy from any of the company above or from Hostgator.com, the largest hosting service provider in the world. Hostgator does not deal in Domain selling.

If you buy the domain & hosting from different companies then you have to set the name servers in your domain which is provided by your hosting provider.

But if you are new in this field, its better to buy the hosting from the same company, you are buying the domain from.

Setup WordPress on GoDaddy Hosting

If you plan to buy both domain & hosting from GoDaddy then its better to buy the WordPress hosting as WordPress will be pre-installed on your hosting.

Tip – If you want to buy domain or hosting from any company then don’t buy them without applying a discount coupon on your billing. It will save you 10% to 50% on your total amount.

Just make a search in Google for ‘Godaddy promo code’ & you will find fresh discount coupon on many websites.

Once you buy your domain name & hosting, just login to your Godaddy account & follow the steps below.

1.     Click on ‘My account’ link from ‘All products’ category available on the top left corner.

2.     Then click on ‘+’ sign available before Web Hosting.

3.     If you have more than 1 hosting, click the ‘Launch’ link next to the hosting account you want to setup.

4.     Fill up the following fields, and then click Finish:

·         Enter domain — Choose the domain name from the list.

·         FTP username — Use the suggested username, or click Change, and then enter the desired FTP username.

·         Password & Confirm password — Enter the strong password that you can remember. It will be used to use to access your WordPress a panel and your hosting account with FTP.

·         (Optional) SSL credits — You can leave this as it is.

·         Contact email — Enter your email address.

·         Blog title — Enter the title for your website or blog.

After you click ‘Finish’ button, it will display a message to wait for sometime. Usually it takes 30 minutes to setup your WordPress website. Check the image for reference-

Setup WordPress on Hostgator Hosting

This video will explain you how to install WordPress. You can also refer the easy instructions given below.

After you purchase hosting from Hostgator, you will receive an email containing all the account info (login ID, password, name servers etc.).

Then first thing you have to do is changing the name servers of your domain name provided by hostgator in the email.

After changing the name servers, login to your Hostgator control panel & then add your domain name through ‘add-on domain’ icon. You don’t need to add the first domain because it will already be added when you buy the hosting.

After adding the domain name, you need to install the WordPress. Its just one click install. Search the icon ‘Fantastico De luxe’ & click on this. It will show you the list of all applications you can install on your hosting.

Click WordPress from the left column. Then on the right, it will show you different options. Click New installation. Leave the blog directory field blank & enter the details in other fields. Click Install & then ‘Finish Installation’. Within 30 minutes, your WordPress setup will be ready.

How to design your WordPress website

Designing a WordPress website is damn easy. You need to login to your WordPress account in order to design your website. Your WordPress admin URL will be http://SiteName.com/wp-admin. Replace the 'Sitename.com' with the name of your domain. Suppose your domain name is http:hdfcBankNetbanking.org then your admin URL will be http:hdfcBankNetbanking.org/wp-admin.

Just watch this video which explains you how to design your WordPress site.

Login to your WordPress account with your username & password & you will see your WordPress dashboard.

By now you must have successfully setup your domain and WordPress account simultaneously.

HomeWork:-

Go through the video's in my current post before actually buying a domain and setting-up your WordPress account. If you go through these video's thoroughly once or twice, then you shall have no problem in finding your way around. (These websites actually aren't that user friendly.) 

If you have any problem regarding this topic, please use the 'Contact Me' form available at the end.

Think I forgot something? Please remind me through the comments section. Also, if you have completed this 'task' then read my next section on 'The Basics Of WordPress' here.

Top 10 Niches for Blogging in India

Your blog can only be successful if you are targeting a right niche. If you are planning to start a new blog then it is important for you to choose a right niche.

Let us talk something more about it.

What is the Most Common Reason for Bloggers to Fail?

7 out of 10 bloggers fail because they are not able to decide their niche. A niche is a topic on which you will be writing your blog. Most of the new bloggers fail because they are not able to decide a niche.

Your entire keyword research would depend upon choosing a niche. You have to design content of your blog around a particular niche. If you do not realize the importance of it, then you are bound to fail.

So it better for Indian bloggers to choose only those niche which profitable and pay you good money. I have given 10 such niche.

Importance of Choosing a Right Niche

If you target for a right niche then you could make more money. Here are importance of a right niche.

1. Get Authority  – By writing about a particular niche, you get more better idea of a particular topic. You can research better & write better than others on your blog. This way your readers as well as search engines treat you as an authority in a particular topic.

2. Better monetization – Whether you use AdSense, affiliate marketing or provide consultancy to make money through your blog, you can monetize better. Google can target better ads with better CPC & CTR.

3. Better ranking – You will be able to target better in search engines & get better ranking in results. You could attract more traffic.

4. Get More Readers – If your blog targets a particular niche then you could reach out to right kind of audience. Therefore, you get more readers for your blog.

How to Choose a Niche?

You should choose a niche which is high in demand. It means people are searching for that particular niche on the internet.

You should jot down all those keywords related to a particular niche and see how many people are searching it. You can use any keyword tool to find it more.

Then next thing to see is what the competition is. It means how many other blogger just like you who are writing on it.

If there are more blogger writing on that niche then competition is very high. So you should choose a niche with high in search volume but less competition.

This is the right way to choose a niche.

Top 10 Niches for Indian Bloggers :-

Here I am writing about top 10 niches that are in high demand & can earn you good & stable income. Indian bloggers can choose any one of them.

1. Health & Fitness

On health and fitness no one is writing. At least in India very few are writing about this topic. Outside India, there are some good blogs on it.

But if you want to cater for Indian public then there are only few of them who write in India.

If you have any idea about health and fitness then you could start a blog on it. Google AdSense program also pays well for this niche.

2. Jobs & Career

Jobs and career is one of the hot topic you can think about. There are very few authority blogs on this. If you think, you can become an authority by providing value, then this is the best niche you can think about.

There are many searches for it on daily basis and competition is also low for many categories, because only few people are writing about it.

So you could choose this niche to start a new blog.

3. Music & Entertainment

This niche is very easy to write although there are many bloggers who write for it. But I am suggesting it because you can write about it very easily.

Anyone knows about music, entertainment and movies. You have to cover Bollywood and other areas of film industry.

Competition is going to be little bit tough but this topic is very much in demand by the readers in India. So go for it.

4. Technology

Again this is also bit tough but you can write easily about it. If you are an engineering graduate then it will be easy for you to start a blog on laptop or mobile phones.

Yes competition is there but you could make good money. Programs like Google Adsense are ready to pay enough money for this niche.

Technology is perhaps most popular niche for blogging.

5. Relationship & Dating

Matrimony sites and dating sites would come under this niche. You might not be able to create a website like jeevansathi.com but you can create a good blog on this niche.

The younger generation of India is coming to Internet for finding out relationships and dating tips. You can help them through your blog.

So this can be the topic of your blog that you are starting.

6. Sports – Cricket, IPL

There is lack of good sports bloggers in India. You hardly find any good Indian blog on sports.

You can fill this gap by creating a blog on sports, especially Cricket and IPL. You know more and more premier league are coming to India.

You can start a blog covering all these events. People would love to read your blog.

Moreover, there is great money to be made.

7. Arts & Culture

This is yet another area which is totally neglected in India. All the websites or blogs related to arts & culture are from USA.

Here, you could hardly find any website, not even one you can name.

Although arts and culture is a bit difficult niche and not every one of you could write a blog on it but it could be very profitable if you write.

8. Real Estate & Properties

Real estate and properties is also a good niche to write. If you have knowledge about this niche then definitely you could have a blog.

Google AdSense could pay you very high CPC for this topic.

9. Banking & Finance

Banking and finance is very common niche but in India only few bloggers are writing on it.

You can explore on this topic by starting a new blog.

Millions of people search for banking and finance solution. If you have any ideas then start blogging on it.

10. Automobile

Last but not the least niche for your blog would be Automobile. You could right about cars and motorbikes popular in India.

Many of young students have passion for cars so you can use this passion in starting a new blog.

I recommend blogger's to choose any one of the above mentioned topics for writing blogs. But, as I already mentioned, these are not generalised topics, they are topics specifically aimed to cater Indian readers rather than International readers. For targeting International readers, I shall recommend a 'News Channel' or something of that sort. 

HomeWork:-

Try finding out about the Pro's and Con's of these website hosting services. Also, please fix your budget as you shall have to buy a domain for yourself.

Coming back to the topic, if you feel I missed something, please make sure that you remind me of it, you can use the comments section. Also, if you have any doubt/query regarding this topic, please contact me using the 'Contact Me' form in the end.

After selecting/finalising your niche, you can view my next post to learn 'How To SetUp Your Own Website'. You can view the post here .

Tips That I Learned From My Experience

I have been a part-time blogger since the past two years. Juggling between studies, blogging, tuitions, homework, and well yeah, stuff. However, in these past two years, I have gained hell lot of knowledge from my experiences.

Now I have reached a point where I can easily advise any new blogger right from selecting the niche of their blog, to SEO, to advertising, to earning lots. Yeah, you read it correctly, I said earning real money, that too lots if you have more than 10K monthly visitors. We are talking about earning six-figure sums if you are able to do this correctly, that too monthly.

Let us leave these money-making *dreams* for later on, and currently focus on the more pressing matters.

Some of you might have already decided the niche you will be writing about (meaning that some of you may have completed the homework). But still there might be many who haven't been able to make this extremely difficult choice (well, there are lots of things one can write about!) I shall dedicate an entire post to help you people, but after this one.

This post of mine gives some brief lessons that I have learnt from my experience. And I recommend everyone to read these tips thoroughly. If you are asking why should you waste your time reading about the lessons I learnt from my life, then I have only one explanation for this- 'hearing about someone else's experience of falling from roof-top is actually worth the time, instead of yourself jumping off the rooftop.'

With that in mind, here I begin:-

•  Keep a very healthy connection with the visitors.

While approaching you regarding a query, your visitors should never feel as if they are contacting a very big organisation (even if you are one) This means that your visitors should always feel as if they are approaching a fellow human being for help and not some VVIP who barely has time to address personal and childish queries. The bottom is that your blog and your answers to queries should never lack the warm touch (metaphor). Alos, it is good to be a little sarcastic and funny.

• Keep posting a couple of posts every week.

Keep a log of at least 10 posts, you might have to work overtime for this in the first week. After you have published 10 posts, slow down your pace, even 2 posts in a week are more than enough, provided that your visitors don't feel as if your blog is dead. Bottom line is try to keep your posts high in quality and low in quantity.

• Prioritise quality over quantity.

What I meant by '10 posts' was that you write quality posts (which are equal to or more than 10 in number). Don't be under the impression that 10 is the magic number, as soon as you reach the milestone of 10 posts suddenly you shall have a thousand people visiting your blog daily. It doesn't matter much even if you have 8 or 9 posts. What matters is that the visitors should feel that you are writing because you love to (even if you don't). Never let your visitors feel neglected.

• How many posts should one write in the beginning?

Like I said, it doesn't matter if you weren't able to write 10 posts in the first week. Don't focus on 10 posts. You have to understand what I mean by writing overtime. By this, I meant that in the first week itself, your blog should be of enough length to keep a visitor engrossed for at least half-an-hour. Also, make sure that the content and quality of your blog should ensure that the visitor stays busy reading your blog and should think of nothing else.

• Don't cram up your blog space.

Keep your blog neat and organised. Don't cram up your blog space with useless ad's and link's that might draw away the users attention. Your main objective should be to keep the visitor engrossed completely just in reading your blog. At such a time, ad's/irrelevant photos/useless links may all draw away the visitor to some other website.

• Don't ever be *over-confident*

Through my journey as a blogger, I have seen several other bloggers who initially had 10K+ monthly page views (that's' a hell lot!) But then they filled their blogs with ad's, started ignoring queries, isolated their blogs for even a month at a stretch. By now, most of you I hope have enough common sense to predict what happened to them. Yes- most of them were lost amidst the oncoming tide of new blogger's. They ran out of business. The remaining few who survived, had received a great blow.  Now they couldn't even manage 200+ monthly viewers. What I meant to say was never feel too overconfident of yourself or your blog. Respect the visitors and they shall keep visiting you. Ignore them and you too shall be lost among new blogger, however famous you used to be......

• Don't overload the visitor with too much information.

Have you ever visited a blog which was too full of content such that it seemed *end-less*, if yes then you yourself might have experienced how disheartening it feel to have to read so much. Many of us might close that page instantly. Not only is this the wastage of the writers valuable time, but it also is very depressing to own a blog that has 100,000+ words and yet not even 100+ visitors. The main reason is the end-less content. Be precise and to the point. Include images that are relevant to the topic and also help in clearing concepts. Don't be too dull and boring. Avoid publishing content that exceeds 2000 words.

These were some tips for new bloggers that I could come up with. Think I missed something? Please feel free to remind me through the comments section or the 'Contact Me' form.

HomeWork:-

Google for the 10 most powerful individual bloggers and visit their blogs. Go through their blogs thoroughly. Try to notice similarities between them. Eg. All of them may hardly contain grammatical errors or spelling mistake. Try to find as many as you can.

Visit my section on 'Niche Selection', yes my previous homework!! Click Here!!

Finding a Niche – Profitable Niche Selection Tips

There are thousands of people all over the world making money from niche marketing.

The fact is, people are interested in certain things, and if you can provide them quality information and a quality product geared towards their needs, you can make money.

There are a couple of secrets you need to know though before you decide on a niche.

Finding a Niche:-

Here are 5 steps to finding a profitable niche:-

1. Pick A Popular Market

First, a large majority of the niche marketing business is in 4 categories: health, relationships, wealth, and self-help.

If you are deciding on a niche and you cannot reasonably put it in these categories, then you must be 100% sure it is profitable. However, I recommend starting here before narrowing down further.

2. Narrow It Down

This is where most people fail. You will not be able to rank a website called “weight loss” unless you seriously narrow it down.

For example, “weight loss in your 50’s” or “weight loss tips for college girls.”

By narrowing it down, you not only have a better chance of ranking in search engines, but you will also provide targeted information.

By narrowing it down, you also can create long-tail keywords that will generate traffic. The most important thing to remember is that you must find a “target” you are going for.

Unless you have a lot of resources, start by appealing to one very specific group of people (college girls who want to lose weight).

3. Pick A Niche That People Would Want To Advertise For

Okay this is another area where a lot of people go wrong. If you are in a niche that no one is advertising for, then it might not be very profitable.

You know when you search pretty much anything into Google and ads pop up? Well, there are a surprising amount of niches that ads simply do not pop up for.

Some people have tried with the niche “interview questions” and I’m sure there are more still doing it today.

Although it is a niche that a lot of people search for, it is not extremely profitable. Even if you are the biggest expert in the world, it will be hard to make money from it.

Go ahead, do a quick Google search right now on “interview questions.” Tell me how many advertisements you see around regular websites.

When I did this search, there were 0. That is because it is not worth the advertiser’s money because this niche does not convert well.

4. Pick A Niche You Have Expertise In And Enjoy Writing About

After you learned that your niche must be profitable, now you need to pick a niche that you enjoy talking about.

So if you have made it your life goal to get and keep a six-pack, why not create a blog about it?

Over time, you can create a product that you can market and sell to your loyal readers. Before I get too far ahead of myself, let’s go over this step.

Many marketers fail because they do not like their topic. Although you can convert offers about investing, hedging, and trading, it is not always easy to generate content about this.

It might take you all day to write one article because things can be complex, especially quality information.

So pick a niche that you do not mind writing about.

I could write about how to make money, small business ideas, blogging all day. Plus I am very interested in these topics so I learn more as I create content.

Many marketers fail because they have no desire for their niche.

5. Do Some Thorough Research On The Topic

Do a quick search on your favorite search engine and find other niche marketers success with a niche similar to yours.

Say you want to do the idea “weight loss tips for college girls,” search for other affiliates and their success with the weight loss niche. You will be surprised at how much you can learn in a short period of time.

If you find that people are having trouble making money from this, then find something else.

The most important thing to remember is that people are making a lot of money from niche marketing every day.

There are different strategies you can use, which I shall carry on some other day.

However, pick a profitable niche that you can provide quality content for. Make sure you have an interest and some expertise in your niche as people are trying to learn from you.

Take action today.

Homework:-

Finally, select your niche. Try to stick to the tips I gave. Use them as guidelines and finalise your niche.

Do not wait around and think about it for a week. Before finally selecting a niche, always ask yourself “Does this seem like a good idea?”

If you feel like people will actually be looking for your information, then it is probably a good idea. Also, make sure your niche is narrowed down so you are targeting one specific group of people.

If you have any query related to this topic, please feel free to contact me through the comments section or the 'Contact Me' form.

Also, if you are an Indian reader looking for fresh blog topics, then I have a list of niche's to target Indian Audience. You can check them out here.