I’ve had a number of emails and comments from people asking about starting a web site and a blog.  Questions ranging from “is my domain name too long” to “do you really email each individual commentator when they leave their first comment.”  All of these questions will be answered in an ebook I am creating for people wanting to learn how to blog and earn money.  But before I introduce that ebook, I want to give you a sense of what you should do in the first week of starting a blog.

I will give an overview of week one here and break each day (Monday through Friday) into individual posts throughout this week and maybe next week.  So if you are new to the blogging world, be sure to pay special attention to this series as it will help you have a successful blog or web site.

For the sake of time and since I’ve touched on these topics previously, I will assume you have a domain name and hosting.

Week 1: Basic Site Optimization

In week 2 you’re going to work hard at finding blog owners and convincing them to link to you. But before you call this kind of attention to your blog, you’ll need to spend a full week detailing, polishing, and checking for the proverbial spinach in your site’s teeth.

One of the major goals for this week is to optimize your blog, with the hope of positively influencing how search engines view and rank your web site. You’ll also tackle basic site structure issues making sure that search engine robots have easy access to your landing pages. With these improvements in place, your site will have a basic level of optimization: nothing tricky or fancy, and no time wasted on tiny technicalities, just common-sense, best-practices solutions.

I recommend that you keep track of all your changes in one document as you go.  This document will help you when starting a second or third site.  You see what works and what doesn’t work and you can recreate what you do based on this one document.  Who knows, you may be able to use it as a foundation for an ebook.  

Here are your daily task assignments for the following week:

Monday: Page Titles

Tuesday: Meta Tags

Wednesday: Robot Walk-Through

Thursday: Site Text

Friday: Implementation

This week and next week I will walk you through each day and the specific things you should consider as you begin to optimize your blog and/or web site as you earn money online.

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16 Comments »

Comment by Derek
2007-05-08 13:56:39
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I’ve been reading your blog for a little bit, and I have enjoyed the helpful hints that you have given. I look forward to reading more of them, although I must admit that I thought that your blog (after reading CareerRamblings) would be more of a personal blog and less of one directed at optimizing websites. In any case, it’s still interesting stuff!

Comment by Jane
2007-05-08 14:01:49
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Thanks Derek…interesting feedback. I wonder if more readers would like to see more personal stuff on here in addition to my blogging tips? (sorry no undies shared here!) :-P

I have a poll on the sidebar with the “other” category. You can add a topic youl’d like to see here…if personal info, like dinners, weekend stuff, etc…be sure to submit that.

Thanx

Comment by Derek
2007-05-08 14:17:51
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Well it’s not that I don’t like the SEO and blogging tips, I’ve just found that sometimes it’s more interesting to see what people are actually like. Granted nobody (least of all me) wants a blog that tells about each little thing that you do (à la Twitter). Still I know that I am more interested when it’s mixed up a bit. Take it for what it’s worth. I added “Who Jane May is” in the “other” category for the sidebar poll.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by James
2007-05-08 15:52:18
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I’ll be looking forward to this. Even though I have been doing this a year now and pretty much am familiar with most of it, I always seem to pick up a little something new. Also handy if your a starting another site and a bit out of practice.
Personal stuff is cool too. I do not think you need to do the restaurant critic like John Chow though. There can only be one root of all evil. :)

 
Comment by Business Twins
2007-05-08 16:19:39
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Great information. Looking forward to the future posts. I like to document what I do to Business Twins and previously on my personal blog. That way, if I ever do launch another site I know exactly what plugins I’m using and what tweaks I made.

-Gregg

Comment by Jane
2007-05-08 17:04:35
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exactly…you’ll come to find that once you do it the first time, it’s so much easier to do it again. And those plugins are a lot easier to understand in round 2 :-)

 
 
Comment by Fun Game Videos
2007-05-08 17:08:58
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This blog has very useful tips indeed.

“Wednesday: Robot Walk-Through”

That’s an interesting one - I never was paying too much attention to the robots.txt file, and even dont know if it’s very useful except denying access to the admin part of the site for bots…

 
Comment by Missy
2007-05-08 17:35:35
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Jane- today i am subscribing to your blog as you have good info here especially for newbies (like me). I too ask myself if i should share more personal stuff on my blog, only time (and more readers) will tell. lol. I personally like your optimization tips best.

Comment by Jane
2007-05-08 17:45:08
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Thanks for sharing Missy. :-)

 
 
Comment by ricardo Subscribed to comments via email
2007-05-09 00:27:30
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Hi Jane.

I dont know, but instead of starting with meta tags, which aren’t used by lot’s of SE’s anymore, I would start with setting up my .htaccess for seo friendly urls.

greetz from cold switzerland.

ric

 
Comment by Nate Whitehill
2007-05-09 01:54:18
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Jane! Your blog is really blossoming! You have accumulated such a great amount of knowledge over the past several months and I am happy that we have been able to share information with each other. I look forward to your upcoming blog optimizing tips! You rock!

 
Comment by Jeff Kee
2007-05-09 07:38:46
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Oh wow robots.txt and metas as well as text optimization..

you’re getting as good as me!

Comment by Jane
2007-05-09 09:11:09
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I’m trying ;-)

 
 
Comment by Julie Subscribed to comments via email
2007-05-09 09:59:59
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Good stuff Jane. More bloggers need training like this. So many people start a blog with no thought to anything other than “Yea, I started a blog!” (guilty!) The research really does need to start from the beginning, before you even buy that domain name. I’m looking forward to your ebook. I was talking to a friend yesterday and said something about an ebook and she asked “what’s that?” lol My friends think I’ve turned into a big ‘ol nerd. :)

 
2007-05-09 10:20:09
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[…] Learn to Blog and Earn Money: Day 1 - This is going to be a great series. […]

 
2007-05-09 10:31:36
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[…] I mentioned yesterday, I will be giving an overview for new bloggers of what they should be doing in week one and break each day (Monday through […]

 
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