Nowadays, every Tom Dick and Harry is coming up with a blog of his own. In such situations, along with the content, the other important aspect that one needs to think about is his domain name. Let me tell you some small tips regarding that before we move on.

• Your domain name must be as short as possible.
• Always use .com domains rather than .info or .org just because they are cheaper to purchase.
• Try to avoid hyphens and numbers in the domain name.
• The domain name should be pronounceable. Like, ‘google’ is always easier to remember than ‘xzyqp’ right?
• The domain name should be purchased from a known registrar.
• Make a list of the final 3 domains you selected and ask some of your friends which they liked the most.

You can follow the tips given above, but the question is how to find great domain names? You can always put your brain to work for finding good domain names. But then, why not make the use of tools already available that will simplify your need of a domain name? Let me show you some awesome tools for the same.

DomainR

Xona



DomainTyper



DomainFinder

As you might have known, one of the tools to rate a website other than the traffic is PageRank. In fact, if you try to sell a website with high quality content but no PageRank, you will find it hard. Now, many of my friends do ask me on how to get a good PageRank. I will answer that in this post. Many webmasters can afford to pay or do backlinking on their own but don’t know where to start. One of the simplest ways for increasing PR is dofollow blog commenting.

If you don’t know what is dofollow blog commenting, let me try to explain that to you. Blogspot based blogs have rel=”nofollow” attribute set as default. If such attribute is set, the commentor on his blog won’t have any effect on his page rank. Only his time will get wasted. There are many bloggers who care for others and using plugins, turn the attribute to “dofollow”. Such blogs are knows as “dofollow blogs”.

Yeah, now the question you must be thinking is, how do I find these dofollow blogs? I will share a few tips to find such blogs.

• DoFollow Search Engines like CommentHunt and EzBusinessNeeds
• DoFollow Directories like DoFollowBlogs and DoFollowBlogsList
• Lists on forums and SEO websites like DigitalPoint and Courtneytuttle
• Google for phrases like THIS!
• Find images on Google by using phrases like “U Comment”, “I Follow” or “U Comment I Follow”
• Use advanced search syntax like “inurl:ucomment” and “inurl:ifollow”

Some More Tips On Commenting :

Now you have learnt the basics of increasing PR. Here are some tips on commenting :

• Never spam dofollow blogs with lots of spam comments. The owners of such blogs who change to “dofollow” are generally strict and will categorize your comments as spam.
• If those webmasters complain to Google and report your site as spam, Google will penalize your website and you wouldn’t surely get a PR update. In worse cases, your Adsense may also get suspended.
• So, on a safer side, just make 3-5 comments on any given day. Not more, not less.
• Leave comments on all types of blogs, it doesn’t matter if it has a PR 6 or a PR 0.
• Your comment has to look natural. Always put your website link in the box provided for giving your website and not in the text box. Such comments will be regarded as spam and will be edited before publishing. The box provided for adding your name must have your real name and not something that spams your website.

Hope this post helped you, keep the comments flowing in

Let me start this topic with a conversation with my online friend (name withheld for personal reasons) :

Friend : Hi Prateek! Need some help bro

Me : Yes, what help do you need bro?

Friend : Actually, I am going broke. Dad’s not giving me enough money. I took a free co.cc domain and blogged for 2 days and applied for Adsense. But Adsense flatly refused my application. All my posts were original. What should I do?

Me : LOL Wait till I write a article on my site, then you will understand where you went wrong. You, like other new bloggers, have taken Adsense for granted.

Most of the bloggers (basically, even I) took to blogging just for Adsense. People make the mistake of linking money with Adsense. They think that all they need is a few posts (which they do by copy pasting or intelligent ones spin those articles). Day by day, the adsense policies are getting stricter. As of now, these are the compulsory requirements for getting Adsense approved on your website.

• Buy a Top Level Domain :

Many new bloggers make this mistake.  Moments after making the decision of blogging, they head over to blogspot and get a free blog. Some of them try taking co.cc domains and host it on a free hosting. My dear friend, you need to a bit more professional when you think of earning money. You strictly need a Told Level Domain. The best top level domain is “.com” domain. Just head over to some domain registrar and go get one for just about $9. You can even get coupon codes that give free domain for first year or domain for just $1 only. All you need is a bit of Google searching.

• Age Of Website :

For your website to be qualified for Adsense, you need a good aged website. Your blog must be minimum 6 months old before you can apply for Adsense.

• Write Original Content :

Who would like copied articles? Same is the case with Adsense. These guys have advanced checkers that can easily detect whether the articles are authentic or just some copy paste. Your site can only have content that agree to Google Adsense’s policy. Hacking tutorials or tricks are a strict no no. In a word, everything that you post should be LEGAL. Also, just having a few original articles won’t do the trick. You must have atleast 50-60 originals before you think of applying.

• Having Some IMPORTANT Pages :

Your website must have important pages like Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use. Such things elevate the level of professionalism of your website and can impress the people at Google. Also, tend to AVOID popups like subscription boxes on the home page. This shows that you are making the website for only making profits and not sharing information.

• Traffic :

Traffic is definitely a important criterion for getting Adsense. Adsense will never accept your site if you have very less traffic because they will stand at a loss. Low traffic website owners sometimes do illegal things like ‘click exchange’ which results in losses for both Adsense and the websites who advertise on Adsense. So you need to have a site that generates constant traffic.

Just make a small checklist and try to assess your website with the following points. I am sure you must be getting rejected because you don’t comply to one of the terms. Enjoy blogging!

Hello readers! I had made a tutorial for the same sometime back but many people complained that it was a bit hard and they felt it impossible. So I have come to their rescue and now will teach you’ll how to create a simple site with Wordpress installed in it. Hopefully, it will solve your doubts too. Also, this time I will be giving screenshots too. So enjoy guys!

Domain :

In very simple terms, domain is the address of your website. So while choosing a domain, be sure to have a one people will tend to remember. Try to avoid numerals and hyphens in your URL, it will be more difficult to remember. Now, there are primarily 3 types of domains;

1. Top Level Domain (TLD) (Paid)

A Top Level Domain (TLD) is the highest level of domains available. These are paid domains and can be purchased from registrars. They have a better SEO (Search Engine Optimization) than the other domains and are generally prefered for good websites. Buying a domain reflects that it is a worthwhile site and naturally, you will get better traffic than others. For purchasing one, just head to any of the registrars like Godaddy, Name and NameCheap among others. Preferred payment options are Credit/Debit Cards or through PayPal.

Tip : Before buying a domain, do Google up for coupon codes. You can purchase domains for cheaper rates using these codes. If you go for premium hosting (to be covered later), you may get a free domain.

2. Free Domain (Free for private use)

Free domains are generally used by upcoming bloggers and website owners. You can get yourself a free domain from co.cc or .tk (I prefer the 1st one). These domains are mostly free unless you want a premium domain name or want to use the domain for business purposes.

Tip : If you can afford $1, then you can get .info which is a TLD.

3. Subdomain (Free with hosting account)

When you register for a free host, you generally get a free domain. These ones should be avoided as you can easily get a free domain as mentioned above. Not much to say here.

Registering For A Host :

Now once you have the domain, you need to put the files that the visitors to your website can see. So you need a hosting for that matter. Now there are 2 types of hosts, Premium and free. Free hosts have a set of limitations in place which stop you from getting the maximum benefits. But since you are a beginner in this, I suggest you to stick to free ones for some time. When looking for a host, NEVER look at the bandwidth and the space given, but look for reliability. When I had just started blogging about a year back, I had made this mistake and my website was down for most of the time.

Good free hosts include x10hosting and freehostia. But before going for a host, ask your friends or Google for reviews about that host and issues regarding it. Once you sign up for the host, you get something called as cPanel. I suggest you to avoid hosts that give VistaPanel. After signing up for any of the hosts, follow the method mentioned below.

Adding Nameservers :

In simple words, I can define nameservers as the settings in the domain that show the domain the path to the hosting. Nameservers are generally in the format :

NS1.[YOURHOST].COM

NS2.[YOURHOST]COM

So suppose you use x10hosting, just use the following:

NS1.X10HOSTING.COM

NS2.X10HOSTING.COM

Some hosts have upto 4 nameservers but there is no problem if your host has just 2.

Where to add nameservers?

To add nameservers, login to the website from where you took your domain and go to edit nameservers.

If you have gone for a free domain (co.cc) then you should add your nameservers as mentioned below:

I have purchased my TLD’s from Name, so here is the screenshot for that :

Now that you are done editing the nameservers, we need to add the domain in the host. For that you need to login to your cPanel and click on addon domain.

Now login to the cPanel and click on Addon Domains and add your domain. After adding, we now have to add files to it.

Making A Website :

Now, this is the main step of the tutorial. After you have added the domain, we need to add files to the website. You have 2 options here, either code yourself or upload already coded websites (known as CMS). I suggest you go for Wordpress because it is easy to use and can be modded to any level. For experts, I suggest Joomla.

For adding Wordpress to your domain, there are 2 methods;

1-> Automatic

I suggest you use this method. Go to your cPanel and click on Fantastico Deluxe.

2-> Manual Method (If You Don’t Have Fantastico) :

In case your cPanel doesn’t have Fantastico, then you can use the manual method. In this method, you need to download Wordpress from here and and upload this inside the website directory in the File Manager. You will find File Manager in the cPanel.

You can follow this tutorial if you want to try the manual mode.

Done Setting Up! Now What?

Now that you have setup the domain, just login to your admin panel. The URL will be yourdomain.com/wp-admin. In this tutorial, I used Fantastico and this is the website I got. This is the admin login area. The website is now setup. Just login and start posting.

How To Enhance The Interface Of My Blog?

The basic blog is generally boring and you won’t get many raised eyebrows. So, the first thing you need is themes. Head on here and download whichever theme you like. Upload these themes to wp-content/themes in the File Manager. Other method is to directly get themes installed from the admin panel. For this, click on the Appearance tab and then on the Add New Themes sub-tab.

After the themes, there are some essential plugins you must have. Don’t worry about that, I have already simplified it for you. Just check out this post and download them all

Final Words :

Thank you guys for having the patience for going through such a huge tutorial. In case you have any difficulty in any step, just comment below and it will be answered within 48 hours, guaranteed

If you have followed this tutorial, do give your blog links below so that I can guide you with more advice.

Wordpress is used by people from different levels and sectors. Personally, I think it the best way to create a site. Just upload the files, create a database and you are ready to roll, er, I mean blog The following list of plugins is the best according to my usage. If anyone has any issues with them, ask me and I would love to help you’ll out. The top 10 plugins are in RANDOM ORDER.

1. Akismet

Akismet is a plugin that included by default in the Wordpress blog files you download. It automatically scans every comment that is generated and categorises it into spam if it feels so. I am using it since 1 year and 99.9% of the comments that it automatically distinguished as spam were really spam. Thanks to Wordpress for such an amazing plugin.

2. SexyBookmarks

SexyBookmarks is a plugin that places itself on the page of your posts. Suppose the reader of your blog likes your post, SexyBookmarks allows him to spread it on Social Networking sites like Twitter, Digg, Technorati, Delicious among many others. Also, it has a clean and sophisticated look. It ads a cute looking signature type text on the top saying ‘Sharing is Caring’ or ‘Sharing is Sexy’.

3. Google Analyticator

Google Analyticator is a small widget that allows the site owner/admin add the necessary Analytics javascript code to enable Google Analytics. Google Analytics is definitely better than all other free stat counters just because they give you amazing facts about the visitors that visited your site that will help you build your site.

4. Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin generates a sitemap so that a search engine will find the links of your posts easily and add it to their search engine. This is recommended because generally websites get their traffic from search engines.

5. Limit Posts

This is a sort of trick to make more page views on your site. If you put the whole post on the front page, then the visitor reads it an then leaves your site. But if you just give a summary of your posts, it makes the reader more curious to read which ultimately gives you more traffic. I am using it on the home page so as to give it a neater and professional look.

6. Add To Any : Subscribe Button

The following plugin gives the users to subscribe to your blog in many ways like getting updated through Google, mail, Windows live, feeds and the list continues. A must download plugin for every site that needs frequent visitors.

7. Similar Posts

In simple words, this plugin shows a list of posts that match the post the user is currently seeing. In complex, it scans the common words from all the posts, the tags, their categories, and shows the related posts.

8. Wordpress Database Backup (Wordpress DB Backup)

Backing up your site is as important as backing up your PC. You never know when you may do some wrong setting that may end up blowing your site up. This is the best plugin if you hate taking up backups manually through PHP MyAdmin in your cPanel. Just set up this plugin once and you will never find the need of manually backing up again. It will send you a mail or download to your desktop according to your preferences.

9. Ultimate Tag Warrior

Tags are one of the most important things of your post. It helps you in SEO and it may be the deciding factor on getting traffic. This plugin is one of the best tools for getting automatic genuine traffic.

10. WP Cumulus

One of the best plugins available on Wordpress is WP Cumulus. This plugin is a flash based one which rotates the tags used in your posts in a cloud format. Easy to use and looks amazing. One of the top recommended plugins.

Download : Rapidshare (1.9 MB)

I have seen many people complaining that they worked hard for many hours on making a good site but they don’t seem to get crawled by search engines. Sometimes, the wrong pages that shouldn’t get crawled, get crawled and then you don’t get many referrals via search engines. To let your sincere effort not go waste, I have a great and easy trick with me.

When any search engine crawls your website, the first thing it searches for is robot.txt.

What is robot.txt?

It is a text file that mentions the pages that the search engine should crawl or skip. If you have your website set up on Wordpress (like mine), the search engine has the permission to crawl all your pages, from admin.php to login.php and so on.

How to set-up robots.txt?

In case you are using a website based on wordpress, just download this.

If you aren’t, just download this text file (already ready, just download) from here.

Now, just upload this text file to the main site database using any FTP client or File Manager from the cPanel.

Done, now what do I do?

Almost done, just register your website here to get crawled by Google and here to get crawled by all other seach engines.

Now, wait for a couple of days while the search engines do their jobs. Once you start getting traffic, enjoy it.

Today in this lengthy sort of post which I am gonna write below, I will teach you how to set up  a website, get loads of traffic and earn money, step by step! In this what I will write, I can guarantee that even the people who aren’t used to this stuff will follow it quite simply.

Setting up a website :

Setting up a website can be simple as well as tedious, the way you look at it. Follow my steps and you are going to have a brand new site for yourself within a few minutes. If you think that you need the most simplest and the non-fussiest way of setting up a website, open up a new tab or window and gobto Blogger or Wordpress. If you want to try something new, just go to google and search for blogging but I still suggest you’ll use one of the above.

If you select Blogger, then just go the home page, sign in with your Google account (the one you use for Gmail, Orkut, etc.) and create a new blog. Now configure your settings and you are ready to blog.

Now, if you didn’t like Blogger (It’s too simple, not much of themes, no plugins, blah blah), use Wordpress. Believe me, if you use Wordpress, you won’t use anything else, ever! This website, Techaddicts, is fully based on Wordpress and ‘I am lovin’ it’. Now, Wordpress also has two options:

-> Go to Wordpress, sign up and set up a blog in minutes (not recommended because you can’t add much themes, and put Adsense which converts to no earning).

-> Download Wordpress, and host it on any free/paid hosting site (in details below). It will be in a .zip format. Please don’t extract it.

Hosting:

In case you have downloaded Wordpress, this paragraph is for you, or else you may skip it. Now, to get a free hosting, just go to Google and search for free or premium hosting, as per your budget. (I am using free hosting and there is not much of a difference). But those who’ll are sure that their site will be a hit should go for premium hosting. (Premium starts from $2 and can go upto $20 where you even get a dedicated server). Here is the comparison of some of the free webhosts, in case you’ll wanna check. Once you register to a host (preferably supporting Vista Panel), copy all your details to a notepad file (your username, your password, your FTP username and the nameservers). Now, just download this tool FileZilla, put in your FTP settings (which you will get once you login to your Vista Panel of your host). The next part will be done afterwards,  now we have to go for a domain!

Domain:

Domains are of two types, free and top level domains. To get a free domain, just go to Co.cc or dot.tk (Preference to 1^st), register there and grab up any domain available. If you intend to buy a premium domain, go to Name or GoDaddy check out the domain you want (.com starts from $8.99 while .info is for jus $0.95). Once you purchase a domain or grab one for free, go to the settings page. There you will find a tab called nameservers. If there are any nameservers included, just remove it and add the ones of your host (It’s generally NS1.*****.com and NS2.*****.com where ***** refers to your host name). Now, go to your Vista Panel and under the Domains Tab, click on Addon Domains and add the domain you just purchased or grabbed for free. Just  scroll down on that page and you will also get the nameservers of the website.

Setting Up Your Website:

Setting up a website is very simple if you follow my steps. Open up FileZilla which you just downloaded, give in your FTP settings and click Connect. Now, you can see the file manager of your site. Just go to the name of your website in the lower right box and go inside HtDocs. Here, upload the Wordpress zip file which was earlier downloaded.  Now, just login to your cPanel, go to File Manager and then navigate to the folder where you uploaded the zip file. Now, just extract it there.

Setting Up A Database:

You are almost done creating your blog. All that is remaining is configuring your blog. So just login to your Vista Panel and go to MySQL databases. Click on Create New. Give any name for the database. The database name will be something in this format:

The username for your Vista Panel_Database Name.

Example (My database) : x07x_3666752_itechyou.com

Configuring and Running Your Website :

Now just go to the URL of your blog, it will give an error stating that the blog is not configured. Don’t worry, just use these and you are ready to go:

Database Name : As mentioned above

Username : Your cPanel username

Password : Your cPanel password

Local Host : You will get this data on the left side of your Vista Panel

Your website is now configured. Just go to your admin panel and check out the wonders of Wordpress!

Done! Your blog’s just been created. These were the basics, in the next post, we will customize our blog, add the best themes and plugins. Keep checking TechAddicts.In!