Category: Blogging Help

What the Blogging Gurus Don’t Tell You

Posted 10/13/2022 by Charli - 0 Comments -

I’m sure you’ve seen the posts. You know the ones I mean. “Improve Your SEO” or “How to Get Readers and Keep Them!” or “How to Keep Loving Blogging”. They tell you how to fix your SEO so Google will love you and show you on the first page of search results. They tell you how to get readers and keep them coming back – usually by insisting upon your having social media. They tell you all the hard things about blogging and then tell you how to help keep those things from making you quit. But there are things they don’t tell you. You won’t read any of these blogging gurus telling you that improving your SEO isn’t a guarantee that Google will love you and put you on the first page of search results for your keyword(s). They won’t tell you that getting readers takes time and effort […]

Starting Your Own Book Blog – I Set It Up, Now What?

Posted 10/06/2022 by Charli - 0 Comments -

Ok, so now you’ve got your blog set up. You’ve created a blog on Blogger or WordPress.com, or maybe you’ve had a friend host you or you bought your own hosting and your blog is now installed and set up. So now what do you do? Well, first, you want to make some decisions about what you want for the blog design. Blogger & WordPress.com are a bit more limiting when it comes to how you design your blog, but you can still have a blog that you like, regardless. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to show you how to pick a layout for Blogger. I’ll discuss using the layouts Blogger comes with, finding free layouts for Blogger blogs on the web, and looking for paid layouts for Blogger blogs. I’ll also show you how to customize the layout to your liking – such as rearranging elements, changing […]

Starting Your Own Book Blog – Setting Up Self-Hosted WordPress on Your Paid Hosting

Posted 09/29/2022 by Charli - 0 Comments -

So you’ve decided that you want to go all-in and purchase a domain name and a hosting account with a webhost. All right… first, let’s start with getting some hosting. Picking a Host There are a plethora of hosts to choose from. Some are good, some not so good. The three I’m detailing here are companies I’d recommend and the links are affiliate links, just so you are aware. WP Engine WP Engine is what they call a managed WordPress host. Basically they’ll install WordPress for you, they’ll install your theme for you, and they’ll install the plugins for you. They also handle making sure your site has backups enabled, security plugins, updating plugins/themes/WordPress, and all the other fun tech stuff some people just aren’t comfortable with. There is a slight problem with managed WordPress hosting though… You generally can’t just ask them to install a particular theme or plugin. […]

Starting Your Own Book Blog – Setting Up WordPress on a Friend’s Domain

Posted 09/22/2022 by Charli - 0 Comments -

So you have a friend who already has a domain name and paid hosting set up for themselves and is willing to give you some space on their hosting and a subdomain on their domain name for you to try out blogging without having to use ad-supported free WordPress.com or Google’s Blogger. Well, there are a few things you’ll need to tell them. Your Blog’s Subdomain You’ll need to know what you want your blog’s address to be. Let’s say you’ve decided to name your blog “The Book Report”. This will most likely be your subdomain, so your blog’s address would look something like this: https://thebookreport.charlisbookbox.com or http://thebookreport.charlisbookbox.com – obviously “charlisbookbox.com” would be replaced with your friend’s domain, but you get the idea. So be ready to tell your friend what your subdomain should be. Your Blog’s Title & Tagline You’ll need to tell your friend your blog’s title and […]

Starting Your Own Book Blog – Setting Up WordPress.com

Posted 09/15/2022 by Charli - 0 Comments -

So if you’re not into Blogger, or for some reason it won’t let you have the URL you want even though multiple searches through Google or Bing have turned up no blogs/websites with your blog name, you may want to try out WordPress.com instead. Getting Started You’ll need a WordPress.com account. If you’ve commented on WordPress.com blogs before, you may actually have one as many blogs hosted here require you to sign in with your account to leave a comment. If you do have an account, the video below will help you set your blog up. If you need to create an account, it will take you straight into the process of creating a blog, so you may need to watch a bit further into the video to see what you’ll need to do. Again, this is a screen recording with me doing a voice over. I tried to edit […]