There are so many sites out there that have volumes of information about particular topics that are simply too complex or take way too long to read and apply to a real world situation. The opposite is also true. There are many sites that give us a high level overview or maybe more of a cursory glance at a topic and don’t include enough detail to be useful. The 5 Minute How Tos are a reaction to both of these.

I have some ideas for some more short how to posts and you should start seeing them on this site soon. For now, I’ve put together a short summary below of each of the ones that I’ve already written.

• 5 Minute How To: Get Started With Blog Carnivals Blog Carnivals are a great way to get your posts noticed and get more traffic and links to your blog.
• 5 Minute How To: Find Your Blogging Voice Sometimes it’s difficult to establish your own particular identity. This post gives some tips on putting yourself into your writing.
• 5 Minute How To: Save Time With Future Posting If you find that you have bursts of creative productivity this is a great way to spread out those posts. It also comes in handy when you’re going on vacation or going to be tied up on other things for a while.
• 5 Minute How To: Find a Blogging Job If you’re curious about what it might take to get a paying job as a blogger, this post has some good information for you.
• 5 Minute How To: Redirect From a WWW Domain I found it necessary when moving my blog to redirect my old pages to the new ones, so that readers (and Google) could find me.
• 5 Minute How To: Improve Your Alexa Rank Alexa Rank is important for a few reasons, not least of them is the impact on the pricing of your (aff).
• 5 Minute How To: Get Started With AdSense This is where monetizing your sites begins. Everyone who has a web presence should have an adsense account and at least a passing familiarity with how to use it effectively to make money.
• 5 Minute How To: Get Started Programming with PHP Many bloggers use WordPress for their blogging software and since it’s based on PHP, this is a great tool to put in your web skills toolbox.
• 5 Minute How To: Drive More Traffic to Your Site These are some useful ideas for getting more eyes on your pages.

I hope you find this information useful. Please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think. If you have any particular ideas or requests, I’d love to hear them.

You may be asking right now, just what they heck is a blog carnival? Good question. Blog carnivals are group writing efforts that take place when a blogger requests other bloggers to write posts centered around a certain theme. A date is given by which time all posts have to be submitted. The blogger will then review the submitted posts to make sure they fit with the theme. After the deadline has passed, the blogger writes a post linking back to some or all of the submitted articles, usually with a brief commentary on each one. Pretty cool, huh?

The first thing you have to do in order to get involved with blog carnivals is go to blogcarnival.com. The site exists only to facilitate bloggers hosting and submitting to blog carnivals. It can be slightly confusing at first, but it’s really easy to get started once you find your way around.

The front page lists a bunch of recent carnivals. You may find something here that is relevant to what you post on your blog. If not, use the search function and use keywords that describe your own articles. Once you’ve found a few blog carnivals that you might be interested in, click on them to find out if they are still active. Follow the links back to the original sites to see if the blog is still hosting the carnival.

Here’s an example of a blog carnival post from The Skilled Investor’s Carnival of Financial Planning:

The actual submission process is very easy. If you click on more blog carnivals at the bottom of the list of recent blog carnivals on the front page, you’ll come to this page:

Note that there is a drop down box at the top where you can narrow the list to categories relevant to your blog topic. There are dates in the right hand columns that tell you when the last edition of this carnival was posted and also when to expect the next edition. Sometimes these dates are not correct, so you’ll have to do a little bit of checking to make sure.

When you click on the link for a carnival that sounds interesting, you’ll be taken to a page with a brief description and any requirements there may be to participate. Often, the hosting blogger simply requests a link back to his or her blog. Make sure you read these requirements to find out exactly what the host is looking for, so you don’t waste anyone’s time, including your own.

To begin submitting your post, click on the orange Submit link at the top right of the screen. The next screen will allow you to input some information about your post, including the title, the url, your name and email, and also any commentary you wish to provide. Careful, sometimes this commentary is just posted to the blog carnival without being read too closely. Try to contact the host directly by email if you have a question instead of using the Remarks box.

After filling out the form and clicking submit, you just wait for the carnival to be posted. Sometimes the host will contact you by email or by leaving a comment on your post. Other times, you won’t hear back from them at all, even if they do include your post. Keep in mind that whether your post is included is entirely up to the host and some posts will not be accepted for one reason or another. Don’t worry about this, though, because there are many more blog carnivals listed.

You’ll also want to remember that not all of the blogs you find will be ones that you want to associate with. Some may have adult or other content that you may not be comfortable with. Be sure to check out the actual blog where the carnival is being hosted before submitting your post.

If you’ve been curious about blog carnivals, but haven’t submitted a post yet to any of them, don’t wait any longer. As of today, there are 1942 blog carnivals listed on the site. Go check them out and submit your posts today.

This is vitally important to your success as a writer or blogger, but it’s not something that is easy to develop. Actually, it’s very simple to discover your voice. However, it takes some time and effort. Here are some tips to get you started on the path to finding and developing your own writing and blogging voice:

• Write every day. I wrote a guest post once for science fiction writer Tobias Buckell in which I contended that it was imperative to write every day in order to become a successful writer. I was a little taken aback when I received some comments critical of this assertion, but most commenters were supportive.

  The truth is that if you want to develop your abilities as a writer, just as in any other endeavor, you must do it frequently and with some consistency. Great baseball pitchers aren’t just born. They work hard to get to that level of competitiveness. You should do the same with your blogging.

  This doesn’t mean that you have to write a blog post every day. Just practice writing somehow. Write a post if you can, but at least try to write in a private journal or do some free writing on scrap paper. Exercise your writing skills. Soon, your voice will be evident.

• Write from your own experience. Writing that doesn’t come from personal experience often sounds forced and fake. This is why new writers are told to write what you know. Don’t try to sound like an authority on a topic in which you have no particular expertise or experience.

  Keep in mind, though, that you are an authority on your own experience. If you have tried internet marketing for a couple of months with moderate success (or, even none), you are the expert on what you have actually done. You may not have done things in the best way, but you can tell your readers with authority what you have done and what you have observed the results to be.

  Again, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you should relate your traumatic experience at the dentist on your internet marketing blog, that is, unless you can make the story relevant to the topic of your blog. If you can do this, then by all means, do. Stories help to draw in your audience and show them that you’re a real person. People will relate to you much better and find your writing much more accessible.

• Write about your passions. What I’m talking about is trying to focus your writing on topics you have a passion for. Dipping into that reservoir of feeling can have a magical effect on your writing. Passion is contagious. When you write about something that you clearly love, your readers can tell and will respond to that. It will also make it much easier for you to find things to write about every day. If you’re into collecting scabs or wrestling dolphins, you may want to save that for your personal journal, though.
• Work on your grammar and spelling. You may ask why I’ve included this one. This one is more for your readers, but it’s still very important. The reason is that numerous grammar and spelling errors tend to distract readers from the topic and purpose of your writing, thus making it difficult for them to get a feel for your voice or what you’re trying to say. Working on your basic writing skills will go a long way toward helping you develop your voice as a writer. Take the time to nurture your writing abilities and you’ll be rewarded.

Hopefully, these few tips will give you some starting point for understanding where your voice as a writer comes from and how to work on it. Leave a comment with your own ideas and your own experiences. It’s good practice.

There’s nothing wrong with any of these practices, but your readers are most likely interested in reading something from you. They’ve come to your blog to read what you have to say and that’s why they keep returning. This is one of the most important things to keep in mind as you blog. The information you blog about is what draws visitors in the first place, but it’s your unique voice that keeps readers coming back.

So, how do you deal with the problem of not having enough time to post today? Easy. There’s a feature of WordPress (you are blogging with WordPress, right?) that allows you to save a post to be automatically published on a future date and at a future time.

All you have to do is go to the Write Post screen in your WordPress Administration page. Write your usual awesome article with a great SEO title and interesting, unique content. Then you just change the date and time in the Post Timestamp box in the lower right hand corner of the screen. Click the Publish button and you’re finished.

There are a couple of great reasons to make use of this feature. The first one we’ve already discussed; if you have time to write today, then you can write your article and have WordPress post it for you exactly when you want it to. Another great reason to make use of future posting is that it can help you become much more productive.

You may only have time one day a week to block out a few hours for blogging. You can best make use of this time by writing several posts as once while you’re motivated and focussed. Instead of taking you an hour a day, five days a week, it’s quite likely that you’ll be able to write those five posts in three hours or less. If you can reserve that time when you’re going to be free from distractions, you can be far more efficient in your blogging.

If you think this sounds like a great idea (or not), leave a comment and tell me about it. Also, if other common blogging platforms have a similar feature, write a how to post on it and I’ll update this post with a link.

First of all, one of the normal requirements to get any kind of job is usually to have a resume. In the blogging world this is most likely going to be in the form of the blog you are already writing (or writing for). Nothing displays your writing and thinking skills more prominently than having a blog that is frequently updated and visited often by readers.

If you’re thinking about getting a blogging job, start building up your resume by creating a blog if you don’t already have one. If you have a blog that needs some attention, then take the time to update it’s look and also to write some good, thoughtful posts that offer valuable information to readers and also contain a bit of your unique personality. A potential employer will want to know that you can write and also that you have the discipline to write on a regular basis.

After you’ve built up your blog for a few months, it’s then time for you to begin searching for a blogging job. There are many places to find them. Often, you may hear about them from other bloggers or you may be contacted directly by a blog publisher who is interested in your work. If your profile isn’t quite high enough that potential employers are beating down your door, you will want to take a look at a couple of places that post blogging jobs.

Here are two good places to check out regularly:

About: Web Logs (hat tip: Toby Buckell)

ProBlogger’s Job Board

When you find a job that looks interesting to you, write an email to the employer that includes links to some of your best or most relevant posts from your own blog. They’ll want to see those writing samples before they make a decision about hiring you. Make sure to craft your inquiry email in a typical business fashion, with no cute internet abbreviations and using the proper salutations and formal structure. Remember, this is still a business relationship.

I hope this article has provided you with some good ideas to start your blogging job search. It may take some time for you to find something that works for you. You may also try something that doesn’t work out for you. That’s okay, too. Just don’t get discouraged. If you keep at it, you’ll be able to find a blogging job that will bring in a few bucks as well as being fun.

Why do this? Well, there’s some evidence to show that at least Google sees both of these URL’s as distinctly different. In my own case, freshblogger.com has a PageRank of 5, while www.freshblogger.com has a PageRank of 3. Apparently, the links to this site are being split up between the different URL’s, with each one getting some PageRank instead of one getting it all. This has the effect of diluting the potential PageRank of your blog or website.

There is also a school of thought on the internet that believes that the www subdomain designation is or should be deprecated, or no longer used. I think this argument makes some sense. Regardless, I’ve followed the directions available at the site I just linked to, no-www.org, and I’ll reprint them here for you as they appear down the page somewhat from the top on the original site.

This modification is very simple, but requires that your site is hosted on an Apache webserver and that you have an .htaccess file that you have permissions to edit. I want to caution you that you should NOT attempt to do this if you aren’t absolutely sure of what you’re doing. Find someone knowledgeable in web programming who is willing to help out. If you mess up the .htaccess file for your website, you may not be able to access it at all until it gets fixed.

With that said, the modification is actually pretty simple. Take the following code and add it to your .htaccess file, making sure to change where it says ‘domain’ to the actual domain name of your site.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

I know there are other ways of accomplishing this task, and also there will be some who even question whether it will be useful at all. I don’t know exactly what effect it may have had on my site, but I believe it has been positive for me. If you’re using a web server other than Apache, you can surely find directions as to how to do this somewhere. You can also sign into Google’s WebMasterCentral with your Google account credentials and change your preferred URL from the www version. While this should help, I feel like the simple modification to the .htaccess file helps to cover all bases.

Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur’s Journey has posted How To Boost Your Alexa Ranking In One Easy Step. All you have to do is copy the javascript code for the Alexa Widget and paste it somewhere in the code for your site. The idea is that Alexa will then know about your traffic by the number of times this widget is loaded.

Yaro reports that this very quickly brought up his Alexa Ranking by 25%. I just installed the widget code today so I haven’t noticed any improvement yet. As I write this my rank is showing as 739,195. I’ll be watching it and reporting back the results in a few days or so.

5 Minute How To: Drive More Traffic To Your Site
Leave a Comment on This Post
5 Minute How To: Get Started Programming with PHP
How To Participate in the Blogging Community
How To Include Links in a Comment Without Spamming

The 5 Minute How To: Get Started with AdSense gets honorable mention, but didn’t yet make it into the top 5. I’m glad there are readers who are getting something useful from the articles I’ve written. I plan on continuing the 5 Minute How To series. I have lots of ideas already, but I welcome any suggestions you may have. Please leave any ideas in the comments below or use my contact page to email me.

Out of all of the advertising options available, one of the easiest to get started with is Google’s AdSense. This service allows you to post some ad code on your web site or blog and Google will look at the content of your site and automatically serve up ads that are related to what you’re writing about. This is called contextual advertising.

Getting started with AdSense is easy. Simply go to their sign up page and follow the directions. They will guide you through the steps of signing up and putting the code on your page.

There are three main types of ads you may choose:

AdSense for content – This is the contextual advertising mentioned above.

AdSense for search – This is a search box that can search your site or the web using Google’s search engine. Ads will be shown on the results page and you get credit for those that are clicked.

Referrals – These are Google products or services you can advertise on your site and you’ll be paid a commission for some action your visitors take after clicking, such as downloading and installing Firefox with Google Toolbar.

Believe it or not, it’s very important where on your page you place your ads. Here are a couple of charts from Google that show you the best places for visitors to notice and click on your ads:

I’ve had the most success with placing ads on my blog according to the above chart, but Google also has suggestions specifically for blogs. You may want to experiment to find out which works best for you.

After placing your ads on your page, there are a couple of things you should be aware of:

Don’t ever click on your own ads! This will get you kicked out of Google’s AdSense program. They consider this to be click fraud and take it very seriously.

Don’t ever ask your visitors to click on your ads, either. This is against Google’s Terms of Service agreement that you must agree to before signing up.

Read the Terms of Service. This is important to being successful with AdSense and also not being banned from the program. There are restrictions about how many ads of each type you may show on your site.

Although, there are some scary warnings about using AdSense, it’s really very simple to set up and use. As long as you follow Google’s terms, you’ll have no problems and be able to have a simple way of generating some extra cash from your web site or blog.

PHP is what’s called a server-side scripting language. What this means is that PHP scripts are executed on the web server rather than being downloaded to your browser to run. Javascript is an example of a client-side scripting language that runs after being downloaded to your browser. What gets served up to your browser from a PHP script is just html or xhtml and any client-side script you may include in it.

The first thing necessary in learning PHP is an environment where PHP can run. You can purchase web hosting from a host that supports PHP, like Bluehost.com. If you’d like to run the code on your own computer without getting an account, download WAMP or MAMP. These are free web development packages for Windows and Mac respectively that will run an Apache web server with PHP and MySQL installed. MySQL is an open source database that’s often paired with PHP websites.

Follow the instructions to either set up your web hosting or install your development environment. After this, you’re ready to begin programming. Since this is a 5 minute how to, we’ll only have a couple of minutes to create a simple web page that includes PHP. Don’t be disappointed; there will be more how to’s that delve into the topic in more depth.

So, open a the text editor of your choice, making sure it saves files in plain text format, not rich text, and type the following:


<html>
<head>
<title>My first web page with PHP!</title>
</head>
<body>
< ?php
echo 'Hello World!'
?>
</body>
</html>


That’s it. Save the file as ‘index.php’ in your web folder. If your using MAMP, the web folder will be /MAMP/htdocs/. On a web server, it might be a folder named public-html. Again, if you’re using MAMP, run the program to turn on the web server and navigate in your browser window to ‘http://localhost:8888/index.php’. Your page should come up and display the words ‘Hello World!’

This was a very basic intro to PHP programming. For more information, check out these books from Amazon:

Beginning PHP and MySQL 5: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition
PHP and MySQL Web Development (3rd Edition) (Developer’s Library)

or these free web resources:

phpfreaks
php.net