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So the new year has started.
Many start the year with New Year resolutions.
It’s reported that 8% of the people, who create a new year resolution, stick to it till the end of the year and achieve it.
8% only. You can read more about it here on forbes.
Mind-blowing, right?
[Read more…] about 3 Simple Tips to Make This Year Your Best Year Ever
New bloggers — and even some more established site owners — are often surprised at the complexities of establishing a blog and making it profitable. Those who wish to turn their blogs into a source of income often find that in order to do so, they can’t rely on the free hosting services that are so easy to use, but so limiting to real growth.
The fact is, to grow a blog, you need to self-host it, so you have the freedom to expand and increase the functionality of the site. However, if you are like many people, you probably believe some of these myths — all of which hold you back.
[Read more…] about 5 Surprising Blog Hosting Myths Bloggers Still Believe
There was a certain time that I had so many articles to write up for myself and for some freelance clients I had then. However, the problem at that time wasn’t that I couldn’t write fine, but simply because I had the inability to write fast – in short, I wrote articles slower than a snail during that period.
For those who still write very slowly, you already understand what I mean – Write 100 words now and stop to read/edit it for close to 1 hour – this was one of the things I was busy doing enthusiastically then. And because of that much wasting of time on one article, I sometimes ended up writing a single 600 words article for close to 8 hours (and yes, it was that bad).
What could an innocent me do? ;)
My clients were angrily waiting for their articles which I seriously was behind schedule and hadn’t sent; while my numerous readers were shouting their lungs out in other to have me write another post that I hadn’t written in like 2 weeks.
That was when I knew this had to stop.
So how did I stop writing like a snail and more like Usain Bolt?
You want to know? Well, I went out, researched and found a remedy for slow writing that I could single-handedly use to write up a 1000 words post within 30 minutes.
You want to know the tactics I used to write faster? Then, without wasting much of your time, these 4 nuggets below are exactly how you can also write faster than you present can.
Believe me, I know it sounds insane to write and not cross check what you’re actually punching out to the screen. Yes, it’s weird, but it’s one of the fastest ways to write up any first draft.
And believe me, no first draft is ever pretty, if you doubt me try asking Jeff Goins of GoinsWriter – he’ll surely back me up.
However, you might ask yourself or even me, “How can I start this habit of not editing while I’m writing?” That’s a nice question. And to answer that – the best way to do this is to turn off your writing software’s spell checker.
“Why on earth should I turn it off?” It’s simple. First of all, the job of a spell checker is to examine your write up and show you the typos and grammatical blunders readily available in the copy you’re writing.
So when you turn it off, you won’t have any desire to go back and start correcting little errors you find, since you won’t see any red signal i.e. like in Microsoft word, indicating that you’ve committed an error.
The next question will surely be, “How do I turn my writing software’s spell checker”?
This depends on the type of writing software you use for your writings. I use Microsoft word – and I know majority of you also do – so let’s show you how to turn MS WORD’s spell checker off.
To do exactly that –
Click on the Microsoft Logo – at the top let hand side of your computer screen (shown below)
This will bring out the menu of MS WORD. Find and click on “Word Options”.
That will bring the Grammar Setting Page. Locate and click on “Proofing”.
Once Proofing page has been shown to you; go ahead to untick those three check button I pointed to in the image below (And of course, when you’re through with your first draft, then you can enable them again for proper proofreading).
That is it. Once you’ve un-ticked those check buttons, you’re done. You can now go ahead to write ceaselessly without thinking of editing.
But if in case you’re not an MS WORD fan, then you can try out DarkRoom and WriteRoom (for Windows and Mac respectively) – and these writing softwares don’t come with spell checkers at default. So give them a try.
A goal without a time constraint factor kind of sounds like a wish. If you want to see yourself writing faster than you do now, then you need to start restricting yourself to a set time. To do this, I normally make use of Pomodoro app for Windows to time my writing while I write.
For those who haven’t heard of it before, it’s a desktop app that can be used to time oneself to a 25 minutes work period and a 5 minutes break time.
How can you leverage it effectively in fast writing?
Yes, I know you might ask this question. To use this app effectively, once you’re done your research and have read up everything you need to know about the topic. The next thing to logically do is click on the timer and immediately start writing.
And the writing should be a continual thing until the timer rings for break period. Once you keep at it, you’ll notice that you’ll be writing faster than you’ve ever written.
Researching before writing any piece out can not be over emphasized. It’s very very important and can’t be casually overlooked. When we talk about fast writing, we’re simply talking about researching indepthly so that what’s left of the process would be to write the copy out to the end without going online to cross check facts and figures that we might have forgotten.
And when we begin to continually check up on those figures and facts, the writing process starts to stall, to an extent that it’ll keep someone writing a little 500 words piece for over 2 long hours, instead of the usual 20 minutes.
Believe me, before; I used to waste that amount of time on such small writing just because I was always going on the internet to read more about the parts that I forgot to research on. And sometimes, when I land on Google for research purposes, I usually end up researching entirely different figures or even go on to chat on facebook, thereby derailing and delaying the writing for quite some time.
That said, to stop the derailing part of the writing process, I had to start researching more brilliantly and strategize ways not to forget what I’ve read up in other not to start going online to check up on more facts – and going off beat.
So what I did was simply using Evernote to store up long or short materials related to what I was to write about (believe me, you need to try it out – it’s FREE). And also, I leveraged Evernote’s Skitch to clip/snap screens I needed for tutorial write ups so that I won’t go about getting derailed again in the name of getting online to do it when I wanted to write that section of the tutorial.
Now, after all these have been taken cared of – I usually want to start writing at once, but even upon all these researches that I’ve done, I knew within me that I could still be tempted to go online and do other things amid writing (like facebooking and opening mails ). So I leveraged the use of the Chrome Pomodoro add-on to block me from using the internet (well, not entirely the internet per say; the add-on blocks selected time wasters’ websites you give it block), and yes, even though the app is a little bit annoying, but it helps me stay focused on writing only.
So after researching crazily using all this aforementioned research tools, and also blocking the time wasting websites, what’s left will be to write only. And when writing is the only thing on your mind to do – you kind of see yourself finishing it in less time more than it would have taken you without these aforementioned apps and tools above.
So give this strategy a try today and see a significant improvement in how long it’ll take for you to churn up a long piece of writing.
This section is quite simple: Ignore the errors, grammatical blunders, typos, and any other things that have the power to stop you momentarily when you want to really start writing.
Once all of them have been ignored, what remains now is to start writing. Just write. Don’t mind anything. Don’t even think of what to write up next, because each word being thrown across the screen have already been embedded way long in your head while you’ were researching on the topic you’re currently writing on.
So leave thinking aside and just write. I know there will be enormous amounts of typos – especially mistyped words – but that’s the core beauty of writing fast. Just ignore them and keep on writing. I know that you will be overly tempted to clean up some typos using the backspace button; yes I know, because I’m always tempted to use it, too. However, even if you and I can’t stop using the backspace button, at least, we can limit how much we hit it whenever we type out grammatical typos.
The best ways to limit the hit of that button is to make a vow not to press that particular button no matter how bad the typo looks like.
When that has been taken cared of, you’ll notice that writing becomes a thing of joy since you’ll be writing so fast that you can literally be punching out 25- 30 words per minutes, and up to 1000 words in 15 -20 minutes
And YES! That’s you being insanely fast! ;)
If I have attempted it before and finished a write up of nearly 600 words in 15 minutes, then you can even finish yours in 10 -12 minutes if you keep on practicing this strategy of “writing nonstop” until you reach the end of the article.
In conclusion. .
The world is going quite fast . . . And the internet is getting faster. If you want to meet up with those writing deadlines in no time and still be in the good books of your clients, then you’ve got to be a fast writer.
Therefore, leverage this wonderful craft now and write your way to stardom.
And finally, before I go I’ll like to ask, “How long does it take you to write up a 1000 word piece and what is that thing that’s presently stalling the writing process?”
Lets meet in the comment section to interact on this awesome question.
Thanks for reading . . . Don’t forget to share this awesome piece.
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[Read more…] about The Advance Guide To Make Money With Stock Photography Sites – 2200+ Words
There are many guide and tutorial available online about how to start a blog. Some stuff is worth reading and some is just crap but this post is really gonna help you to start a blog, as I have spent lot of time researching for this post.
I’ve been asked many times, how to start a blog and make money from many bloggers. Today I’ve decided to write a detail post on this.
BTW, there are some special tips for you at the end :D
This guide is not to motivate someone to guide on how to start a blog. It is best suited for someone who already made the decision to start a blog and need some step by step guide on how to start a blog and setup WordPress.
This is a How To Start a Blog : Complete Guide To Setup WordPress Blog and easy to follow guide that will help you setup WordPress blog from the start.
This is really important step because your blog niche is going to be the most important part of your new blog journey. You don’t just want to write about anything.
Remember: Just writing won’t make your blog successful.
Your writing needs to be remarkable.
The best to find topic about your new blog … is to pick a topic that you are passionate about.
Once you have a good topic… you’ll next need to find a domain name.
Focus on your blog’s aim and you will get success for sure but if you do not know what you want to achieve from your blog then I suggest think of it because blogging is not a joke it needs lots of temperament and patience.
First setup in this guide how to start a blog is to pick a great domain name. This is your identity. Spend more time on finding best domain for your blog. Write down as many ideas came into your mind and choose perfect one.
Brainstorm few domain names in your mind. Choose a short but descriptive name and also from the results of Keyword search from Google. Make sure your domain name complies with the following things:
Make sure you pick a great name, incorporating the tips above.
Don’t change your domain later. It’ll surely screw your blog. You can search for available domain names and register them with Godaddy.com. You could get a domain name for as low as $10-$15. Not a big deal. Godaddy also providers discount coupons.
You can also use these domain name suggestion tools to find a perfect domain for your blog.
Choosing a best web hosting is also very important to start a blog. There are many web hosting companies that do lots of promises while signing up but at the end they fail to deliver.
The best WordPress Hosting Providers are Hostgator, Bluehost, Dreamhost.
It is highly important that you remain cautious about choosing cheap hosting services. I have selected the Best of the Best WordPress Hosting Providers based on their :-
I highly recommend Bluehost for hosting your blog. You can easily setup WordPress blog with them in minutes. Some hosting also provide tutorial about how to start a blog and install WordPress etc. Bluehost have great deals and you can host your blog there for as low as $3.95 per month. I know some other hosting companies, but I strongly recommend Bluehost for the following reasons:
Signup for BlueHost Here
Bluehost is also recomended by WordPress.org. Use this special link to get hosting for as low as 4.95$/month I recommend you to signup for a year or more. So you can get hosting for 3.95$ /month
If you are not happy with Bluehost you can try Hostgator. It’s also best wordpress hosting service provider. I’m using it.
Hostgator is cheap and also best. Their customer support is available online 24/7 and you can talk with them about your issue any time you need. Any problem you have will be solved very quickly.
All of their hosting plans include a Unlimited Disk Space, Unlimited Bandwidth, 99.9% up-time guarantee, 24/7 customer and technical support.
Think twice or even three times before you decide on your hosting. Choose a web host that can easily allow you to setup WordPress blog!
If you’re confuse which host to choose, check out BlueHost vs Hostgator complete comparison.
When you signup with Bluehost. They’ll send you a welcome email. Open that email from Web Host .
This is method will work for both hostgator or bluehost!
Next step on how to start a blog is to setup WordPress on Web hosting. If you are using the Bluehost web hosting, most likely you will be dealing with the CPanel. We can setup WordPress in the CPanel interface.
NOTE: You can also hire me to setup your new blog for FREE!
– Under the Software/Services, locate the Fantastico De Luxe and click on that icon.
– On your left, you will see WordPress and click on that. Once the page loaded, click on New Installation.
– Go through the standard settings and you should have your WordPress blog up in matter of minutes.setting up WordPress.
This will bring you to the place where you control almost everything about your blog including writing posts and customizing how your blog looks.
To login go to: “YourDomainName.com/wp-admin” in your browser.
Enter your WordPress Dashboard Login username and password that you just set up in recent step.
Your dashboard will look like this.
Design is queen. Choosing best WordPress theme is also very important. There are free and premium both themes are available in market. I’d recommend you to choose premium WordPress Themes. Make sure the theme you choose should include following features.
Make sure to choose a perfect theme for your WordPress blog. There are many websites that providers quality WordPress Themes. Below are some top, best and affordable wordpress themes club. BTW, I’m using Marketers delight skin for thesis theme.
Theme-junkie is a newly opened premium WordPress theme provider in 2009. The company offers user-friendly, great looking, and efficient WordPress themes.
ThemeJunkie provide best wordpress Themes for very low price, Professional looking, Fast loading and great lifetime support. This is one of the best wordpress themes club.
Use this link and enter special coupon “35OFF” to get 35% OFF on any theme! Isn’t that really cool? ;)
ElegantThemesLooking for great, professional looking, elegant style wordpress themes?
Elegant themes have it all. They provide great quality wordpress themes.
Click here & get 100% complete access to their entire collection of 76 themes for only $39!
After you select wordpress theme. You can install by going to WordPress administration area > Appearance > Themes. Read more about this in detail here
A intersting step on this ultimate guide on how to start a blog.
Click on the Posts | Add New option in the left-hand side menu. You should now see the New Post screen . Enter the title of your first blog post, something like, “Welcome to My New Blog.” I’m clever, right? ;)
Now you can start writing your first post in the field directly. As it’s your first post you can add some information about yourself, your blog and purpose of this.
Now click the Publish button. You can also click on the Preview Changes button to see how your post looks.
WOW, Congratulations! You have just published your first post on your very own self-hosted WordPress blog. :D
Ultimate guide on How to start a blog is completed. That’s all. As I mentioned in starting of this how to start a blog guide that there are some special tips for you.
Here it is!
Some articles that worth reading. They’ll help you to improve your blog, getting traffic and making money from blog.
WordPress
Get Traffic
Content Writing
SEO
Make Money
Recommended Reading
Good luck to everyone who has a new blog or is thinking of starting one! . I’ve spend lot of time for research of this how to start a blog guide.
I want YOU to help me in making this “how to start a blog” guide go viral and helping newbies to start a blog.
You can consider sharing this post on social networks using below social sharing buttons. You can also link back to this post from your blog post if you want. :)
Did I missed any point? What are your views about this how to start a blog beginners guide? Do you have any other tips on how to start a blog guide for newbies?