DazzlinDonna » How To Make a Living in Your Pajamas

How To Make a Living in Your Pajamas - Part Eight

You’ve made it through the first seven steps of the series, “How To Make a Living in Your Pajamas”, and now you finally have all of that setup stuff out of the way. You are ready to begin adding content to your site, in the form of blog posts. A blog post is simply an entry, a piece of content. Your goal is to post an entry at least several times a week, but my preference is once a day if at all possible. Each post will be dedicated to one narrow, concise topic. Let’s say your blog is all about flying kites. A post one day may focus on a broad overview of the different kinds of kites that are available. Another post may give fine details about one particular kite design. Yet another post may be a discussion of the ideal weather conditions for kite flying. And so on and so on…

Although WordPress installs one sample post, you can ignore it for now, and just delete it later. Right now, let’s create our very first real post. Log in to your blog admin (www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin). Click on Write.

WordPress Write a Post

As you can see, you have a form in which to begin entering your blog post. Type in a title in the Title field. The title is of utmost importance. Make the title interesting and descriptive. If your post is about perfect weather conditions for kite flying, a good title might be “The Best Weather for Flying a Kite”.

Now enter the actual content of your post in the Post field. You’ll notice that it is similar to writing in Microsoft Word, in that there are a series of buttons that allow you to Bold, Italicize, Center, etc. above the field. Use them as you would in a word processor. You’ll notice a chain button and a broken chain button. The chain button allows you to set up a link to another web page, and the broken chain button will undo the link. So to make some text link to a web page, just highlight the text, click the chain link button, type in the web page URL in the field that pops up, and you’ve got a linked bit of text.

If you want to include a picture in your post, click on the Browse button next to the File field, and choose a picture from your computer to upload. Type in a title (description is not necessary) and click on Upload. Then choose to insert it into your post.

You’ll also want to categorize your posts, so pick from a category to the right, or add a new one. When you are happy with the final result, just click the Publish button. You’ve just blogged!

This is where all the magic begins. What you blog about, and how informative and/or entertaining you are, is all up to you. People often use the phrase “find your voice” when referring to what you, as a blogger, will convey to the readers of your blog. You have to find your own style. Perhaps you are witty or outrageously funny. Perhaps you are an ace at technical writing. Maybe you can describe things or processes so that anyone, even a novice, can understand. Whatever your style is, use it. Your readers will come to know you via your blogging voice. They will appreciate you for who you are.

It does help to read a few great blogs to get a feel for the different kinds of blogging voices and styles that are out there. Don’t copy someone else’s style, but be aware of what people like and what people don’t like. It will be obvious, trust me.

Now go on, start blogging!

“But wait”, you say, “show me the money”! You’re right, I’ve taken you a long way, and yet I still haven’t shown you how you are actually going to make a living from this. Don’t worry, that’s coming next. I haven’t forgotten about the money. For now, just sit back and create some awesome content on your new site by blogging, and then move on to the next part of the series.

The entire series of How To Make a Living in Your Pajamas:

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(from Smash Mouth. "AllStar" Astro Lounge. Interscope Records, 1999.)

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