This is a Guest Post by Nicole Dean

More and more moms are getting into the blogging scene. Some for fun, some for profit, and some for both. Why not make money while you’re blogging about your favorite stuff, right?

It’s easier than ever to get started blogging. But the first thing you need before you begin is an idea for your domain name.

What is a domain name?

It’s the “www (dot) SOMETHING (dot) com” that people will type in to get to your blog. It’s like your address.

There are some standards for what is a “great” domain name, though, verses one that makes you wonder what on earth that person was thinking!

In order to help you to come up with a great web name that you’ll love for years, here are my unbreakable rules for choosing a domain.

1. No hyphens. Avoid dashes and hyphens. I’ve been there. Done that. Regret it to this day.
2. No numbers. Do I spell it out “seven” or is it the number “7??
3. Avoid words that are difficult to spell. Although I once was really excited about using a domain with the word “catalyst” in it – I found that no one could spell the darned thing.
4. Domain should end in .com. I don’t bother with other endings like .info or .biz. People tend to type in .com at the end of everything, so it’s usually best to stick with a .com ending.
5. Domain must NOT have any copyright names in it. I would not recommend using “Starbucks”, “Disney”, or any other company name in your URL or you may get a “cease and desist” email. Yes, even though you’re starting as a little mom blogger, eventually you might get huge. So, it’s best to plan for success in advance and avoid using trademarks in your URL.
6. If you are looking to sell your blog down the road, it must be generic enough. For instance, I wouldn’t buy “NicoleKnowsFootball.com” to talk about my favorite football team if I planned to sell the site ever, because I’d have to find someone named Nicole to buy it.
7. And my big, bad unbreakable rule.: it must pass the Oprah test.

What exactly is the Oprah test? Well, I picture Oprah saying it out loud. “Today I have with me, Nicole Dean, author of Blah blah blah and owner of NicoleontheNet.com”. Is it memorable? Easy to spell?

You can’t do that with MyNumber1-BestHome-Remedy-Treatments4New-Mothers.net.

Why is this Important?

A difficult domain is actually wasted opportunity and wasted traffic slipping through your fingers. If you’re promoting via audio or video (maybe on podcasts or on YouTube) – you need a domain that is EASY to remember. It has to make it into the person’s ears and to his brain and stick. Heck, even if you run into an old college friend and say “Stop by my site www (dot) somethingcool (dot) com” – you’ll want her to remember long enough to actually come to your blog, right? So, make it simple. Make it memorable. And you’ll be glad.

Plus, honestly, it’s a credibility issue. Would you really buy something from MyNumber1-BestHome-Remedy-Treatments4New-Mothers.net? I hope you wouldn’t even think of getting out your credit card for a site like that. SCARY. And would you feel comfortable referring it to your friends? Not a chance.

How do you get a domain?

You can get a domain at www.MomWebs.com which is also my recommendation for Web Hosting. As you sign up for your domain, you can get hosting at the same time. And… they’ll even set up your blog for you for only $10. Plus, there’s a phone number that you can call if you have any questions.

With all of that help, there’s nothing stopping you from setting up your first blog.

I hope this has been helpful. And, I really look forward to seeing YOU on Oprah!

Nicole Dean is co-owner of Mom Webs Hosting – www.MomWebs.com where you’ll find the host with the most. It offers everything a mom blogger needs – reliability, unlimited hosting, and customer service that never makes you feel intimidated — all at a price you can afford. MomWebs.com was created to help overcome the technical hurdles that may be preventing moms from sharing themselves with the online world. Check out the free training at MomWebs.com

1. Minimalistic – Well, a minimalistic blog design may say two things about you. Either you are a minimalist or you blog for fun. How so? Individuals who are minimalists usually express themselves with minimalism involved in all aspects of their lives. They don’t like clutter. Everything they do revolves around getting things done with the least effort while obtaining the best results. Secondly, blogs that look minimalistic are usually owned by people who mostly blog for fun. They are not obsessed with profit or search engine optimization and therefore they avoid all of this. It does not matter to them if their blog is read by a million people or just one. Their only concern is having fun with their writing material.

2. Complex – I’m sure you have seen blog designs that are just very chaotic and complex looking. I am talking about the ones that have a million affiliate links and contextual advertising. Let’s not forget the million different sidebars and menus. Oh, by the way, these blogs have fancy headers with bunch of different color themes.

These blogs are usually owned by individuals who are all around the place. They are people with great computer skills and drive for money but at the same time may have some attention deficit issues. They want maximum optimization of their blog’s design both for the readers and search engines. They also want to optimize profits. That’s why they have all of those affiliate links along with contextual advertising all around the place. So, if you have such a blog, that’s what I and other visitors may think about you.

3. Use of Earth Colors – Believe it or not, some bloggers subconsciously end up picking earth colors for the blog themes. Individuals who do this are obviously drawn to nature and earth. These bloggers usually blog about political, religious and philosophical issues. These individuals usually use long sentences with fancy words, but do end up having excellent and interesting content.

4. Use of Unusual Colors – Some of the top blogs have unusual colors. What is an unusual color? For me, an unusual color is one that is, let’s say, different. It is sort of red or sort of blue, but not quite. It may look orange, but it is not quite orange. These are unusual colors. I won’t mention any names, but some of the top blogs out there have unusual color themes. These may be a combination of pink and green or a combination of orange and purple. These usually tend to be very technical blogs. They are usually about the latest iPhone app or Honda robot. So, individuals who use unusual colors are not necessarily unusual people, but they are interesting. At the expense of offending anyone, I will still go ahead and say that these are usually nerd bloggers. I consider myself to be one. Nerds who blog tend to use very strong colors because they want attention and they strongly believe in what they are writing about and want to teach others.

5. Artistic Headers – What can you conclude about a blog that has an artistic header? Two things. The blogger has a lot of money to spend or the blogger is talented enough to create a professional header. Usually, from what I have seen, the blogger is rich enough to afford a good header design. In this case, the blog is most likely high traffic blog and one that is pulling in a lot of money from advertising and affiliate marketing. If the header is very nice, I assure you that the blogger is blogging almost full time and that he or she is a known person in the blogosphere. However, if the header was created by a talented person, he or she is not necessarily rich and doesn’t necessarily have a blog that pulls in a lot of money either from advertising or affiliate marketing, but in most cases, the blogger will eventually succeed. A nice blog design and talented blogger usually equals blog success.

6. Blog Pop-Ups – Well, pop-ups are technically part of your blog design. So, what can you tell about a blogger from pop-ups? Before I go on, I want to tell you that when I say pop-ups I am talking about the ones that want your name and email address so you can get a free eBook. These bloggers are usually professionals. They know the importance of getting the emails of blog visitors and creating a huge list. So, if you have pop-ups for your blog, it means that you like money but you are still capable of providing people with free resources that can be used in making money or improving one’s daily life in some other way.

If you make the same website design and management decision as hundreds of thousands of other website owners – choosing WordPress, of course! – these four essential plugins will no doubt keep you happy, and keep your business profitable.

1. Feedburner

WordPress includes an RSS function by default, but it is weak, underwhelming, and quite frustrating for high-traffic bloggers and major website operators. While it is ideal for getting your content out there and viewable by five, ten, or even fifty people, websites with large readerships, customer counts, or client bases will doubtlessly want something a bit more powerful.

Enter Feedburner. Now owned and operated by Google – possibly the biggest name on the internet – Feedburner is the syndication platform of choice for millions of blogs and people-powered websites. If you are sending content out to a large audience, this should be the first plugin you even think of installing.

2. Akismet

No webmaster wants spam polluting their website. While WordPress does an effective job of eliminating spam when combined with a good comment plugin, it certainly is not the best anti-spam tool in the world. Thankfully, with a couple of changes and one quick plugin installation, your WordPress website can be safe, secure, and spam-free.

Akismet is by far the most powerful, popular, and user-friendly anti-spam application available for WordPress. If you are sick and tired of annoying “buy viagra” comment handles and spammy self promoters, this powerful anti-spam plugin is a recommended install.

3. All-in-One SEO Pack

What good is a great website if no one can find it? WordPress is an awesome platform for achieving a basic level of search engine friendliness, but it is by no means the be-all and end-all of SEO website platforms. However, with a couple of on-page tweaks and one quick plugin installation, you can be enjoying search engine traffic sooner than you expected.

There are a couple of SEO plugins available for WordPress, each offering value in different areas. For newbie marketers and inexperienced designers, the All-in-One SEO Pack comes recommended. Not only is this search engine optimization plugin user-friendly and simple, but highly powerful and very useful for ranking highly, quickly, and easily.

4. WP Super Cache

If you are experimenting with social media marketing, a dedicated cache plugin is essential. How would you feel if after all your hard work, your website is picked up by Digg, Reddit, or Delicious and ends up going viral, all to the ill-health of your server.

Protect your website from being dragged offline with WP Super Cache. The big online social resources offer huge amounts of traffic, but only for websites that are ready to handle it. This one WordPress plugin can save you hours of potential technical trouble, all for a quick one-minute installation time.

This article is written by Roko Nastic, a webmaster and blogger who writes for WebmasterFormat, a webmaster info website. He enjoys sharing his knowledge about web design, blogging, CMSs, writing and best web hosting services.

1. Make a list of your primary and secondary keywords. These are the keywords people use to find your information. If you don’t know your primary and secondary keywords, spend some time using tools like Google’s AdWords tool, WordTracker, Market Samurai and other keyword research tools to find out what keywords and keyword phrases are used. Also consider installing something like Google Analytics so you know what keywords people are using to find your website.
2. Categorize your pages including your home page or title page. Outline which pages you’ll use your keywords and keyword phrases on and how you’ll incorporate them into your copy. For your title page, you’ll focus on using your primary keywords and keyword phrases, just one or two, and you’ll choose a few secondary keywords to weave into the copy.
3. Write your title page copy. Don’t worry about your primary and secondary keywords: simply write the copy or content. However, try to write your copy so that headings and subheadings are a natural part of the structure. These heading components of your copy play an important role with your keywords.
4. Once your copy is written, return to it and look at it objectively. Where can you fit your keywords naturally? Focus on using your primary keywords in your headline, in your first paragraph and also where they fit naturally throughout your copy. Your secondary keywords will also go into the body of your copy.
5. Go back and use your keywords and keyword phrases in your headings and subheadings. Search engine spiders look in these key places for keywords and keyword phrases.
6. Test keyword density. Once you’ve gone back through your title page and placed your primary and secondary keywords in, test it. Use a tool like GoRank’s Keyword Density Analyzer and type in your domain and keyword phrase. It will give you a percentage for specific areas of your page including your copy. Experts recommend a keyword density of more than 5%. However, don’t get too carried away. You want humans to benefit from reading your page too.
7. Make sure everything is coded accurately. You want to make sure your html code is accurately reflecting your keywords. Double check your title tags, your header tags, your meta tags for the page and your keyword tags. Also, if you have any images, give them a description and an image tag so the search engines don’t completely overlook them.

Writing a keyword rich title page is easy when you follow these steps. While preparing your page for the search engines, remember it is a human that buys your products or services. Make sure to write your copy for them too.

Of course you want your blog to reach a large audience.  For one thing, if you’re trying to make money, you need that all-important traffic to stay constant (or better yet, grow) in order to draw the advertising dollars that keep you afloat.  That said, you really have to write something that appeals to you.  If you don’t care about the topics you’re covering, it will almost certainly show in your posts, and chances are, it will not engage your readers any more than it engages you.  So try to choose topics that you would like to read about while sticking to the mainstream whenever possible.  Most readers will forgive a little meandering (and even encourage it) if it means your blog is consistently entertaining.

In addition, you don’t want the material to be too dry.  It’s one thing to keep your articles informative, but remember that readers can probably go to any number of blogs that cover your chosen subject matter.  You want to make yours stand out from the crowd and that means putting something unique into the mix, mainly yourself.

Don’t be afraid to make it about you.  If you have an interesting opinion, it will attract more readers (and spawn debate), which will fuel your hits.  There’s nothing worse than being generic, so spice it up!  On that note, you also need to keep your posts new and exciting.  The best way to do this is to stay on top of current trends.  Checking out other blogs is not cheating, it’s market research and it’s absolutely necessary to know what your competition is up to.  You can also look to news blogs and sites like YouTube to cash in on what is popular now.  If your readership knows that they can count on you to keep up with whatever is in vogue, they will be more likely to come to you first, rather than flirting with other sites.

The main thing to remember is that what you want and what your readers want is almost the same.  If a topic interests you and makes you ask questions, chances are good that others in the blogosphere will feel the same way.  And if you take a strong stand on an issue, it’s bound to be more attention-grabbing than a wishy-washy attitude, so say it loud.  Over time, you’ll gain a better understanding of what works for you.  Until then, try anything and everything to keep it entertaining!

Guest post by Sarah of Maxi Dress Mania where you can find a long maxi dress for your body type.

I am a lifetime member of Mom Masterminds and can’t even begin to tell you about the benefits of having such a great support group. One of these benefits is getting to participate in events like the 10 Days May Madness which started just today.

Why am I telling you this today? Because YOU can benefit form this event. there are a lot of services and products offered at only $5 for the next 10 days, where you’d otherwise pay a lot more. Take a look at what’s being offered:

Affiliate Marketing Sweetie System – Regular Price: $37.95

How Video Helps Women in Online Business – Regular Price: $7.99

Real Life Guidance Guides – Regular Price: $11.99 – 19.99

Become A Blog Consultant – Regular Price: $27.00/mo

Mom’s Talk Network Advertising – Regular Price: $10.00/mo

The Small Business Study Social Networking Guide – Regular Price: $20.00

Scrapbook Business Success – Regular Price: $9.00 – 19.95

Lifetime Directory Listing in Christian Moms in Business – Regular Price: $17.00

Hot Seminar Series – Regular Price: $19.00

Blog Internship – Regular Price: $10.00/week

25 Christian PLR Articles – Regular Price: $15.00

Internet Marketing Business Clean Up Self-Study Course – Regular Price: $47.00

PMS & Cravings – Regular Price: $14.99

Online Marketing for Offline Business – Regular Price: $49.97

Lawn Greetings 101 – Regular Price: $19.95

Keyword Research – Regular Price: $30.00

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Weekly Meal Plan – Regular Price: $10.00/mo for 12 months

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40 minute telephone coaching session w/ Coach Nikki B. – Regular Price: $59.00

What are you doing down here: go get yourself some awesome deals!

Here are just a few of the ones I think are important:

Akismet – very useful for keeping spam away. Every once in awhile, look through the messages it marks as spam though, as it sometimes will mark as spam a comment that wasn’t really spam.

Contact Form ][ – Quick way to add a contact form to your blog, and very easy to implement.

Google XML Sitemaps – will generate a special XML sitemap, absolutely necessary if you want SE traffic.

Exclude Pages from Navigation – use it to exclude pages from the primary navigation. For example, I created a thank you page where my newsletter subscribers land on after subscribing, and I didn’t want that page on my top navigation. With this plugin, you get a small check-box that allows you to remove a page from the navigation.

WordPress Database Backup – Schedule an automatic backup for your blog’s database. Sleep easier knowing your blog is safe. You can schedule a daily/wekly backup and have it email the zipped backup to your email.

Platinum SEO Pack - excellent plugin to help you with your SEO efforts.

Depending on your specific niche, or purpose of your blog, there are many more plugins that may be essential. Are you using any other plugins you think everyone SHOULD use? Please share!