* RodWarnock.com *

 A Blog is a place where people put their thoughts on whatever interests them, it can be used for personal or business reasons. The coaching program I am on recommends using a Blog to help build my list and also to drive traffic to my squeeze page.

I believe that it is a very good way to communicate wih people on the internet. I am using it to tell my story of how I am building my internet business and along the way I will provide lots of free information on how to seet up a Blog, the mistakes I have made and how you can avoid them.

You can set up a Blog free by going to Blogger.com, or Wordpress.com. However unless you actually own your Blog it could be taken down at any time, so the recommendation is firstly register a domain name with for instance Namecheap.com and arrange your own hosting through a server such as Hostgator.com.

Then you need to install Wordpress and there are two ways that this can be done, either you can go to Hostgator cpanel ( your domainaname/cpanel) and scroll to fantastico click on it and follow the instructions for installation. The Alternatively  way is to use your FTP client that you used to put your squeeze page on the internet.

I used Fantastico and there is a very good video on the process at www.Mat4.com. If you want to use an FTP client then I recommend www.becomeablogger.com where there are a whole series of excellent videos. The next step is customising your blog to look the way you want it and adding different plugins. This is where I am now and struggling to progress, but I am learning. Catch my next post for details of progress.

Up loading files to the internet is a technical procedure and not being a technical person it took me about a week to achieve and a further 4 days to get it right. You can apparently upload files to the internet using Dream Weaver or front page but I am told it takes longer than using an FTP Client ( file transfer protocol client).

There are a number of FTP clients to choose from, some give you a 30 day free trial like Smart FTP, others you have to pay for. However there are a few free ones and the best is ”filezilla” although don’t expect to find a lot of guidance on the site. Youtube is one of best places to go for videos on using filezilla, but I also recommend Mat4.com for a very good video and the top one is probably velnetsupport.co.uk/parrots/FTP/Filezilla as it includes how to deals with problems that may arise.

Once again take your time. I got my basic squeeze page up, but then struggled with trying to alter it using filezilla  but with patience and perserverence you will succeed using the velnet video for guidance.

Forget all the hype you hear on the internet, the place to start an online Business  is with a ‘list’, a list of subscribers. How do you get them? Well you need a squeeze page. This is where my journey began with Alex Jeffreys. I was fortunate in that I was given a squeeze page advised how to brand it and set it up. You might think that would then be easy, but not for me! I will tell you in a minute the problems I encountered.

In regard to squeeze pages, you can get free termplates at www.pluginsqueezepage.com, and www.instantsqueezepagegenerator.com or you can pay for them at www.ezleadcapture.com where they will also host your site, you can choose from a range of their templates or they will design one for you for around $80.

Anyway back to the problems I had with the squeeze page I was provided with. In order to capture the name and email address of visitors to your squeeze page you need to install an autoresponder. The two best known autoresponders are getresponse.com and aweber.com. I have used getresponse before and it is good, but aweber has more facilities and worth the $19 dollars a month as opposed to the $17.95 for get response.

The problem that I had was that I set up my web sign up form but could not get it to refer to my thank you page. Aweber were very helpful but could not sort it. I later discovered that it was the FTP client that was the probem, as I had not uploaded the squeeze page correctly.  The lesson here is “TAKE YOUR TIME”. I rushed into it and got it wrong.

Hi,

If like me you have spent a long time and thousands of pounds trying to start an internet business but failed, then this will interest you.

I discovered just in time that you need a mentor in order to succeed online. I was fortunate to find Alex Jeffreys and joined his coaching coarse.

“Follow me “as I build my Internet Business with a mentor.   It is going to be an exciting ride and fun too!

The best bit is ‘You’ can learn from the mistakes I make ‘failing forward’ to establish my internet business.