17 replies to this topic

[Nameless_]

Hey people... well, after some previous questions that I have catapulted to my fellow Trap17 comrades who are with me into website building, I have now stack a whole new set of questions for you to answer.

As you might (or might not) know, I have created a website, I mean blog, called newstack.blogspot.com, and you can click the link to go there and have a look.
This is a blog about interesting news that I find daily (just because I hate boring news and most of them are boring anyway...), and I will hopefully make some money out of it, at least $1 USD a week would be brilliant, and that is my current goal right now.

Now, my blog has been created for three days... however, unfortunately Google hasn't exactly indexed it into their database yet, and I am finding this very annoying. Does anyone know how long it takes for Google to index your site? I already have some posts that I have posted in less than two days time, and I will be posting even more today. And google still hasn't indexed my site... and I thought it takes like, a few hours for it to happen because blogger.com, or also known as Blogspot.com, is part of google, so google should, theoretical, know exactly when a blog is created and should be put into their database like, very quick, if not immediately...

I am sick of waiting impatiently...

Also, just today, I have created an Adsense account with the approval of my mother who kindly gave me permission to use her name for it... Now, the Adsense banners come in all sort of sizes, but unfortunately, I really don't know how to put two different kind of sizes on my blog...

If you take a look at my blog --------->here,
you will see an empty space on the top right hand side banner where the Adsense thing should be... now, hopefully if that works, the ads will be showing in less than 48 hours time...

But if you look under my first post, you will see that the size of the ad that IS working (strangely), is way too big for it to be under a post, and yet I have absolutely now idea how to change it.

Also, why is the adsense ad under my post working and not the adsense ad on my blue menu bar thingy banner on the right hand side of my website weblog???

Does that mean that it won't work on the banner? I think it should, because it DOES say "Adsense" gadget on the Layout page in the blog settings section...

Any help guys???

More questions will be coming, don't worry, if you are still thirsty for my questions!!! ( I really think not...)

[The Simpleton]

Good to know that you started off on something Nameless_ I haven't yet taken a good look at your site but from first glance it does seem interesting. A few more good posts could attract more visitors to it. $1 a week is a pretty big target for a starter site. That's because you need around 100 clicks per week. That means your blog must attract at least 200-300 visitors per week, because not all of them will click on the ads and so to get 100 clicks first you're gonna need a lot of visitors. I would advice you to initially stop thinking about how much you're getting from the ads and start concentrating on the quality of your posts. If a site which promises interesting news suddenly ends up with boring news then it's not a very good thing....so just concentrate more on your quality.

Regarding how long it will take for your site to be indexed, I can only make a far guess, because it depends on many factors. I think you need to read up a little on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to know more about this. I think more experienced members will advice you about this later on so be patient

and finally, all the best for you first site and remember not to lose your grip over quality - it is of utmost importance!
ciao!

[Nameless_]

The Simpleton, on Sep 5 2009, 09:03 PM, said:

Good to know that you started off on something Nameless_ I haven't yet taken a good look at your site but from first glance it does seem interesting. A few more good posts could attract more visitors to it. $1 a week is a pretty big target for a starter site. That's because you need around 100 clicks per week. That means your blog must attract at least 200-300 visitors per week, because not all of them will click on the ads and so to get 100 clicks first you're gonna need a lot of visitors. I would advice you to initially stop thinking about how much you're getting from the ads and start concentrating on the quality of your posts. If a site which promises interesting news suddenly ends up with boring news then it's not a very good thing....so just concentrate more on your quality.

Regarding how long it will take for your site to be indexed, I can only make a far guess, because it depends on many factors. I think you need to read up a little on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to know more about this. I think more experienced members will advice you about this later on so be patient

and finally, all the best for you first site and remember not to lose your grip over quality - it is of utmost importance!
ciao!

Thanks!!! Yeah, I know right? After like... 2 months and I still haven't bought a package off Xisto... but I can meddle around with the HTML without having to worry about anything for the moment...

And I didn't know $1 a week is a big goal... well, make that $0 a year and lots of readers and subscribers... I'm glad I started off with something myself too... feels like I just need to push myself off and stop researching everything for like, ten years before actually starting. (Have you read the book "The Alchemist"? Well, I'm just like the wannabe alchemist... always researching but never starting.)

Yes, I'll keep it interesting... well, it's basically for teens, you know? I'm a teen and I just hate newspapers, but I like interesting ones occasionally. So it won't be like, world wide boring news, but interesting news of smaller stuff and things around the world... unless something big happened, like how Michael Jackson died. Now THAT would be a world wide interesting news to read...

And yes... quality over quantity... content is king... I've heard it all...

(I'm still researching though... I've borrowed "Blogging for Dummies" from my local library and apparently I have to put links everywhere on my blog or people will start complaining about not having enough links. And I'm meant to link back to the source, but it's from the free newspaper I get everyday from Monday to Friday and they don't have a website with their articles on it... so what should I do? I might have to find news from other places and put it all in the blog so I've got some links in there...)

Thanks for the help!!! I've figured out how to change the size of the adsense ads under my posts, but the ad on the banner still doesn't work... if it really doesn't then I'll just have to find sponsers... and in the meantime, I might advertise one of my Trap17 friends sites for FREE... once I've figured out how to do that...

[andreip]

The Simpleton, on Sep 5 2009, 11:03 AM, said:

Good to know that you started off on something Nameless_ I haven't yet taken a good look at your site but from first glance it does seem interesting. A few more good posts could attract more visitors to it. $1 a week is a pretty big target for a starter site. That's because you need around 100 clicks per week. That means your blog must attract at least 200-300 visitors per week, because not all of them will click on the ads and so to get 100 clicks first you're gonna need a lot of visitors. I would advice you to initially stop thinking about how much you're getting from the ads and start concentrating on the quality of your posts. If a site which promises interesting news suddenly ends up with boring news then it's not a very good thing....so just concentrate more on your quality.

Regarding how long it will take for your site to be indexed, I can only make a far guess, because it depends on many factors. I think you need to read up a little on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to know more about this. I think more experienced members will advice you about this later on so be patient

and finally, all the best for you first site and remember not to lose your grip over quality - it is of utmost importance!
ciao!

Firstly, The Simpleton is perfectly right. You must bring high quality posts in order to attract more people to your blog that will make you money. I'll answer your question about your website not being indexed yet in google. It's all because you dont own a domain yet. Yes domains make it faster for google to index.

My opinion, if you really want to have a good blog you definetly need to start it like a pro. Firstly forget about the blogger.com, wordpress.com and many other engines like this. Get a webhoting service from here, the 1.95$ plan is enough for you and if you need more bandwith just upgrade it with less than a dolar. Get a domain so you can be indexed by google easier and also your audience will remember easier how to get to your blog. Go to wordpress.org and install it on your webhost. Than you can get themes, custom plugins that will help you a lot. Even plugins that will help your SEO. If you need help just post it here and I'll help you with whatever you want. I recently started a web design blog on my own but I have some experience.

Cheers!

[Baniboy]

This is a bit off topic but...
If you want your site to look "alive" then you should add images to your posts too. It might also be a good idea to mention the source of the article even if you wrote it yourself based on another article.

I'm not seeing any gigantic empty space between your posts, so I can't really comment on that. Just wait till your adsense shows up, and you'll see.
It might take several months to get indexed by google, but that's not important. You should tell people about your site and get some returning visitors.

Good luck

[The Simpleton]

Quote

My opinion, if you really want to have a good blog you definetly need to start it like a pro. Firstly forget about the blogger.com, wordpress.com and many other engines like this. Get a webhoting service from here, the 1.95$ plan is enough for you and if you need more bandwith just upgrade it with less than a dolar. Get a domain so you can be indexed by google easier and also your audience will remember easier how to get to your blog. Go to wordpress.org and install it on your webhost. Than you can get themes, custom plugins that will help you a lot. Even plugins that will help your SEO. If you need help just post it here and I'll help you with whatever you want. I recently started a web design blog on my own but I have some experience.

This is a really good point - getting your own domain helps a lot in the longrun. Okay, so newstack.com is taken () but there are still a lot of good domain names you could use in relation to the theme of your blog. It's much more easier visiting your blog directly through a domain instead of a sub-domain!

On the other hand, having your blog on sites like blogger, wordpress, etc does have its own advantages like ready-to-use plugins and themes and zero percent necessity of programming/coding So it's up to you to weigh the odds and decide which one's the best thing for you to do. Since you're only just starting out, it won't be difficult to migrate to a domain from your blogger account.

[andreip]

The Simpleton, on Sep 5 2009, 12:08 PM, said:

This is a really good point - getting your own domain helps a lot in the longrun. Okay, so newstack.com is taken ( ) but there are still a lot of good domain names you could use in relation to the theme of your blog. It's much more easier visiting your blog directly through a domain instead of a sub-domain!

On the other hand, having your blog on sites like blogger, wordpress, etc does have its own advantages like ready-to-use plugins and themes and zero percent necessity of programming/coding So it's up to you to weigh the odds and decide which one's the best thing for you to do. Since you're only just starting out, it won't be difficult to migrate to a domain from your blogger account.

Agreed. But having your blog on your own host gives you more freedom. You can make toatally custom themes and you can use plug ins too . And you don't need to be a coder, designer to get your blog working and look pretty on your own host. All you need is common sense. It's easy to do it.

[Nameless_]

andreip, on Sep 5 2009, 09:35 PM, said:

Firstly, The Simpleton is perfectly right. You must bring high quality posts in order to attract more people to your blog that will make you money. I'll answer your question about your website not being indexed yet in google. It's all because you dont own a domain yet. Yes domains make it faster for google to index.

My opinion, if you really want to have a good blog you definetly need to start it like a pro. Firstly forget about the blogger.com, wordpress.com and many other engines like this. Get a webhoting service from here, the 1.95$ plan is enough for you and if you need more bandwith just upgrade it with less than a dolar. Get a domain so you can be indexed by google easier and also your audience will remember easier how to get to your blog. Go to wordpress.org and install it on your webhost. Than you can get themes, custom plugins that will help you a lot. Even plugins that will help your SEO. If you need help just post it here and I'll help you with whatever you want. I recently started a web design blog on my own but I have some experience.

Cheers!

Yeah, I guess you're right. But the point of this blog is the make money to I can earn passively and work on my main project without having to post on Trap17 twenty four / seven, which is exactly what I'm doing now... now doing what I'm supposed to do, and sleeping late in the wee hours of the night when I'm meant to be doing other stuff...

Which is why I started my blog and it's an attempt to earn some money online... I'm still new to everything, so I really don't know how hosting works, and I definitely can't code everything myself, but if I can just copy and paste the template, that'd be cool... but I won't know how to post then, without the Blogger platform. Plus... if I earned $15 USD from my blog, I can then buy a domain off Google... right???

Though having 100% control would be ideal, of course. If only I'm a computer geek...

Baniboy, on Sep 5 2009, 09:51 PM, said:

This is a bit off topic but...
If you want your site to look "alive" then you should add images to your posts too. It might also be a good idea to mention the source of the article even if you wrote it yourself based on another article.

I'm not seeing any gigantic empty space between your posts, so I can't really comment on that. Just wait till your adsense shows up, and you'll see.
It might take several months to get indexed by google, but that's not important. You should tell people about your site and get some returning visitors.

Good luck

Hmm... thanks. yeah. I'll tell everyone I can about it, and I'll see if I can find some images off the web. And that's a good thing too, because that means that I can source the pictures from somewhere else and apparently it give you respect in the blogospheric community, which results in more readers and subscribers, if you don't mind losing some of them through the links...

The Simpleton, on Sep 5 2009, 10:08 PM, said:

This is a really good point - getting your own domain helps a lot in the longrun. Okay, so newstack.com is taken () but there are still a lot of good domain names you could use in relation to the theme of your blog. It's much more easier visiting your blog directly through a domain instead of a sub-domain!

On the other hand, having your blog on sites like blogger, wordpress, etc does have its own advantages like ready-to-use plugins and themes and zero percent necessity of programming/coding So it's up to you to weigh the odds and decide which one's the best thing for you to do. Since you're only just starting out, it won't be difficult to migrate to a domain from your blogger account.

Yeah... newstack.com AND .org is taken. I only know shortly after I used the name in blogspot, though I can still change it (it's a good name though), and the .net extension is free...

Another thing is that the term "newstack" comes up with 15,600 results from google, so I don't have a lot of competition, and apparently newstack.com is quite wellknown... so I might get some traffic off there, though I would prefer a .com domain name. So I'll have to think up another name. Something witty and hints at interesting news... like newstack... well, maybe not...

Just to tell you though, Blogger does let you pay for a domain name through them... so I don't need to worry about anything, I think, and still use their service. But paying services seem better to me...

[andreip]

Nameless_, on Sep 5 2009, 12:21 PM, said:

Yeah, I guess you're right. But the point of this blog is the make money to I can earn passively and work on my main project without having to post on Trap17 twenty four / seven, which is exactly what I'm doing now... now doing what I'm supposed to do, and sleeping late in the wee hours of the night when I'm meant to be doing other stuff...

Which is why I started my blog and it's an attempt to earn some money online... I'm still new to everything, so I really don't know how hosting works, and I definitely can't code everything myself, but if I can just copy and paste the template, that'd be cool... but I won't know how to post then, without the Blogger platform. Plus... if I earned $15 USD from my blog, I can then buy a domain off Google... right???

Though having 100% control would be ideal, of course. If only I'm a computer geek...



Hmm... thanks. yeah. I'll tell everyone I can about it, and I'll see if I can find some images off the web. And that's a good thing too, because that means that I can source the pictures from somewhere else and apparently it give you respect in the blogospheric community, which results in more readers and subscribers, if you don't mind losing some of them through the links...


Yeah... newstack.com AND .org is taken. I only know shortly after I used the name in blogspot, though I can still change it (it's a good name though), and the .net extension is free...

Another thing is that the term "newstack" comes up with 15,600 results from google, so I don't have a lot of competition, and apparently newstack.com is quite wellknown... so I might get some traffic off there, though I would prefer a .com domain name. So I'll have to think up another name. Something witty and hints at interesting news... like newstack... well, maybe not...

Just to tell you though, Blogger does let you pay for a domain name through them... so I don't need to worry about anything, I think, and still use their service. But paying services seem better to me...

You can purchase a domain from here to. If I'm not mistaken is only 10$. And about posting non stop here to get the money for the hosting you are totally wrong. You can earn the money for the 1.95$ plan in 4-5 good quality posts. As I said you don't have to know coding at all. Nothing really. Just common sense. Downloading wordpress platform and installing it is easy. Just a few clicks. After that putting the theme is the same, or plugins. It takes a few minutes. Thats all. This morning I installed wordpress in less than 5 minutes. It's really easy. The admin panel is the same as wordpress.com. Just give it a try if you dont trust. Go and get a free hosting without having to post. It doesnt matter which one just to support wordpress installation. Try and install it and look around. You'll see how easy it is . But just my opinion tough.

Cheers!

[Nameless_]

andreip, on Sep 5 2009, 10:40 PM, said:

You can purchase a domain from here to. If I'm not mistaken is only 10$. And about posting non stop here to get the money for the hosting you are totally wrong. You can earn the money for the 1.95$ plan in 4-5 good quality posts. As I said you don't have to know coding at all. Nothing really. Just common sense. Downloading wordpress platform and installing it is easy. Just a few clicks. After that putting the theme is the same, or plugins. It takes a few minutes. Thats all. This morning I installed wordpress in less than 5 minutes. It's really easy. The admin panel is the same as wordpress.com. Just give it a try if you dont trust. Go and get a free hosting without having to post. It doesnt matter which one just to support wordpress installation. Try and install it and look around. You'll see how easy it is . But just my opinion tough.

Cheers!

It did think it as around $10 USD, but then I found out from someone that there are taxes involved and it costs around $14 dollars including tax per annum (I typed in $15 for good measure in case something happens), and if I am to get unlimited hosting, then i will be requires to earn around $12 dollars a month just for hosting, where I could get the unlimited for free at Blogger.com.

The only drawback is the navigational bar on top of the blog... but I really can't think of anything else. There's the free templates, the free everything... plus, there's an export button somewhere on the dashboard settings in the blog, so I'm assuming that it will be quite easy to change hosting just by clicking exporting and import it into my own domain site and hosting site.

But I know what you're getting at. I might get there someday, and I hope I will... but currently I don't have the funds to start and I'm reluctant in using my small stash of myCENTS that will easily run out in one month because I can keep up with the hosting. If there is any way for me to transfer this to a individual hosting it is will be great, though I think I might lose some Bloggers memebers just for ditching this site... Anyway, we'll see how things go. Apparently it is possible to be successful even with a .blogspot domain, though I'm not counting on that... I might use one of the free domain names give (co.cc, uni.cc, co.nr, ,tk) and we'll see if it works or not...

What do you think?