Building a website used to be extremely difficult. You had to know HTML, cascading style sheets, possibly javascript and graphic design. Things have changed, now it is possible to build a website in under 60 minutes. Don’t believe me? Here are the steps you need to create your own website in 60 minutes.

Step 1: Register a domain. Using GoDaddy or your other favourite domain registrar get your own domain name registered. Time required 5 minutes.

Step 2: Get hosting. You can spend hours and days researching web hosts. To do this as fast as possible look at a decent WordPress host. I recomend Hostgator, but there are several good WordPress hosts. If you already have a hosting account somewhere you can probably skip this step and simply use an addon domain on your current hosting account. Time required 25 minutes.

Step 3: Change nameservers. This step only takes a few minutes. You need to login to your registrar and set your new domain name nameservers to point to your web hosting account. Time required 5 minutes.

Step 4: Login to your web hosting control panel and use their script installer to install WordPress. Most cPanel hosts have Fantastico to quickly install WordPress. Time required 10 minutes.

Step 5: Login to your new WordPress install and start writing! You have 15 mins left to spare to write your first post.

Now of course this only gets you the bare bones of a website. There is still a great deal more work to do like finding a new theme for your website and customizing it. Adding some plugins to help with different website tasks. Creating a Twitter account to help promote your new website. Creating a Facebook page. Taking the time to update your website regularly with new content. Well, you get the idea, but setting up the core of a website can be done in less than an hour.

I do not post the Hitler videos very often, but thanks to Blogger Shutting Down FTP Service Erik Aronesty left a comment telling us about his script to keep using Blogger with FTP. I have not tried the script out but it looks interesting. If you are being afected by Bloggers decision to close FTP publishing take a look, might be what you need. Erik had the Hitler video embedded on his site and it made me laugh, so here you are to enjoy.

It seems like a long time since I logged into Blogger.com to update a Blogger.com powered blog. Blogger.com was the only service I knew of that offered FTP publishing. FTP publishing was a great way to publish a Blogger.com powered blog to your own domain name, before they started offering custom domains. Soon I will not be able too since FTP published blogs since Google and Blogger.com are closing down the FTP publishing feature effective March 26, 2010.

For those blogs that I did occasionally update I will have to consider switching them to a custom domain hosted on Blogger.com. This will have an impact on some of my clients, since it was an easy way for them to update a blog on their website that was easier to learn than WordPress. For those clients that this will effect I will be in touch with you later this week with some easy alternatives for you to continue updating your websites.

Here is a copy of the email that I recieved regarding Blogger.com closing down FTP publishing.

Dear FTP user:

You are receiving this e-mail because one or more of your blogs at Blogger.com are set up to publish via FTP. We recently announced a planned shut-down of FTP support on Blogger Buzz (the official Blogger blog), and wanted to make sure you saw the announcement. We will be following up with more information via e-mail in the weeks ahead, and regularly updating a blog dedicated to this service shut-down here: http://blogger-ftp.blogspot.com/.

The full text of the announcement at Blogger Buzz follows.

Last May, we discussed a number of challenges facing[1] Blogger users who relied on FTP to publish their blogs. FTP remains a significant drain on our ability to improve Blogger: only .5% of active blogs are published via FTP — yet the percentage of our engineering resources devoted to supporting FTP vastly exceeds that. On top of this, critical infrastructure that our FTP support relies on at Google will soon become unavailable, which would require that we completely rewrite the code that handles our FTP processing.

Three years ago we launched Custom Domains[2] to give users the simplicity of Blogger, the scalability of Google hosting, and the flexibility of hosting your blog at your own URL. Last year’s post discussed the advantages of custom domains over FTP[3] and addressed a number of reasons users have continued to use FTP publishing. (If you’re interested in reading more about Custom Domains, our Help Center has a good overview[4] of how to use them on your blog.) In evaluating the investment needed to continue supporting FTP, we have decided that we could not justify diverting further engineering resources away from building new features for all users.

For that reason, we are announcing today that we will no longer support FTP publishing in Blogger after March 26, 2010. We realize that this will not necessarily be welcome news for some users, and we are committed to making the transition as seamless as possible. To that end:

o We are building a migration tool that will walk users through a migration from their current URL to a Blogger-managed URL (either a Custom Domain or a Blogspot URL) that will be available to all users the week of February 22. This tool will handle redirecting traffic from the old URL to the new URL, and will handle the vast majority of situations.
o We will be providing a dedicated blog[5] and help documentation
o Blogger team members will also be available to answer questions on the forum, comments on the blog, and in a few scheduled conference calls once the tool is released.

We have a number of big releases planned in 2010. While we recognize that this decision will frustrate some users, we look forward to showing you the many great things on the way. Thanks for using Blogger.

Way back in July I open the doors up for people’s webmaster and blogging questions. August was just a bit of a blur between holidays and projects and I have not finished answering all of the questions. I thought kicking off September with the question from Rhett would be a good start to the fall.

Rhett asked:

I’ve been thinking about the shift going on in the web. I think some people are trying to call it web 3.0. I think Scoble is saying 2010. Since I like big questions, what do you think about where the web is going, real time or otherwise, and how your blog will make that shift?

Rhett always likes big questions, and he never fails to ask them. I think part of the shift we are seeing going on with the web right now is really nothing more than the web catching up to what the Internet is. Ultimately the Internet is a tool for people to communicate. In the early days of the web it was mostly simple websites that offered information to visitors, but there was little interaction. Eventually contact forms came along and offering website visitors the ability to send email straight from the website.

Fast forward to today where the web is moving into real time updates with Facebook, Twitter and other services. Social networks are common place and the ability to leave comments of all kinds is commonplace. The web is starting to live up to what it was intended to be, a tool to communicate between individuals. Not just a tool to communicate with each other over email, but in real time with status updates, instant messaging, VOIP and video.

Where is the web going, the web is going to continue to become a more seamless communication medium. Real time and instant updates will continue to become more common. If I knew exactly what the next big thing was going to be I would be out there building it, but I can see that part of the future of the web is to become an easier medium to communicate over. For the most part people still use a computer to communicate over the web, but mobile and other forms are starting to become more important. The web is still not as easy as a phone to use to communicate and there are advances to be made in that area.

Blogs will continue to be an important part of the future of the web. More and more everyone publishes on the Internet, whether on a blog, on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Blogs can become the centre of a persons online activity. Not everyone will use a blog to do this, some will use services like Facebook to do this, but publishing on blogs could change from writing longer posts to becoming the centre of a persons online life.

Corporate and business websites and blogs have a unique opportunity now and in the future, the ability to connect with their clients and customers on a one on one basis. This is not much different than how things were when businesses had brick and mortar locations. Businesses can talk and connect with their clients in real time on the web. Twitter is a sign of this, so are the web chats that you can find on many websites now. Add video and audio to that and make it as easy to use as a phone then the future of the web as a communication device.

The future of the web is exciting as a communication medium. The shift to real time is just the beginning of the next communication revolution that is coming. What do you think will be the future of the web and blogs?

by freezelight

I have been pretty relaxed about comments here, even after attempting to make a comment policy back in 2007. I have had any number of comment bots coming and spamming the blog with automated comment spam. By using my own home grown spam bot solution and then later using WP-SpamFree I have been able to keep the automated comment spam at bay.

Lately I have had a higher than usual amount of keyword comment spam being submitting by people attempting to get a dofollow link using their keywords. This is a direct result of some blogs publishing dofollow lists of blogs. At one time this blog was using the DoFollow plugin that removed nofollow on comments. While I still believe in the DoFollow movement I switched to LinkLove to remove nofollow from people who are regular contributors. I am happy those that regularly contribute to the site with some linklove.

Anyways I have decided to make a comment policy. It is short and simple and easy to find, right below the comment form. Here it is as well for those that want to see it.

My Comment Policy: I moderate comments. Please be patient:

• Spam will happily be destroyed.
• Use your real name, not some keywords. Otherwise it will be destroyed.
• Mean comments aren’t necessary.
• Lewd comments will be edited, I don’t want my readers leaving because of offensive content.
• Great debate, ideas, criticism and colorful commentary is always appreciated and approved!

I don’t know if it will reduce the number of spammy comments I have been getting lately but now people have been told. Do you have a comment policy on your blog? Is there anything else you would recommend I add to mine?

A while ago I complained on Twitter that I was seeing a lot of posts on blogs that are 25 of this or top 50 of that. You know the regular giant list posts. There are some blogs that is all they do and while I do subscribe to some blogs that create these giant list posts they are slowly being weeded out of my feed reader. On the other hand I have also noted that many blogs create blog posts that are just short snippets. Short enough in fact that the whole post could have been posted on Twitter instead of their blog. This has gotten me thinking about what the best blog post length is.

While I don’t spend a great deal of time worrying about how long or short the posts are here I do try to have posts that are roughly 200 words long. So how long should your blog posts be? According to a quick Google search several people have stated that a nice blog post length is roughly 250 words.

Personally I find long posts do not hold my attention while too short of posts often do not have enough information. What do you think? How long should blog posts be?

Is one of your goals for the coming year to increase traffic to your website? If it is then here is the one thing you need to do to make that happen, update your website constantly with fresh, new and original content! No problem right? When was the last time you updated your website? Today? Yesterday? Last month? Last year? Want to update your website daily? By adding a blog you can update your website whenever you feel the need to let the world know more about your product, your services, changes in your company, your employee of the month, or whatever you feel like writing about. Blogs have changed how websites are managed, they are faster, easier, get indexed quickly and allow you to have a personal voice. The reasons are clear.

• No Waiting!

  Traditionally the process to update a website was to gather the information together and then send it off to the person that maintained your website and knew how to code HTML to turn your new content into website pages. With a blog you no longer need to wait for your HTML guru to get around to adding the new content to your website. You can do it yourself. The content can be added as quickly as it takes for you to type it in. Most modern blogging software will take care of the heavy lifting for you like FTPing files up to the server. Modern blogging platforms have made it easy for anyone to manage and update the content on their website. Most blogging platforms allow you to schedule your posts, so you can publish posts and pages even when you are going to be out of the office, on holidays or whenever you want it to go live.

• Get Found

  Everyone wants their website to rank for number one in the search engines. Search engines love fresh, new and original content. Want to get found by the search engines, then give them what they want and give people new interesting information to read and link to. This will improve your overall rank, get you linked to by other websites and in the long run improve your traffic.

• Be a Human Being

  Human beings are social creatures. We thrive on social interaction and blogs allow you to interact with people on your website in a whole new way. It can create new conversations and those conversations can take you to new places with new ideas. Blogs also allow you to show some personality. You can use video, audio and photos. You can show your customers that you are a real person.

Still not convinced? Don’t understand what a blog is? Many people think a blog and a website are different things, but a weblog, or blog, is just another form of a website. You can have a blog, a section of your website that is updated regularly, and still have the rest of the pages of your website that are more static. The new LGR Internet Solutions website is a great example. I have pages that are not updated as often, and I have a blog section that I try to update three times a week. The blog section brings in the majority of the visitors to the website, and from there people explore the other pages of the website. They leave comments, send me messages using the contact form and regularly I find new clients who are looking for a new website, want to spruce up their current site or just need a hand with something. Website publishing is not longer the realm of just HTML gurus. Anyone can be their own website publisher.

Why not give it a try? Installing blogging software is easy on many web hosts, and I would bet in as little as four weeks once you start publishing regularly you will have new visitors coming to your website. If you are unsure about installing WordPress I will be glad to give you a hand. In fact I am willing to put my time and money on the line to help you. I will install a WordPress blog on your existing website, using a free theme of your choosing, install the WordPress plugins that are essential, setup a contact form, setup a Feedburner account and get your own WordPress blog up and running for 50% off my current WordPress blog setup fee. My current blog setup fee is $699.00, so you can save $349.50 on your blog setup. Don’t have a website yet, this offer is good for you as well. This offer is good only until the end of January 2009 and I will only be accepting 10 people. Contact me today to get your own WordPress blog setup this Janaury and in four weeks of regular posting you can have more regular visitors and a better website.

I noticed a great post by Seth Godin in my feedreader this morning entitled “Death of the personal blog?“. There are times when he nails it right.

The origin of what we call blogs started as personal diaries, but like everything they have changed, grown and been adapted by media, become larger and the personal part of blogs has been lost in the large blogs. The problem is that the big box blogs that we see on the top lists on sites like Technorati are no longer blogs. They might be run by blogging software but the personality and personal expression of blogs has been wrung out of them to the point where only the numbers of readers, dollars and page views matter.

We need a revolution in blogging; we need to be radical! Blogs need to return to their personal nature. Whether your blog is a personal blog, or a business blog can people see you in the blog or have you been wrung out and hung out to dry?

Seth Godin is right, we need a new list that is not just about the big box blogs. Time to create a list of the best blogs that have a personal touch. Let’s start it here. Leave a comment with your favourite blog that has a personality, where you can see the author, and why you think their blog should be on the list. I want to read your favourite blogs, share them with me and let’s revolutionize blogging again together.

Photo by stuttermonkey

Something is rotten in the state of the blogosphere. Perhaps you have noticed that there has been a trend with some popular bloggers lately, you visit their blog and instead of being greeted by their well written, compelling content you are greeted by a pop-over pushing the bloggers newsletter list. Every blogger is different. Some offer you a free reward for joining, some promise unique content that can only be found in the their newsletter or a free podcast. While I have no problem with newsletter lists or people subscribing to an RSS feed by email the latest trend to push newsletter lists has two major problems.

First is a usability issue. They use an annoying pop-over that blocks your access to the website. They are hard to block and are the most annoying form of advertising since popups. Why have these bloggers decided to put a good user experience behind building their newsletter list? Simple, they have discovered that the annoying pop-overs work and signup rates go up. Daily Blog Tips recently did a poll asking if people would stop visiting a website that has a pop-over. The results showed that 36% of people will stop visiting blogs that have a pop-over. These once interesting blogs have been turned into nothing more than a cheesy sales page. You know the ones where they promise you XYZ in return for entering your name and email address. If you want a cheesy sales page make a cheesy sales page, don’t call it a blog.

Second, lets be honest about why they want you to subscribe to their newsletter list. It has nothing to do with community or building trust, it has to do with one thing, MONEY! I have no problem with making money, but don’t bull*&%$ me and tell me it is about building community or building trust. Permission marketing is all about getting people’s permission to sell them something. Building a newsletter list is all about making money either by selling directly or through affiliate links, driving traffic back to the blog or advertising.

One of the unique things about pop-overs is that they are hard to block. Unlike traditional popups, pop-overs are part of the webpage itself and the only way to stop them from appearing on the page is to disable Javascript. This will disable the pop-over from appearing on the website in the middle of the screen, but it will usually still appear as part of the page. By disabling Javascript globally you also disable other features that you might want to function on a website. If you are using Firefox an option you can try is to install the NoScript addon to have more control over what Javascripts are allowed to run on what websites. I have it running and have successfully blocked the annoying pop-overs from Chrisg.com, Digital Photography School, Shoemoney.com, Remarkablogger, Caroline Middlebrook and John Chow dot Com while still being able to use other Javascript features on the sites.

It is unfortunate that readers need to take such drastic actions to be able to enjoy reading blogs without being annoyed by these pop-overs. We will probably have to continue to take such actions until the bloggers either realize that they are annoying more people than they are gaining, start actually getting hurt in their pocketbooks or until big brother Google comes out with a statement saying that websites should not have pop-overs that deter from user interaction similar to statements that they make on popups.

Photo by oddsock

I like social media and I have accounts at most of the social media sites including Digg but I have been wondering lately what it is about Digg that causes me to not be an active participant in the site. Being a bit of a stats junkie I have read many posts talking about what the traffic from Digg is like. Recently I was Stumbling and came across another post talking about a blogs recent Digg when it hit me, Digg is like a one night stand for a blogger.

Digg can send an enormous amount of traffic to a blog, there is no doubt about it, but the rush is short lived and and then you need to pick up the pieces of your smoking server and carry on. Face it Digg is like a one night stand. Like meeting someone at a night club and being taken up in the moment. Sure it might be fun for the night but the next day after you sober up and you just end up having a headache and hoping you have not caught anything. The biggest long term benefit you can gain from Digg is a chance that others will blog about you and give you some backlinks. Of course that can backfire on you as well depending on who it is that links to you. Face it, Digg is a one night stand, and nothing good ever comes from a one night stand. Look at the types of posts that people write for Digg, nothing but top 25 this and top 50 of that. Drivel! I guess that is what appeals to Digg users.

There are many bloggers that say you should write for social media, and it is tempting to come up with those kinds of list posts. I do write the occasional list post, because they are easy. They take very little thought just some time to compile the list. Great content to enhance your blog and offer something more substantial to your readers does not fit will in a huge list. Relationships take time to nurture and grow. Building relationships with people and offering them content that allows them to grow and think will provide your blog with more long term growth than the flash in the pan Digg can provide. As you write your next post think about how you can offer your readers content that will grow relationships with them and not feed them junk food.

Photo by Night Star Romanus