Our next guest blogger is Ginger Jones from Attention Deal Shoppers.  She is a blogger who focuses on coupons, great deals, and other frugal ideas for her readers. In her guest post, Ginger shares her journey to branding her blog and offers tips for making the custom blog design process smooth.

————————————————————————————————————————-

Becoming a blogger is so simple a 3 year old could do it.

It is a snap to start a blog so therefore it follows that you are a blogger. Becoming a successful blogger is a completely different story. I recently looked in the catalog of a major university and didn’t find a single class of any sort on blogging. For me, it is a self-honed craft. It is a prime example of “you don’t know what you don’t know until you know it”. Sadly, I didn’t have a clue what I was getting myself into. It looked like a lot of typing to me, and I honestly believed that was enough of a prerequisite to start a blog. So I did.

I must have blogged for six months before I realized that I needed to “brand” myself.

Somehow I ran across a little info that made it seem like THE thing to do so that I had an online identity. The more I thought about branding the more I knew the value and worth of branding myself with graphics and how it all tied together with my online presence.

As a rather new blogger (young I am not), I knew I had to think this through and be sure about what I wanted my graphics to be and how I wanted them to represent me. I didn’t have much of a budget and as any blogger knows (after several months) graphics can get quite pricey. I wanted to get it as right as possible the first time.

I also knew that as a blogger you need to really love what you blog about in much the same way as you love a child. If you do this, it is an all or nothing proposition if you are going to make a penny much less a dime. It is a highly competitive field these days and getting more-so by the minute.

I considered all of the following

when I discussed with Revka at Berries & Cream Blog Design what I wanted as a finished product for my custom WordPress design .

• URL Domain Name
• Colors – I selected 3 so that there wouldn’t be so many as to be revolting.
• Fonts – Again I selected up to 3 for various uses.
• Theme – This was my overall appearance of header, footer, sidebars & content
• Site Mascot – For me it was a bee. For others it could be a hammer, auto or anything else. I chose a bee for various reasons but I knew I could make a play on words with it and that it showed action as well if I wanted it to do so.
• Other graphics and how all of this would play out in the header, favicon, and blog button. I wanted all of my graphics to tie together in a neat little package.

I didn’t put a deadline on when I wanted my graphics finished. I wanted my new designer to get to know me a little and to know that while I was serious about my blog, I still wanted it to be a fun environment that I and my readers would love to come visit. I also wanted those graphics that were designed just for my site to reflect my blog, me and what I wanted my BRAND to be.

My suggestions to prepare for graphics to be designed just for you are like a homework assignment:

• Bookmark the sites that you love for colors/fonts/etc.
• Visit graphics sites and come up with a stable of graphics or types of graphics you love. You may like pictures while others like line drawings or vector graphics. Bookmark or save to your computer the pics/graphics you like.
• Do the same for fonts. Some like the traditional fonts while other like something that appears more handwritten.
• Share a list of links with notes back with your designer. This gives them a visual to work with and help them get what you envision magically transformed into your new design.

Lastly, remember you will want to carry your branding into your social media accounts.

At least at Twitter and Facebook. Make sure you pull the same elements over into those accounts that you do for your blog/site. Offline, you’ll want to do duplicate yet again with business cards, bumper stickers and anything else you may want your logo or icon emblazoned on for advertizing. Talk to Berries and Cream about what you want to do and how they can help.

I highly recommend my blog designer.

Revka Stearns from BerriesandCreamBlogDesign.com IS my blog designer. She took all the info I sent to her, examples of what I liked and why, and did a great job at helping me brand my blog. I’ve used my graphics for loads of things. Revka did such a nice job that when she sent the 1st draft of my new graphics there was only 1 major tweak and one minor one. I loved that she got into what I liked, knew me enough to know she was on the right track and produced a good design the FIRST time, saving herself and me loads of time.

Berries and Cream can help you with your custom WordPress design and it won’t eat up an entire year’s salary either. There are several packages to select from, and your designer will work with you to get you exactly the elements you want. They even have a new addition to their products – yummy pre-made WordPress designs that are just gorgeous!

Ginger Jones
AttentionDealShoppers.com

We answer lots of questions about WordPress. Lots and lots. So I finally got the brilliant idea to publish a weekly WordPress tip to answer some of your most frequently asked questions.

Today’s tip answers the very first question many potential clients ask:

“How do I install WordPress?”

While there is a somewhat complicated method involving creating a database and uploading files via FTP, most of the people who ask how to install WordPress (WP) are lost at the first mention of database or FTP. The good news is that many hosts have an easier method for installing WP.

If you use our preferred host (Hostgator), Bluehost, Hostmonster, or another host that uses cpanel…

you can have WordPress installed in a matter of moments simply by making a few clicks and entering some information. Here are the steps:

click for larger view

1. Login to your cpanel.
2. Scroll down until you see a section titled Software/Services.
3. Click on Fantastico Deluxe or Quick Install. Most cpanels that I have seen offer Fantastico Deluxe.

The following steps are for Fantastico Deluxe.

click for larger view

1. In the left column, click on WordPress.
2. On the right, click on New Installation.
   

   click for larger view

3. In step 1 of the installation pictured above, the red arrows point to three items that are critical: the installation domain, the administrator’s username, and the password.
4. Select the desired domain from the drop down.
5. Enter something other than “admin” as your username. (Admin is the default username and using it can be a security risk for your blog.)
6. Choose a strong password, preferably using a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols.
7. In the base configuration section, enter as much information as you know. This is not critical since this information can be changed later in your blog admin area.
8. Click the Install WordPress button at the bottom. If there are no problems, the next screen will show that WordPress was successfully installed. Access info will be shown, and you will be given the opportunity to email installation details to yourself. I’d highly recommend doing so.

Important: Quick Install follows a similar process but does not give you the opportunity to select your administrator username and password. Because of this, I’d recommend using Fantastico Deluxe instead.

If you have hosting through GoDaddy…

they offer easy WordPress installation through their apps center. Here is a link to their Help section instructions. http://help.godaddy.com/article/834

If you can’t figure it out or don’t want to bother…

you can have us install WordPress for you. Go to our Services page and look for WordPress Installation.

What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment or contact us with your feedback or questions. We love hearing how we have helped people and how we can improve to help you better.