Blogs – Page 9 – The Web Authority

February 12, 2010February 12, 2010

Blogging for Dollars – Can You Make Money Blogging?

So you’ve heard that bloggers can make tons of money is that true? Well yes and no. Blogging is not right for every web savvy person and in fact not right for every good writer. So what makes a good blogger – one that can make some real money blogging?

1. Typically a blogger who is making a real living is not writing and making money from their own blog. They are making money being employed by a blogging firm that has a client base and they are providing contract writing services as a “for hire” service.

2. The best professional blogger is someone who knows how to budget their time and does not excessively word smith a post. It is impossible to make money blogging if each blog post you write for a client takes one to two hours and you are paid $10 to $15 for the post. If you have a natural writing style, innate grammar skills, and an interesting point of view you may be able to start out as a Junior Level blogger. The key to making money blogging is being able to write the volume needed on a consistent basis in under 20 to thirty minutes a post and then with a volume of five to ten posts a day.

3. Real money is paid to quality bloggers. One of our top bloggers makes from $2,200 to $3,000 a month just blogging. But not every blogger can start out at this level, and for that matter not every established blogger can perform at the level required to make this kind of money day in and day out. But, the best blog writers not only can make great money but can love the flexibility that the job provides. One of our bloggers only writes in the middle of the night. Another only writes on the weekend.

February 8, 2010January 31, 2010

How to Add a Blog Post to WordPress

If you have never used WordPress sometime how to add a post is extremely confusing and especially if you want to publish on a future date. Here are the steps that we teach to our new blog writers on how to add a post.

Download and install IE Spell for your browser as many WordPress control panel spell checkers are not functional.

Visit www.IESpell.com. This little spell checker is then accessed from your tools menu. If you use Firefox, do a Google search and download a plug-in that you can use for spell checking.

Click Posts in the left side bar. The blog listing screen will open. If you have a draft post or pending post you will see it in the links on top of the blog post list.

To create a new blog post click Add New in the post menu in the left sidebar. The next screen will show the blog post entry control panel.

This is crucial – if you have created your blog post in Word or used one from the client, you MUST copy your post, paste it into Notepad, and then copy it from Notepad and then paste into the blog entry field. If you do not do this you will carry hidden font and character styles into the blog post which will be visible when published. You can typically access Notepad from the Accessories menu on your computer in your Microsoft Office products.

Once on the blog post control panel, type in or paste your blog title in the very top one line field. Paste in from Notepad or create your blog post in the larger box underneath the blog title.

To insert a link in your blog post, open another browser tab, go to the web page that you will want the link to direct to, copy the address from the address bar, must include the http:// in front of the link. Go back to the WordPress control panel and using your mouse drag to highlight the text you want to carry the hyperlink. I like to drag from the end of the phrase to the front to have better control over the link and so a space in not inadvertently picked up in the link. Then click the chain or hyperlink icon in the tool bar just above the post entry field. A small window will pop up, paste the link into the very first field overwriting the http:// that is already there, select in the drop down, open link page in a new window, and then click insert. WordPress will then underline and hyperlink your text in the blog post.

Make sure to spell check your blog post using IE Spell.

On the right side bar now create tags in the tag field that are keywords to find your blog post. I use all lower case for tags unless it is a proper name. I usually select one, two or three words based on the blog post. Make sure to click Add.

Then look just below the tag field and select categories. Categories are like blog navigation so be judicious in adding them. All categories should be proper case.

In the top right box that says publish; look for Publish Immediately and EDIT. Do not click any other buttons at all like draft pending review or okay.

Click the Edit link to open the publish time calendar. If you are publishing ahead, change your date and time. I like to set the clock to 5:00 am as the publish time if I am scheduling a blog post ahead so it is there the first time someone looks. After setting the date and time, click PUBLISH. This is important to not click the okay button or preview button as your post may end up as a draft and not properly scheduled. After you have clicked publish you can go back to the blog post master page and click your blog post to preview it.

Always make sure you preview your blog before you log out to make sure you don’t have any funny characters and that your spacing is correct and images are in place.

To double check that all is well, click Posts on the left menu you will see your blog post in the link at the top that says scheduled and also in the blog post list with a countdown of hours until the publish time.

February 2, 2010February 2, 2010

Fiesta Online – Kids & Parents Guide

fiesta21 Hello 🙂 I’m Bobbie, and my mom is in charge of McCord Web Services; but the reason I’m here is because it’s Shadow Day and you get to shadow a person of your choice, and I chose my mom. So since this is one of the things she gets to do, I get to make a blog!! Yay!

Anyways…

Kids & Parents Guide to Fiesta Online

(www.outspark.com or http://fiesta.outspark.com/).

Pssst, if you’re a kid and you’re reading this, the second link is so you can download the game~ Well, if your parents say so, that is~ 🙂

OHH! By the way! The game is completely safe!! I’ve been playing for, hmmmmm.. maybe a year and a half? And nothing bad has ever happened to my computer. Pinky Promise.

Kids Guide

Okay, once you download the game from the link you can go to the launcher and log in once you make an account on the homepage. Then, you are free to choose a world: Epith, Teva, Bijou, Legel, Apoline, and Cypion. (Hey, if you asked me, i would suggest Epith… *hint hint* That’s the server I’m on… My Character’s name is Teeta and feel free to add me if you need a friend or need some help getting used to the game.)

Anyhoo, after you have selected your world you are free to make a character of your choosing: Archer, Mage, Fighter, or Cleric. The you can start training!! 🙂 There will be tons of controls so it can get a little confusing. Haha, I know how it feels, there was this other game Asda Story that I’ve been playing recently and when i first made an account– holy cow — it had alot of controls! Anyways after you get used to the controls on fiesta and you can move around, you can talk by pressing enter on the keyboard and then typing what you want to say and then pressing enter to send it.

The town you’ll start in is called Roumen, and at first the quests will give you what you need like armor and skills to use so you can use more cooler and fiercer attacks on the monster’s you need to fight. You can walk out of the town and *gasp* there’s these weird purple poofballs in your way! Heh-heh those things are called slimes, the first monsters to kill that are for beginners. Later in the game, you can fight bosses like the King Crab (that’s the first elite monster you’ll need to fight for a quest) but chill, it’s not hard~ the Giant Goblin King or ggk for short, and the Mini Dragon (that’s for about level 80’s).

Oh! Almost forgot, if you press “c” on the keyboard your character’s stats will pop up and the box can show you things like: what level or “lvl.” your character is, the guild its in, how much experience or “exp.” it has, the percentage it’s at to show how much you have until you level, which the highest levels currently are, hmmm 105 for players but for GM’s (Game makers) it’s 150. **Also, something you can’t play the game without! Stats will also be shown, and depending on what class or type your character is, these are the stats i suggest.. (they will help make your character be the best it can be.)

Cleric: Raise the End, Str and if you want Dex stats.

Fighter: Raise the End, Str and also, if you want, Dex stats.

Archer: Raise the End, Str, and Dex stats. Dex is highly useful on archers.

Mage: Raise the End, Int, and optional again, Dex. Mages have low health so putting some stat points on Endurance comes in handy.

And if you’re wondering what “End” and “Int” and the others mean: Endurance, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Spirit. So Yup, those are some starter things to know.

Also, on the bottom right-ish side of the game screen there should be some panels and scrolls among them:

Help: If you need help with something, this may be able to assist you.

Character stats (explained earlier)

Fiesta Store*

Inventory or your items which you can pick up from monsters.

Community or your friends, guild, guild academy, master and apprentices, your mate (you can marry on the game.. kinda corny i know :P), and party matching (where you can post notices like when you’re selling stuff or if you need help or if you uh obviously.. need a party).

Skills which is where you can use skill points to enhance your attacks (Note: skill points and stat points are not the same.)

Quests which is where it shows the quests you’ve accepted to do. The max number of quests you can hold in 20.

Actions which is where you make your character laugh, dance, follow, etc.

Mini House: The place is where you can rest and heal your character.. you can’t rest if you’re by a NPC or a computerized character that sells stuff but is not actually played by a person like you or me or anyone else. This is also where your character can sell or buy stuff, also it can have different houses and when your character gets to level 25 you get get a new house, and by “Changing Outlook” it can change and heal your character faster.

Options: where you can change the sound, game, shortcut and graphic settings, and also where you can change characters and servers. This is also where you can log off the game.

*The Fiesta Store is where you can buy spark cash which is purchased by spending money on the site (5 bucks, 10 bucks whatever) and then you can buy these cool outfits or dress your character up and change their “do” and face and such. You can also buy leveling packs and pets that you can ride to help you get around the world, Isya, faster.

The world of Isya is big and so each realm of the land will have the monsters you need to kill to excel in the game. I sincerely hope that this has or will help you in the game. Until then, See you later… maybe in the game, who knows.

Parent’s Guide

Whew, thanks for still reading through that. If you’re a parent and here phrases like “plvl” or “sc” or something like that, those are shortened meaning or words like “plvl” mean plevel and pleveling mean to power level someone by helping them with their quests. “sc” means Spark cash, which above, it says what that is.

Yes, this is a big game but it has very very good graphics and most likely will not clog up your computer and will not give a virus. No, I’m not bluffing. Anyways hope this has been useful to you or your kids because let me tell you: it makes time pass by and you’ll be hooked for a very long time.. handy for long summers where there’s nothing to do.

Have a great day. This is the end of my blog… for now. -Bobbie McCord 🙂

January 27, 2010January 30, 2010

Entrepreneur Magazine Features McCord Web Services Blogging Program

Well I guess I have made it into the big time. Entrepreneur Magazine interviewed me several months ago and the article is finally out. It is called “The Ghost Speaks”. In the article our business and several others are highlighted. My firm is given some very favorable press and one of our clients was interviewed as well. The article can be found in the print and online magazine.

Our blog writing services provide unusual quality at a very low price. With blog posts ranging from $18 to $32 there is a price level for almost any business client.

If you read the adjunct article “Deconstructing a Blog Post”, keep in mind this client paid $18 for this post. Even the Entrepreneur Magazine experts think that it is pretty good. Now, not all of our writers provide more words than the word count one of our specific price level requires of them, but many of our blog writers are writing because they love to write and don’t watch their word count when they are on a roll.

We have an excellent blog writing team with seasoned professional journalists all the way to stay at home Moms who really know how to weave an excellent story. The post that Entrepreneur Magazine deconstructed was written by one of our Junior Level writers. She has a wonderful chatty writing style that is wonderfully engaging. I don’t think that you could find a better value for $18 any where else. Check it out and see what you think.