Being in the business of setting up affordable websites and blogs for small businesses, I spend a lot of time helping clients navigate through the process of getting their blogs off the ground.

Once the technical setup is done, there is still much to learn to be a successful blogger. Are you:

• Considering becoming a blogger?
• A brand new blogger
• Starting a new blog and want to do better this time?

If so, I have the tool to help you navigate through those first crucial decisions. Darren Rowse has another jewel for bloggers: ProBlogger’s Guide to Your First Week of Blogging.

This guide has a 7-day plan to help you avoid mistakes and get off to the best start with a solid foundation. Here is what you’ll study:

1. Learn brainstorming techniques
2. Create  a content plan
3. Build a social media presence
4. Create quality assurance tools
5. Set up a publishing process
6. Master the components of a blog post
7. Develop a blog strategy

Blogging isn’t hard, if you have solid information. This is another quality publication for bloggers from ProBlogger. I recommend First Week of Blogging to all my new blogging clients.

Remember ProBlogger’s other great blogging books:

• 31 Days to Build a Better Blog
• Blogging for Your Business
• Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers
• ProBlogger Secrets

Blogging for your Business launched today from ProBlogger! If you need to start a business blog, this is your companion. ProBlogger is one of the best sources for no-fluff, tested blogging advice from people who became successful at blogging before they started blogging about blogging. (In other words, they are legitimate authorities.)

This packed book will step you through the process of creating an online business presence. The chapters are:

1. Define blogging and how it will benefit your business
2. Define your goals
3. Get started with blogging
4. Decide on and register a domain name
5. Install WordPress
6. Intro to WordPress plugins
7. Develop a content strategy and editorial calendar
8. Develop content ideas and fight blogging frustration
9. Publish your first blog post
10. Find readers and traffic for your blog
11. Optimize Flickr and YouTube for your blog’s online presence
12. Create your social media footprint and measure your blogging ROI

If you own a small- or medium-sized business or a non-profit organization, Blogging for Your Business is the guide to take you from no web presence to a successful business site to bring new customers and donors to your cause.

Remember ProBlogger’s other great blogging books:

• 31 Days to Build a Better Blog
• Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers
• Your First Week of Blogging
• ProBlogger Secrets

For the next fifteen hours, Host Gator is offering 50% off everything. This offer is only good today, from 9:00 am CST to 11:59 pm (Central Standard Time).

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We host our sites — and our client sites — on FatCow. But Host Gator has some deals so good I have to pass them on to my readers. If you create your own sites, you will definitely want to get in on these. Crazy deals, seriously! Best deals since they opened up shop over eight years ago.

Every few hours, the deals change, so watch the site and/or the feeds and you’ll be the first to get in on these first come/first served killer prices. Everything is on sale. That includes shared hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, and even dedicated servers! All term lengths included!

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On January 1, 2003, two other women and I began blogging. We had been writing a popular Q&A column together for over a year on a large web site and decided to go solo. We wanted more freedom, more timely updates, more interaction with our readers.

In truth, I don’t recall whether any of us had ever heard the term “blogging” at the time. But what we envisioned was a site where we accepted questions, posted our answers, and then allowed reader feedback to be posted below the original post.

WordPress was just a glimmer in Matt Mullenweg’s eye and I hadn’t even graduated from hand coding to GoLive (not to mention DreamWeaver). My 16-year-old was trying to help me grasp CSS over table-based web design. So our original “blog” consisted of a groovy web site featuring our column and emailed replies entered daily — by hand.

That was ancient history. Things have improved.

Today starting a blog is exponentially easier and — with some guidance — requires little more technical skill than using a word processor.

The WordPress backend is elegant and straightforward. The Thesis Theme allows for one-click customization and has built in search engine optimization. Having your own domain and hosting means you control your blogging destiny and you present a professional face to the world.

If you’ve always wanted to start a blog, if you have ideas and stories to share with the world, if you want to take the next step in your business — make the move. Start your blog today! In one week, you’ll be sharing your ideas with the world!

Creating a custom image for your blog header requires tools and expertise that are — as my college professors would say when I asked a question they didn’t want to answer — “beyond the scope of this text.” But if you already have the image you want to use, adding it to your Thesis theme is a breeze. Follow these steps and you’ll have it done in just a few minutes.

Upload your image onto your server in this directory:

…wp-content/themes/thesis/custom/images

Login to your Dashboard.

Click on Appearance>Thesis Openhook in the left sidebar.

Scroll down to the field labeled Header. In this field, insert the following code with the two specified changes:

<a href="http://yourdomainname"><img src="http://yourdomainname/wp-content/themes/thesis/custom/images/yourfilename" alt="" /></a>

yourdomainname = the URL to your site (such as www.win-with-1.com)

yourfilename = the name you gave to your header image (such as logo.png)

Click the checkbox next to Remove Thesis default header.

Click Save.

Once you’ve customized your site to fit, it’s time to add posts. This is the real heart of blogging! The posts are the entries into your blog that draw readers, show up on your home page, and that are sent our in your RSS feed to all your subscribers. This is the good stuff.

Posts are the articles, the content, the heart of your site. They are the items that get linked — in reverse chronological order — from your home page. To create a new post, just follow these steps:

Login to your Dashboard.

Click on Posts>Add New in the left sidebar.

Enter a Title in the first field. Make it descriptive, intriguing, and include keywords. If you have to choose between being clever and descriptive, choose the latter. Post titles aren’t like chapters titles in a book. Your readers aren’t reading your book yet, you need to get them to your site.

Enter your text in the large field. You can format it like a word processor with the controls above the field. Use “Save as draft” regularly while you are working on your post. Be careful about drafting in a regular word processor and then copying/pasting to WordPress. Some word processors (like MSWord, for example) will dump a bunch of garbage characters in to your text field.

Add the appropriate metadata.

Add categories and tags.

When you are done you can publish immediately or schedule WordPress to publish at a particular time. If you want to publish immediately, just click Publish and your post will show up on the home page. If you want to schedule it, click Edit next to “Publish Immediately,” set the desired date and time, click OK. Then click “Schedule.” Your post will show up at the time you set.

You’ve published your first post! You’re on your way.

Once you create a new WordPress page, you may want to make it accessible from the tabbed navigation bar at the top of your site. This is an easy process.

Log into your WordPress dashboard.

Click on Thesis Options>Thesis Options.

Click on the + sign next to Navigation Menu>Select pages to include in nav menu.

Click the check boxes next to the pages you want to include.

You can drag and drop these fields to change the order of the tabs in the nav menu. The item listed highest will be farthest to the left on your site, the lowest, to the right.

You can also edit the names next to the check boxes. The page title is the default tab name, but that may be too long or otherwise not suit your purposes. Simply click on the name to change it to something more suitable.

Click the large, green Save button at the bottom of the page.

When you go back to your site, you should see your new navbar complete with all the pages you selected.