Newbie

[Merkaba]

Ok I'm new here and I'm getting ready to start blogging about fitness, and another one about real estate. I want to be able to advertise on both and do adwords, etc. I was told about wordpress and some theme for like 500 bucks and upon looking at some themes I don't want it to look much like a big real estate website or be extra fancy. The same for my fitness blog. So any advice will be appreciated and feel free to offer tips for wordpress, etc. I plan on using wordpress but I don't have to if there is something easier out there. I was told to use something seperate from blogger.com and the like so that I can have more flexibility with content and ads. I'm an agent and a fitness trainer and know both of these fields well. Thanks in advance!

[stephen todd]

Originally Posted by Merkaba

Ok I'm new here and I'm getting ready to start blogging about fitness, and another one about real estate. I want to be able to advertise on both and do adwords, etc. I was told about wordpress and some theme for like 500 bucks and upon looking at some themes I don't want it to look much like a big real estate website or be extra fancy. The same for my fitness blog. So any advice will be appreciated and feel free to offer tips for wordpress, etc. I plan on using wordpress but I don't have to if there is something easier out there. I was told to use something seperate from blogger.com and the like so that I can have more flexibility with content and ads. I'm an agent and a fitness trainer and know both of these fields well. Thanks in advance!

you've obviously done your research

self-hosted wordpress is the way to go - you can host both sites on 1 add-on domain hosting account costing 8 or 9 dollars a month

20 dollars a year for 2 domain names brings the first years cost to under 130 dollars

you can get a free SEO'd wordpress theme that you can add your own header image to - just click the link on the footer of my blog:
Make Money

use free wordpress plugins and write original posts and you'll do OK - just don't add adsense until the blog is about a month old - google now seem very suspicious of all new blog sites displaying adsense ads

[Captured Ink]

Hi,

welcome to the forum, yes I completely agree self-host wordpress is the way forward. In reference to templates there is a range of free wordpress. But I would recommend www.studiopress.com they have fitness and estate wordpress themes.

Easy to use great for SEO.

Hope that this help?

[Merkaba]

Thanks guys. I usually go with Godaddy on my domain names. Would they be good for hosting as well? I like the platform they have for managing domains. This will be my first time needing hosting so I have little experience with that side of things. What do you all think?

[stephen todd]

Originally Posted by Merkaba

Thanks guys. I usually go with Godaddy on my domain names. Would they be good for hosting as well? I like the platform they have for managing domains. This will be my first time needing hosting so I have little experience with that side of things. What do you all think?

I've never used them for hosting but I've read stuff from people who say not to use godaddy hosting

I use hostmonster and not had any problems other than exceeding memory allocation on shared server - but I run several blogs, each with a lot of plugins on a shared hosting account

[Merkaba]

yea i've heard of hostmonster....any more ideas out there?

[kikolani]

Originally Posted by Merkaba

Thanks guys. I usually go with Godaddy on my domain names. Would they be good for hosting as well? I like the platform they have for managing domains. This will be my first time needing hosting so I have little experience with that side of things. What do you all think?

I use GoDaddy for all of my sites (around 10 now). They are the best for WordPress hosting in my opinion because once you have chosen your hosting plan (as low as $5 / month) they have a GoDaddy Hosting Connection with WordPress as an available blog application to install. You just select it, answer a few questions, and it does the work for you.

As far as themes, there are a TON of free themes out there. Check out Smashing Magazine's website, and search WordPress themes for starters.

For a theme that is solely about the SEO value, but not necessarily graphics, check out Thesis at DIYAffiliates. It's $89 but really does the job.

For less expensive but graphically appealing themes, Elegant Themes offers a one year membership for $20 that gives you access to all of their themes - you can sign up, download them all, download any new ones they come out with for the next year, then cancel and have over 10 themes at your personal disposal.

Hope this helps!

[Merkaba]

Ok thanks so much for bearing with me. I'm a moderator on a fitness site, and I go to forums quite often. So I know the info has been covered somewhere before on this site and I could probably dig it up but from what I've found most forum search engines aren't optimal. So I greatly appreciate the info!

so I'm reading folks saying SEO optimal. I thought that was more about content but I guess the google bots, etc, like some layouts better than others or what? Please feel free to enlighten me a little on SEO themes vs. one that wouldnt work as well. It doesnt have to be able to do a lot of graphics, just me putting up a pic or two in some but not all of my entries. Thanks!