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Lesson #9: How to Create and Use Web Signup Forms on Your Blog

I jumped a little out of order on this video lesson. One of my subscribers actually asked about this and so I decided to do this video right away. She wanted to know how you do one of those sign-up forms you see that pop into view and partially obscure the web page.

They’re called “hover boxes,” and, although some people hate them, they are two to three times more effective than most other types of sign-up forms.

Like almost everything else associated with blogging, they are also super-easy to set up and use. If you can copy and paste this sentence, you can set up a web sign-up form. That’s about all the computer skills you need.

Anyway, check out this new video lesson. I bought a new mic and you can actually hear me now.

Lesson #4: How to Create a Professional-Looking Banner Using Free Trial Software

Hey everyone: Sorry it’s taken me so long to finish the fourth lesson. It’s been hectic around here getting ready for school (five kids in four schools! Yikes!).

But I think you’re going to like this video. It’s all about one of the most dramatic things you can do to spice up your blog… which is to create your own banner. This video shows you how to use software available for free on the Internet (for a 15-day trial) to create banners that will make your site look as professional and polished as though they were designed by a pro. The great thing is, you can use FREE WordPress themes as the “base” and then, when you create your own banner, the whole product ends up looking almost custom-made.

One piece of bad news: My audio sucks! I’m having a difficult time getting my microphone to work when using my Internet video software. As a result, the initial part of the video is LOUD… and then when I switch to the demonstration part, you have to crank up the volume to hear me. Sorry about that. I’m still learning this stuff as I go.

As usual, though, I will answer any questions anyone might have. Just drop me an email.

Also, this video is only for people who have their own domain name and hosting account. That’s because you can’t upload a banner to the free WordPress.com blogs. You have to use the ones they give you.

Anyway, let me know what you think. — Bob H.

Need website in a hurry?

If you need to get a professional-looking blog or website up in a hurry… and don’t know ANYTHING about website design… and don’t want to spend HUNDREDS of dollars on a professional web designer… here’s what you need to do.

You can get a very professional-looking, easy-to-use website up and running in ONE HOUR. It will cost you about $7.95 per month for the web hosting and nothing else.  What’s more, each ADDITIONAL website you create will only cost you $10 per year.

Here’s how.

Step 1: Sign up for a web hosting account with BlueHost.com. It will cost you about $95 for a whole year but you can get it for as little as 3 months, if you want something temporary. This price INCLUDES the cost of the domain name… unlimited email addresses… and, if you want to create another website, the additional website is only $10 for the whole year (including domain name). This step only takes about 5 minutes.

Step 2: Install WordPress on the BlueHost account. If you don’t know how to do that, watch the video below that explains everything in just 21 minutes. The actual amount of time it takes to install WordPress on the BlueHost system is about 1 minute.

That’s it.  The beauty of this approach is that it lets you create unlimited websites for just $10 per year… including the domain name AND webhosting.  You can’t beat that.

Step 3: Pick a FREE WordPress template that you like from the hundreds that are available through WordPress.  We will cover this in a future video.

Step 4: Design a professional-looking BANNER for the top of your site. This, too, will be covered in another video.

Step 5: Create the pages and posts you want for your site. These can include products and services, sale items, contact information, you name it. Use the blogging (center) section of the WordPress template to write regular updates.

That’s it! This entire process should take no less than about 30 minutes, tops.

Medical Blogs Can Help Promote Practices, Health Businesses

Medical blogs are emerging as the public face of health care, but bloggers should be aware that patient confidentiality rules still apply, according to authors of the first US study to look at medical blogs and patient privacy.

With more doctors and nurses becoming medical bloggers, researchers have identified a need for universities and professional organisations to provide instruction and guidance on how to blog in a way that maintains professional and ethical standards.

In the new study, the research team headed by the University of Pennsylvania’s Dr Tara Lagu looked at the burgeoning area of medical blogs to see if patient privacy was being respected.

Previous research into medical blogs has tended to focus on the benefits of blogs providing health information. The new study, recently published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, examined medical blogs and looked at how often blog authors commented on patients, violated patient privacy or displayed a lack of professionalism by not revealing conflicts of interest.

The team defined weblogs, or blogs, as a journal-style website with entries posted over time. With an estimated 70 million blogs on different topics and a worldwide average of 120,000 new blogs created every day, identifying all blogs created by health professional was an impossible task. Read more

Celebrity Blog Can Make Big Bucks as Starmuscle Shows

Starmuscle.com has been highly criticized for its childish humor and unique twist on tabloid news in the entertainment world.

The amateur blog boasts that it is the Mad Magazine of celebrity blogs and takes jabs at other blogs like Perez Hilton and TMZ.

Star Muscle has just hit its two year anniversary and claims to get over 4,000,000 page views monthly.

The daily updated website has celebrity news, fights, arrests, and other Hollywood inside information. Although it doesn’t have the staff that other corporate companies keep, the small operation has been considered a success in the eyes of the owner.

From the President of Starmuscle.com, James Bostick, “I saw that pink-haired overweight freak on TV, Perez Hilton and said to myself….James you are starting YOUR OWN celebrity blog; with funny pictures, real predictions. You are going to create a fun community where people can hang out and talk gossip. So that is what we did….too bad 50,000 other people had the same idea. Oh well.”

You can visit Star Muscle at http://www.starmuscle.com

Lesson #3: How to Modify WordPress Themes with Tiny Tweaks to the CSS

I keep coming back to the metaphor of lifting the hood of a car: You don’t have to understand how the entire engine works to replace a battery or add some oil. Getting into the “guts” of a WordPress blog, like lifting the engine of a car, means leaving 98% of it exactly as you find it. You just have to know how to find the one or two things you have to tweak a bit.

This video is about “tweaking” your WordPress template or “theme” just a tad to get it to look the way you’d like. Actuallyy, what I actually demonstrate is how to WIDEN the main content box from the default 534px (pixels) to 700 pixels. I do this because I like BIG photos in blogs. I think every post should have a great photo going along with it. Also, a 700px-wide content box means that, when you get around to posting videos — as I hope all of my students do — the wide format makes for much better video.

Anyway, check out this video. It’s free. It’s short. And I think it will teach you a thing or two.