In the previous post, we figured out how to setup a WordPress blog for the very first time. This article will show you how to customize the default WordPress Twenty Ten theme to better fit in with your own blog’s topics.

WordPress released the default Twenty Ten theme in June 2010, along with the latest WordPress 3.0 version. This theme is totally free and is a highly-customizable “skin” for your brand new WordPress blog. The basic installation allows the users to setup custom headers, develop complicated menu structures, modify the sidebar and footer areas and change the background colour easily. This is also a SEO-friendly theme that looks professional, and the best part is that it does not contain sneaky links back to other websites which is rather common in “free” themes (other than WordPress’).

How to change and install new themes in WordPress

However if you decided that you do not like the default theme, you could always change the theme by visiting the Theme page (Menu: Appearance > Themes). On the Manage Themes page, you could see all the themes which you have ever installed into your WordPress, and which theme is currently active.

Head over to Install Themes page to search for all the latest themes. You could refine your selection by searching for the featured, newest or recently updated themes. You could also refine your selection by using the feature filter to search for themes of certain colours, columns etc. Once you found the theme you think you would like to use, you could either preview the theme or install it into your WordPress. Upon successful installation, you could decide to activate it for use immediately, or to do it at another time.

How to customize the default Twenty Ten theme in WordPress

If you decided to stick to the default Twenty Ten WordPress theme, you should familiarize yourself with the layout and functionalities of this theme. This different areas such as the Header, Menu, Widget, Background and Post/ Page areas can be seen below.

Twenty Ten theme Widgets

The widget area is my favourite part as it contains two sidebar widget areas and four footer widget areas (Menu: Appearance > Widgets). On the Widgets page, the widget areas which you can customize are found on the right side of the page. The main area on the left contains all the widgets which are installed with your theme. You can drag any of the widgets from the main area to the widget areas.

Some of the useful widgets which you may want to place in the widget areas include the Recent Posts and Recent Comments widgets.

Another very useful widget is the Text widget, which offers the more advanced users a blank area to paste customized HTML codes or Java Scripts. Sometimes, I use the Text widget to customize widgets for my Facebook box or to include Google Adsense ads.

For widgets which are no longer useful, you could drag them to the Inactive Widgets area at the bottom of the Widgets page instead of deleting those widgets. This will preserve any customization or settings you have made to the Widgets, which you can easily recover if you decide to reactivate these widgets subsequently.

Twenty Ten theme custom Menus

The custom Menus page is a very powerful addition to this default theme (Menu: Appearance > Menus). Previously, this feature is mostly found only in premium (paid) themes or the really good free themes. Once you have created a new menu name, the Twenty Ten theme allows you to place a mix of pages, categories, or custom links to any webpage in any order you prefer.

I like to include custom links to my Facebook and Twitter pages as part of my blog’s menu or navigation bar. You can view it here at Blog Towkay for ideas on how I have made use of the custom Menus function to jazz up my navigation bar at the top of the page.

Twenty Ten theme custom Background

The default background of the theme is a light shade of grey. You can use the custom Background page (Menu: Appearance > Background) to change the colour of this background to blend into the preferred colour theme of your blog using the colour wheel. Alternatively, you could choose a really nice and relevant image to upload it as part of the background of your blog.

Twenty Ten theme custom Header

There are a total of 8 default Header pictures you can select for your blog on the custom Header page (Menu: Appearance > Header). These nice pictures were actually taken and contributed by Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress.

However I would strongly encourage you to use your own images which are relevant to your blog’s theme. You can upload your images after you have used any picture editing software to crop the images to exactly 940 × 198 pixels. Alternatively, simply upload your choice picture through the custom Header page and WordPress will give you the option to crop the image online. Blog Towkay is currently using a customized header image I developed for this blog.

Twenty Ten theme Editor

For the more advanced users, you could consider picking up some HTML and CSS skills before heading over to the Editor page (Menu: Appearance > Editor). With the right knowledge, you could further customize your WordPress theme via the Templates or Stylesheets in the Editor. However if you are not sure what you are doing, I would suggest to leave these pages alone.

Steve Bruner, the seasoned WordPress developer shared his thoughts in a one hour video on WordPress 3.0 Customization Techniques using the default Twenty Ten theme. In this showcase, he shared aspects of customization available, including custom post types and the new menu management feature. Check out the free video embedded and feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

If you have other great insights on how to customize the Twenty Ten theme, drop me a line and share your tips here on Blog Towkay!

Adsense is the simplest way you can use to earn money online when you work on a blog at home. I have heard of Bloggers who earn a monthly 5-figure income through the Adsense program, and personally I am able to achieve a 4-figure income per month. But be cautioned that while it is easy to start using Adsense, you will not earn a massive online revenue immediately.

How Does Adsense Works?

Adsense is the largest pay-per-click (PPC) online advertising network owned by Google. Website owners and bloggers can enroll in this program for free to display text and image on their web pages. These ads are managed by Google and help you to generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis. Google is known to use its Internet search algorithm to serve contextual ads to your web pages based the content on those pages and your readers’ geographical location. Advertisers advertise with Google’through their Adwords program.

What you need to do is to sign up for a free Adsense account with Google first. If you already have an existing Google Gmail account, you can simply associate this account to the Adsense program. During the initial setup, make sure you provide your full-name which is recognized by your bank account and your correct home address.

Within your Adsense account, you can customize the types and sizes of the Adsense banners which you would like to serve on your web pages, and Google will automatically generate the codes for you. All you need to do is to copy-and-paste these codes into your WordPress blog template. The easiest way is to do this is to paste the codes into your sidebar Text widgets. My WordPress Twenty Ten Theme guide provides more information on where you can find the widgets.

How Much Can I Expect to Earn from Adsense?

While more experienced bloggers like myself can earn a decent part-time income from Google’s Adsense program, most beginner bloggers find it harder at first. If your website and web pages focus on topic niches which are more competitive such as weight loss or men’s health, you can expect to earn more from each click your readers make. However if they are for less valuable niches such as entertainment or humour, I expect the earnings to be significantly lower.

Adsense Click-Through-Rate and Cost-Per-Click

How much you earn from Adsense is a function of your traffic, the click-through-rate (CTR) and the cost of each click.

Your blog’s traffic is a topic which will be discussed in this blog later, but suffice to say, it is very important since you can expect higher earnings if you have good traffic. And because most new blogs will need to take a few months to build up your traffic even with good Search Engine Optimizaation (SEO), you will not be able to earn a massive income immediately.

Google is very secretive about the average CTR figures but based on a comment by one of its employee on the Google Adwords support forum, it appears that we can expect a CTR of 2%. What this means is that for every 100 impressions you get on your home business blog, you can expect to receive 2 clicks from your readers.

Typically, each click on the ads can earn you as low as US$0.01 or as high as US$2 to US$3 on average, though there were reports that some websites earn more than $50 per click.

Is Adsense Reliable in Making Payments Timely?

Google will send you your cheque once your earnings reach US$100. My experience with Adsense shows that they are very reliable and will send you your hard-earned money timely as long as you furnished them with the correct information and do not infringe on Adsense’s terms and conditions. Do note that if you infringe on their terms and conditions too often, Adsense will ban you from their program. Many bloggers have their account banned and it is close to impossible to get it reinstated.

Conclusion: Should I Still Use Adsense Because It Sounds Difficult to Earn Revenue from It?

I believe that earning good money online through your working from home businesses require efforts. If your ambitions are to earn a solid income from this part-time work to replace your full-time income, a better way might be to use Affiliate Marketing. However if it is your first venture on the Internet and you want to give it a try to earn a small side income, Adsense is probably the easiest way to get started.

In the WordPress universe, there are almost 12,000 free WordPress plugins available for you to download and install it along with your WordPress blog. Most people who are serious about working from home and earn a living with a WordPress blog will agree with me that it is important to install good plugins to make the Internet business more effective and efficient. Today, I will share with you my “secret” list of must-have WordPress plugins which I will almost always install for all my WordPress websites.

Plugin #1 – Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin is one of the most important plugin you will need to install on your blog if you are serious about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the process to improve a website or web page’s organic ranking in search engines results pages (SERPS).

What this plugin does is to that it will generate a special XML sitemap which will help the major search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Ask to index your blog. What this means is that the sitemap makes it very easy for the search engines’ robots/crawlers to see the complete structure of your blog. It will also automatically notify all the major search engines each time you publish new content in your blog.

Plugin details: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

Plugin #2 – Dagon Design Sitemap Generator

However, since the previous plugin only creates a sitemap in XML designed for the search engines, you will need to generate another sitemap in HTML format for your human visitors. The are differences in the two formats because XML and HTML were designed with different aims. While XML was designed to transport and store data with focus on what data is, HTML was designed to display data with focus on how data looks. In other words, HTML is about displaying information, while XML is about carrying information.

This plugin will automatically display all your links in multi-level format. Other features include support for category/page exclusion, multiple-page generation with navigation, permalink support, choice of what to display, decide what order to list the links, show comment counts and post dates.

One important point to note is that each of your blog post can only be linked to one-single category. Linking your post to more than one category will crash your sitemap setup.

Plugin details: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sitemap-generator/

Plugin #3 – All in One SEO Pack

This is another very important plugin if you are serious about SEO and want your website to have a chance to rank well on the SERPS. Some of the key features of this plugin are:

• Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines
• Generates META tags automatically
• Avoids the typical duplicate content found on WordPress blogs
• For beginners, you don’t even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.
• For advanced users, you can fine-tune everything
• You can override any title and set any META description and any META keywords you want.

Plugin details: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Plugin #4 – FD FeedBurner Plugin

Feedburner is a service Google provides for free and it is also the most popular web feed management system people use for Really Simple Syndication (RSS). It allows you to share your content through Feedburner’s suite of tools to automatically publicize your feeds and to allow your readers to conveniently subscribe to your blog’s newsletter using email.

With this plugin, you can convert your WordPress blog’s default RSS feed into a Google Feedburner feed and make use of all the features.

One important point to note is that you will need to create a Google account before you can activate the Google Feedburner. If you already own a Google Gmail account, it can be used to activate Feedburner without any need to create additional accounts.

Plugin details: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/feedburner-plugin/

Plugin #5 – Google Analytics for WordPress

Google Analytics is another free service offered by Google and it works by generating detailed statistics about the visitors profile of any websites which are embedded with Google Analytics codes. As one of the most popularly website statistics service in the world, it is definitely a service any serious work from home bloggers would want to incorporate into your websites.

In the past, many webmasters and bloggers will need to figure out how to access the HTML or PHP codes of their websites before they can insert the Google Analytics code into the pages. This useful plugin allows you to simply copy the Google Analytics code provided by Google into the plugin via the WordPress Dashboard interface, without a need to touch or mess with any of the core WordPress codes.

One important point to note is that you will need to create a Google account before you can activate Google Analytics. If you already own a Google Gmail account, it can be used to activate Google Analytics without any need to create additional accounts.

Video Step-by-Step Guide to Use Google Analytics Plugin for WordPress

Plugin details: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

Plugin #6 – WordPress.com Stats

Automattic, the company behind WordPress, also created this plugin to provide you with the ability to monitor the most popular metrics a blogger wants to track, all within your WordPress Dashboard interface. It will collect and present information such as your pageviews, which posts and pages are the most popular, where your traffic is coming from, and what people click on when they leave. While it is not as powerful as Google Analytics, it is a convenient tool to monitor your blog’s traffic quickly.

I usually monitor this plugin for unusual trends before accessing my Google Analytics account to drill into the detail analysis and reports.

Plugin details: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/

Plugin #7 – Akismet

Akismet, another free tool from Automattic, is a spam filtering service. Akismet is included by default with your WordPress installation and it’s purpose is to filter link spam from blog comments and spam TrackBack pings. The filter works by combining information about spam captured on all participating blogs, and then using those spam rules to block future spam. Once a commentator is flagged as a spammer, all comments made by the commentators will be sent to the spam queue for your approval or deletion.

I love this plugin because my WordPress blogs tend to attract many spammers and Akismet saves me tons of time by automatically filtering out unwanted spam.

Plugin details: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/

Plugin #8 – Front-End Editor

Most bloggers write your blog posts or pages using the WordPress Dashboard interface.

However I use the plugin to allow me to edit my posts and pages very quickly from the front-end of the blogs, i.e. from the homepage. This is particularly useful when all I need to do is to correct some simple spelling or grammatical errors, or to make a quick update on one of the existing posts.

This plugin makes this possible because it uses the Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) technology. With Ajax, web applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing pages. The use of Ajax techniques has led to an increase in interactive or dynamic interfaces on web pages.

One important point to note is that if you are using the WP Super Cache plugin, you have to disable caching for logged-in users.

Plugin details: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/front-end-editor/

Plugin #9 – Advertising Manager

For any work from home Internet businesses, you need to find easy ways to monetize your websites. Many bloggers begin your online businesses by trying to earn money using cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) ads. More advanced bloggers choose to display your affiliate ads or banners. The default free WordPress Twenty Ten Theme allow you to place the ads at strategic locations if you know how to use the WordPress Editor to modify the PHP codes.

To insert your ads into the relevant section of your blog post, you could access the WordPress Editor (Admin panel > Appearance > Editor), select Single Post (single.php), and insert the following codes at the relevant place. (Updated: 20 March 2011) After the latest WordPress updates to version 3.1, you will now have to access the Loop-Single page (loop-single.php) instead of Single Post page to make your edits.

Remember to replace YOUR-AD-NAME with the name you have defined for your ad.

<?php advman_ad(‘YOUR-AD-NAME’); ?>

I insert the codes after <div class=”entry-content”> and </div><!– #entry-author-info –><?php endif; ?>

Alternatively, you can use this plugin to manage all your ads and banners, and use the “shortcodes” for the plugin to insert your ads anywhere within your blog posts, just like what you see here at Blog Towkay on this page. You would notice that I have placed an ad block just under the title of the post and towards the end of this post. There is no need to mess with codes and you can control precisely where you see the ads. Another powerful feature of this plugin is that it allows you place multiple banners and rotate them on the same spot with a pre-determined weightage to control the frequency of display.

Plugin details: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/advertising-manager/

Plugin #10 – Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Many bloggers like myself like to encourage our readers to stay on our blogs longer and explore the different posts we written previously. Instead of manually choosing which posts to show your readers, this plugin automatically display the most relevant posts at the end of the current post. The relevant related posts are determined using various factors such as post titles, content, tags, and categories. You may choose the threshold limit for relevance though I would recommend that you leave the default settings alone.

Plugin details: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/

The Google Chrome team has recently launched an interactive eBook, 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web, to educate people about the basics of the Internet, the building blocks of web pages and the exciting developments in browsers and web technologies.

Mashable suggested that this eBook was developed because Google found out in a street survey that the average person are not familiar with the Internet or the web. In fact, when Google asked people in the survey, “what is a browser?”, less than 8% of the respondents manage to provide the right answer.

This book is organized into 20 short chapters and accompanied by well-drawn illustrations. I have provided an overview of the contents below.

20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web – Content Page

1. What is the Internet?
2. Cloud Computing
3. Web Apps
4. HTML, Javascript, CSS and more
5. HTML5
6. 3D in the Browser
7. A Browser Madrigal
8. Plug-ins
9. Browser Extensions
10. Syncronizing the Browser
11. Browser Cookies
12. Browsers and Privacy
13. Malware, Phishing and Security Risks
14. How Modern Browsers Help Protect You from Malware and Phishing
15. Using Web Addresses to Stay Safe
16. IP Addresses and DNS
17. Validating Identities Online
18. Evolving to a Faster Web
19. Open Source and Browsers
20. 19 Things Later…

I think Google’s new book is a really useful read, for both seasoned Internet Marketers and new bloggers who are trying to earn some money online. What are your thoughts?

In an earlier post, I shared with you the tips on setting up your WordPress blog with a step-by-step guide. In this post, I will show you how you can install WordPress plugins. There are almost 12,000 free plugins which you can use to enhance the functionalities of your WordPress to do almost anything you want. Plugins are designed to either add, complement or replace the existing features in the system.

How to add new WordPress Plugins

When you visit the Plugins page (Menu: Plugins > Plugins), you will notice that there are 2 default plugins which came with your clean WordPress installation: Akismet and Hello Dolly. Usually I would delete Hello Dolly or at least ensure that it is deactivated as it is a useless tool that you can do without. You should however activate Akismet as it is a powerful web service owned by WordPress that will help you to filter spam comments. To activate, deactivate or delete any plugins, simply move your mouse cursor over the plugin name and choose the options below the title.

To find new plugins, you will click on the Add New button on the top left of the page or click Add New on the menu (Menu: Plugins > Add New).

How to install new WordPress Plugins

At the Install Plugins page, you can filter your search by selecting any of the parameters listed near the top of the page. If you are unsure, choosing Featured or Popular will be a good bet. Alternatively, you can enter your keywords in the search box to find the type of functions which you would like to add on to your WordPress.

Depending on your search parameters, WordPress will list the relevant plugins with their brief descriptions and user ratings to help you make your choice. Often, there will be many plugins which share similar names and functionalities presented to you.

After you make your choice, click on Install Now and the plugin will automatically save itself into your web host’s directories.

You will need to Activate Plugin to start using the features in your blog.

This will bring you to the Plugins page which will show you all the installed plugins. For certain plugins, you may need to click on the Settings option to further customize them for your blog.

I just heard this news and am really excited about it. AdWords Code, the ultimate ebook guide on creating maximized profit for your pay-per-click campaigns (PPC), will be launched soon! In fact, the worldwide launch of AdWords Code will on 30 November 2010. Fabian Lim, the SEO/ PPC guru and author of this brand new book has guaranteed that what you will learn will help you to see results whether you are totally new to AdWords or an experienced Internet Marketer.

What will AdWords Code offer?

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an extremely competitive and effective method for marketing and advertising over the Internet. AdWords is the largest PPC advertising network offered by Google. Advertisers have to bid keywords for the advertisements to appear on the Google search engine or websites which host AdWords ads, and you pay when the ads are clicked. The more competitive the keywords, the higher you pay.

AdWords Code will be the most complete no-hype, no-fluff, step-by-step AdWords guide tailored specifically to increase your AdWords Quality Score, lower your cost-per-click (CPC), and ultimately maximize the return on investments of any AdWords Campaign launched by you.

Who will benefit from AdWords Code?

Are you a noob Internet Marketer hoping to earn some money from Google, an experienced Internet Marketing professional making a living from affiliate products or AdSense arbitrage, or a leading advertising agency managing your clients’ Internet advertising campaigns? Whatever your experience level, AdWords Code promises to show you the exact techniques to create, manage and maximize successful AdWords Campaigns.

Review of AdWords Code

I am eagerly anticipating the launch of the AdWords Code ebook and will give you a first-hand review as soon as I have finished reading it. So bookmark this page and check back here on 30 November 2010. Alternatively, sign-up for my FREE Blog Towkay Newsletter (on my sidebar) and I will keep you posted via email so that you will not miss the opportunity to be among the first to grab this fantastic offer!

In the previous post, I shared with you how we can customize a WordPress Twenty Ten blog theme.

In this post, I will show you how to use WordPress to write your very first blog post and setup pages. For the more tech-savvy, this article might be too simple for you, so do feel free to skip to other posts on my blog. As for my friends who need a little bit more hands holding, read on. But before you start writing, do think through a little bit on what you intend to write for your first post. Write down the key points on a piece of paper if that helps.

Differences between WordPress Posts and Pages

First of all, we need to understand the key differences between how WordPress distinguishes between a Post and a Page.

WordPress Posts

A post is essentially a blog post or article which you write for your blog. A typical blog may contain anything between a handful of posts to a few hundred or thousand of posts. All of these articles will be displayed on your blog pages in reverse chronological order. You can also sort these posts by putting them into different categories or labelling them with tags. Your readers can follow your blog posts by subscribing to your RSS feeds but they can’t do the same with your pages.

WordPress Pages

A typical example of a WordPress Page is the “About” page where you would use it to tell your readers who you are and what you intend to do with the blog. WordPress Pages are essentially static pages in your blog which may contain a variety of information, ranging from the “About” page to pages for your contact forms, site map or advertising details. The Pages are usually listed in alphabetical order, though you can categorize some of the Pages as sub-pages.

How to Start Writing a Blog Post in WordPress

To begin writing your first blog post, you should visit the Post page (Menu: Posts > Posts).

You would notice that WordPress included a default post titled “Hello world!”. When you can move your mouse cursor over this post title, you would notice that the options to Edit, Quick Edit, Thrash or View the post will float underneath the default post. I usually delete this post as it does not add value to my blogs. Clicking the Edit option will bring you to the editor for you to make any changes. You could also choose the Quick Edit option to make fast changes to the post title, permalink URL, categories and tags. You may also click on the checkbox beside the post title and apply bulk actions such as mass deletion of your posts.

To add a new post, click on the Add New button on the top of this page. Alternatively, you could also add a new post when you select the Add New page option on the menu (Menu: Posts > Add New).

Whether you choose to edit an existing post or to add a new post, you will come to an Edit Post page. When adding new posts, all the options and boxes on this page will be blank. There are 10 areas which I would suggest that you look at with reference to the attached printscreen of the page.

1. Title and Permalink URL

Type in the title of your blog post and WordPress will automatically generate a permalink URL. The permalink will appear in a few seconds and it should be based on the words in your title if you have made the essential changes to the permalink structure settings on your WordPress blog. If the permalink is very long as a result of a long blog post title, I like to trim it down a little by only leaving the key words in the permalink.

2. Editor Mode

By default, the Visual editor mode will be displayed. The WordPress editor’s Visual mode gives you a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. In other words, you can make changes to the format of your contents using the Formating Toolbar and the changes will be shown immediately, similar to MS Word. For the more advanced users, you can use the HTML mode which allows you to input your contents along with HTML codes.

3. Upload / Insert: Image / Video / Audio / Media

This toolbar allows you to insert any images, videos, audio files or other form of media files (e.g. PDF documents) into any spot highlighted by your mouse cursor in the Post Content Area. The files can either be uploaded from a folder within your computer, from files previously stored in the media library database, or inserted through a link to a location on the Internet. Sharing such multimedia files online is an useful way to liven up your blog posts and share interesting content. But do note the relevant copyright requirements of the files you intend to share on your blog.

4. Formatting Toolbar

The formatting toolbar in the Visual mode is a WYSIWYG editor. Some of the common functions you can use enhance your text in the content are bold, italic, bullet listings, block quotes and alignment.

5. Post Content Area

This is the area where you can express your thoughts and write down all your blog posts and articles. Remember to spice up your articles with media files such as pictures or videos so as to make them more interesting for your readers.

6. Categories

Categories are designed to group a broad range of post topics and are organized systematically. You should use this area to define the Categories which each of your blog posts should reside in. Each post can be classified under a single or multiple categories as you deemed fit. The default is “Uncategorized” and posts which you forget to categorize will be placed in this category. You can add new categories based on the theme and topics which you intend to write.

7. Post Tags

Tag is another way to further refine your classification of each post, and it provides more information than what a typical category allows. For example, this post is categorized under “How to: WordPress”, and I have tagged the post using tags such as “Blogs”, “Blogging”, “Write” and “Posts” to provide another way to classify the post. There is immense flexibility on the types of tags you want to add or you can simply choose from the more common ones used within your blog.

8. Featured Image

The Featured Image function allows you to tag a picture or photo to a single blog post. If you are using the free Twenty Ten WordPress theme, the Featured Image you have selected will be shown in-place of the Header Image which you have selected in the Header settings (Menu: Appearance > Header). Please note that if your Featured Image is not shown in the Header, it is probably because the image has not been formatted to the correct size of 940 × 198 pixels. This is a rather interesting feature which will give your readers a fresh perspective when they visit the different posts within your blog.

9. Publishing Options

The Publishing Options on the top right of the Editor page allows you to publish your blog post in various manner. If you are preparing a long blog post or you need to do something else while writing, you should use the Save Draft option. WordPress will also automatically save copies of your draft every few minutes. You can choose to Preview your masterpiece. By default all blog posts are visible to the public, but you could also choose to protect it with a password or set it to private (visible to administrators). Individual public posts can also be set to stay on the homepage of your blog.

For bloggers who like to write in advance, you can use this option to set your posts to be automatically published at a specific time and date in the future.

10. Discussions Options

Under the Discussion Options at the bottom of the page, you can use this to decide if you would like to allow comments from your blog readers for the specific post. You can use the panel below to moderate the comments received for an existing post.

How to Start Writing a Blog Page in WordPress

To begin writing your first blog post, you should visit the Pages page (Menu: Pages > Pages).

You would notice that WordPress included a default post titled “About”. Similar to the Posts page, you can move your mouse cursor over the page title, and you will see the options to Edit, Quick Edit, Thrash or View the page right below the page title. I usually modify the default “About” page to tell my readers about myself and change it to a more interesting title.

To add a new page, click on the Add New button on the top of this page. Alternatively, you could also add a new post when you select the Add New page option on the menu (Menu: Pages > Add New). The way to edit your pages is very similar to the methods for editing blog posts as outlined in the earlier paragraphs.

Now go on, write your first post and first page in your WordPress blog. Have fun!

Most of us dream of working from home and earning a full-time income on a part-time basis. Unfortunately if the recent news of raising the retirement age of people working in Singapore to 68 years old materializes, it seems like instead of retiring early, many more Singaporeans will be working for many more years than initially planned.

Singapore is currently in the process of extending the retirement age from 62 to 65 years old and expects to put the law in place by 2012. This will be done through legislation by making it compulsory for employers to re-employ workers in Singapore after 62 years old. The main reason for raising the retirement age ceiling is because of the rising life expectancy of people in developed countries, which in turn put pressure on the average Singaporean to take more time to save enough money for their retirement.

What this means for the average Singaporean is that you are expected to work longer, earning a salary in a job that pays decently in Singapore and defer your retirement plans.

You may be asking yourself, is this the kind of lifestyle you would like to have for the rest of your life? Are there any other options which you could pursue to get yourself out of the rat race faster? What do you need to do to pursue financial freedom and enjoy your retirement earlier?

When you ask yourself these questions, you need to remember that the legal retirement age is set by the Government to ensure that the employers and companies continue to employ you up to a certain age. However it does not mean that you cannot declare earlier retirement if you have the means to do so.

I believe that to achieve financial freedom, the first step is ensure sure that you could generate a second or multiple streams of income, while you continue to work in your day job. Subsequently, grow your streams of income to a level that is equal to your salary, and eventually exceeding your salary. Some people choose to generate our alternative streams of income by earning money at home in Singapore through Internet Marketing or setting up blogging businesses. Once you could generate different income streams consistently, consider reinvesting the money saved, which could beat inflation by generating additional passive income through dividends. When done properly, you could be on the way to achieving financial freedom and retiring much earlier.

Before you access your self-hosted WordPress blog for the first time, you would have already set it up and installed your blog on your selected web host. If you have not, head over to my step-by-step guide on how to install and setup your own self-hosted WordPress blog on a web host.

To log-in to your WordPress blog, you should access your blog’s log-in page at www.yoururl.com/wp-admin (replace yoururl with your website’s domain name). Key-in your default user name, which should be “admin” unless you have changed it, and your password at the log-in page.

WordPress Administration Panel

You will be brought to the Dashboard on the WordPress Administration Panel. The Dashboard provides an overview of some basic statistics such as the total number of blog posts, pages, categories and tags you have created to-date. You will also see the number of comments made on your posts, approved comments, comments pending your approval and spam caught. Other info on this page include the latest updates from the WordPress Blog and news related to WordPress.

For first timers, this could be overwhelming. To orientate yourself, you should look at the tabs on the main navigation menu on the left side of the page. Over time you will be more familiar with the different menu tabs and their functions. For now, you should focus on setting up your WordPress blog for the very first time.

How to change the blog name and other basic info in WordPress

The first thing you should do is to visit the General Settings page (Menu: Settings > General). On this page, you should update the basic information about your blog such as blog name (site title), domain name URL, email address and the timezone you are residing in.

How to change the privacy settings in WordPress

Next, visit the Privacy Settings page (Menu: Settings > Privacy). By default, your blog should have been set to be visible to everyone, including the search engines. Ensure that this option is activated as it is important that the search engines can discover your blog and list your blog posts on the search result pages.

How to change the permalink structure in WordPress?

Finally, visit the Permalink Settings page (Menu: Settings > Permalinks). Permalinks, otherwise known as permanent links, are URLs that points a post or page within your blog. You should customize your permalinks by typing the following line into the custom structure field:

/%postname%.html

Your URLs of all your blog posts will be transformed to this format: www.yoururl.com/title-or-keywords-of-your-blog-post.html.

Why is it important to customize permalinks structure for SEO purpose?

The default setting in WordPress simply adds a numeric value to each of your post in this manner: www.yoururl.com/?p=N (where N is the running number automatically assigned by WordPress). However, it is important to customize your post’s permalink to a format which will reflect the blog title in the permalink in this manner: www.yoururl.com/title-or-keywords-of-your-blog-post.html. This modification will ensure that your blog’s URLs are more SEO-friendly, which will help to improve your blog’s traffic and the ranking in the search engine results. Google also suggested that making your URLs end with a .html will also make your blog look more like normal websites, which will in turn encourage your readers to click on these links.