You can see how it works by visiting my Links page. The links that you see would be maintained in my blogroll with the Description field being output after the link.

I can see 2 main reasons that you may like to use the Blogroll Page Plugin:

1. To try and save the bother of maintaining a links page. Instead of hand writing a links page that is a pain in the butt to edit each time you want to change anything, you can maintain your links in the WP database and publish them easily.
2. Saving space in your sidebar that you might want to use for widgets or advertising or really long category lists.

Here are the simple instructions to get it set up:

1. Download the plugin – Blogroll Page Plugin
2. Unzip the plugin and upload it to your plugins folder.
3. Create a new post or page for your links and put the following text in the content:
   

   <!--blogroll-page-->

4. There are 2 options settings that can be set in the Options->Blogroll Page section of the admin panel:
   1. Open links in a new window. This defaults to ‘no’. If you want your links to open in a new window, then set check the box.
   2. By default, the links inserts a link to this download page. You can disable this if you want – but I would really appreciate the link
5. And that’s it.

I think there are a number of enhancements that I would want to make to this plugin. If you are keen to give it a go, then please leave a comment and tell me what you think about it.

Also, let me know if there is anything I could do to improve it.

Download – Blogroll Page Plugin

If you are keen to upgrade then you can Download WP 2.2 here.

Some extra bits and pieces include:

• Including Wordpress Widgets functionality in the default core code.
• Full Atom support through updating the feed and xml-rpc publishing interface.
• A new Blogger importer – making it easier to switch blogging platforms.
• Infinite comment stream – using AJAX to make administering comments a little easier.
• Protection from plugins that may break your WP install.
• Plugin enhancements to speed things up a little.
• A WYSIWYG interface for Safari users.

For the developers amongst us, there are the following items of interest:

• A new set of WordPress-specific XML-RPC APIs that allow for editing pages, setting categories, and much more.
• Internal mail functions now use phpMailer, which allows for things like SMTP support.
• Increased the inline documentation of a number of functions inside of WP, which should help you navigate those parts of the code. Hooray!

This means that as soon as you use their simple Wordpress Install, you can then start blogging straight away with a selection of some of the best Wordpress Themes on the internet.

Some other great features from DreamHost include:

* Host As Many Domains as You Want!
* 20GB Disk Storage.
* 1 TB Bandwidth (HUGE)!
* One Click Installs of some of the best Web Software – Including Wordpress, Joomla, phpBB (forums) and ZenCart.
* Unlimited MySQL databases.

They also offer a lengthy 97 day unconditional money back guarantee.

And don’t forget that if you sign up with the promo code WSHIQ, then you will save $50 on your first years hosting cost.

If you plan to earn enought money from blogging to support your lifestyle, then it pays to have a plan in place to achieve this goal. Many people (ahem.. myself included) have made the mistake of hearing that there is a fortune to be made from blogging and then gone and created a whole heap of blogs that start off great, but then fizzle out as time constraints and a general loss of direction takes hold.

Like I said, making money on the internet is really easy. However, making a living from the internet is a bit more tricky.

To start setting your goals to earn money blogging, then there are 3 basic things that you should take a look at:

1. Where are you now?
2. Where do you want to be?
3. How can you get there?

Let’s take a look at them in a bit more detail. (Tip: It’s a good idea to write these down. So get a pencil and paper or fire up your favourite text editor or task manager )

1: Where are you now?
Well this is pretty easy. Maybe you have just started to find out about blogging and how it makes certain people a fortune or at least a modest income. Or, perhaps you have a number of blogs on the go but have lost enthusiasm due to lack of traffic and low income. Maybe you already make money from the internet, but wish to expand into blogging as another income stream.

So, where are you know??? Write it down!

2: Where do you want to be?
Finding out what financial gain you want to get from blogging is paramount to what you need to do to achieve this goal. Do you just want a part time side-job that will pay your web hosting bills and maybe the odd pizza? Are you looking for a way to escape the 9 to 5 grind and start working from home on your own terms? How about becoming an internet mogul and living the life of riley on a white sandy beach with Miss/Mr Venezuala while a team of hard working individuals take care of your blogs?

Finding out where you want to be determines what you need to do to get there. Write it down!

3: How can you get there?
This part is a little more tricky and depends upon where you are and where you want to be. What you need to do here is make a list of the action steps that are required to get you from one to the other – and make sure you follow them through.

If you are a blogging newbie, then you will need to decide what you are going to blog about then set up a blog and then start blogging.

If you have a number of flailing blogs, then it may be time to take stock of you inventory and resources and start concentrating on get one or two of those blogs going really well before working on the others.

If paying your webhosting bill is all that you want to achieve, then you could probably stick some adsense on your blog and work on getting more traffic. If you want to earn enough blogging money to give up your job then you will probably benefit from getting one blog working and creating another.

I wish I could tell you how to become an internet mogul, but sorry, I don’t have the experience. The best thing to do here is find out what other really successful bloggers are doing and set some really audacious goals to follow through. You can bet they didn’t get there by just blogging about how they haven’t had time to blog recently because they’ve just been too busy and un-motivated!

Of course, you need to find ways of monetizing your blog. For this you could take a look at programs like AdSense and Text Link Ads for advertising revenue.

Also, take a look at moving into affiliate marketing by promoting the products on offer at Amazon.com and Commission Junction. However, this is material for another article, so come back soon to check it out.

Happy Blog Goal Setting

However, this is a very general statement since making a few cents a day can be achieved in a few hours simply by setting up a blog somewhere like Blogspot and sticking some AdSense on it and then getting some visitors.

But, making a sustainable living from the internet is not so easy – but achievable if a suitable system is put in place, goals set and fulfilled, and a bit of hard work and persistence is exercised.

Here is a simple list of things to do to set up a Wordpress Blog to get a money making system off the ground.

1. Domain Setup – Fundamental to setting up a website – you’ve got to have a domain. See Domain Registrars for more info on this.
2. Configure DNS – See this article.
3. Get Website Hosting – Another fundamental necessity as you need some space on a webserver to put host your pages. See Wordpress Website Hosting for more info.
4. Get Wordpress up and running – Here’s another list:
   • Install Wordpress – This is easy if your web hosting provider has one click install scripts for Wordpress, otherwise see this documentation to get it done.
   • Set Weblog Title and Tagline in Options -> General
   • Change the permalink structure to /%postname%/ in Options -> Writing – this is good for SEO purposes.
   • Delete the default comment, default post and default page.
   • Change the default category from ‘Uncategorized’ to something relevant to your blog. For instance, if your blog is about cars, then maybe change it to ‘Cars’.
5. Wordpress Plugins – Upload your favourite Wordpress Plugins. My standard issue plugins are – Better Feed (nice looking RSS); Related Posts (increased stickiness); Google Sitemaps (trying to make it as easy as possible for Google); wp-notable (social bookmarking); WP-ContactForm (easy contact form). Go here for more favourite WP plugins from different people.
6. Set up the Wordpress Theme – Here’s another list for this:
   • Upload the Wordpress theme that you will use.
   • Make sure the Title tab is configured for SEO in the Header. See this article that contains a paragraph of the importance of doing this.
   • Make sure there is a search facility for the Blog. Consider using the Googles Adsense for Search as a way of making more income.
   • Ensure that navigation around your blog is easy for the user. Think about using horizontal navigation bars for things like Home, About Us, Contact Us, News, etc… Also, utilize the footer for links to categories and other pages. Decide how much vertical space you would like to proportion between advertising and navigation.
7. Set up an email address for the website (if you are not using your own). Something like info@mysite.com.
8. Create the contact page for using with this email address.
9. Set up a newsletter email address. Something like newsletter@mysite.com.
10. Configure some mailing list software. Zookoda is free for this and pretty good.

So now all you have to do is start writing some quality content and work on getting some links.

And of course, you have to decide on how to monetize your website. More on this later.

Have fun

There are also many advantages for doing this including having a professional look and feel for your business or brand and having a lot more control on how your blog is set up and administered. Basically you will pretty much have total control, since it will be your domain, your disk space and your Wordpress installation.

However, for many people, the idea of setting up their own website with their own domain name is a daunting task. Fortunately, this is a very simple and straight forward task where there are fundamentally just 4 things that need to be taken care of:

1. Choose and purchase your domain name. This can be done with companies such as GoDaddy, Dotster or Yahoo.
2. Set the Domain Name Servers with your registrar. For the technically challenged amongst us, this will probably be the hardest task of all. See Setting Your Domain Name Servers for more information.
3. Purchase your Domain Hosting. There are many companies who you can do this with and it certainly pays to shop around. See Choosing Your Website Hosting for more information.
4. Install and configure Wordpress on your website domain.

There, I told you it would be easy… And it gets even easier because there are many hosting companies out there who offer ‘one click installs’ for Wordpress. This means that you can just specify a name for your blog, a name for your database, a few logon parameters, press a button and it will all be done for you. Here is a list of website hosting companies that have this available:

Yahoo! Web Hosting has a Wordpress install with plans starting from $8.95 that include 5GB of disk space and 200GB of bandwidth. You also get a free domain name when you sign up for website hosting.

iPowerWeb website hosting starts at $3.95 per month and they have a Wordpress installation. This plan offers 3GB of disk space and 50GB of bandwidth.

Blue Host offers professional website hosting from $6.95 and have a Wordpress installation. You get 10GB of disk space 250GB of bandwidth and the ability to host 6 domains on one account.

PowWeb has plans from $7.77 per month and offer a Wordpress install. This hosting plan includes Load Balanced Hosting, 12GB of disk space and 300GB bandwidth per month.

So there you go. What are you waiting for? Get bloggin on your very own install or Wordpress on your very on Domain.

[tags]wordpress, wordpress+hosting, website+hosting, have+a+cool+website[/tags]

Some of the latest offerings include:

Thin Green Line – …a clean, snappy theme that is a conversion of the public domain template by the same name designed by the folks at SixShooterMedia…

Sweet Blossoms 1.0 – …A two column theme, that is thin, and wildly colored … A very girly theme in pink and purple and whatnot, but professionaly designed…

SoftRed – …A two column theme, based around my favourite colour: Red. A little bit strong on the eyes, as it does not use the red sparringly, but it is still a really nice theme…

Check them all out and see if there’s anything suitable for your blog

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