McDonalds is finally expanding its franchise into Kosovo the newest independent country in the world. This is what the franchise-international posted on its website. Hundreds if not thousands of companies have applied to get McDonalds Franchise agreement but I don't know which of these companies is the lucky one to get the franchise agreement for Kosovo. And the one that will get the franchise agreement is on the way to making a lot of money from this franchise opportunity. Good news for those that went to Macedonia just to have a big mac because McDonalds is coming to you and pretty soon you can have the big mac in your country.

Currently Albania and Kosovo are the two countries where there is no McDonalds. If McDonalds makes the move and expands its operations in Kosovo then this would hopefully encourage other foreign companies to invest in Kosovo. So let McDonadls come and bring others with them.

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McDonalds is coming to Kosovo

Let me tell you this, there is no such thing as "free traffic" and nothing is free except the air, partially water and land given to us by Almighty God. What you need to do is to use your time efficiently and try as hard as you can and do your best to increase traffic for free. So read what is it that you should start doing to start having free traffic to your blog after you have written several posts and published them on your blog.

Free Blog Traffic - Blogroll Exchange

Wordpress comes with a very good feature which enables you to link to other bloggers. So, why don't you start to link to blogs that have content related to the things you are blogging about? Go, ahead and do it even before you ask for a link back from these bloggers. Don't make the mistake of linking to blogs that have different topics they blog about. You don't link to an environment blog while you are blogging about construction or something else. Link to those that talk about similar topics you blog about.

Free Blog Traffic - Commenting on other Blogs

Commenting on other blogs is another way to get "free" traffic to your blog because when you comment on other blogs you are linking back to your blog. Just because this type of getting targeted traffic to your blog is free does not mean that you just have to go out there and spam other blogs to death with comments that have no value. So, make sure when you read the conversations on other blogs you comment when you have something worthy to say. This way you will get thanks from other readers and from the blog owner. Moreover, by doing so you helped portray yourself as an expert and thus they would want to visit your blog and they will do.

This is what they call "Social Networking" because you build relationship with the blogger by providing valuable input to his blog and his readers.

Now that you know the beginners guide to getting free traffic to the blog don't go and start commenting on hundreds of blogs thus spamming them because that would lead to nothing and that would not convince the readers to click on the link that you provided and visit your blog. Do not do that if you want to make money with targeted traffic.

There are other ways to get targeted traffic to your blog but this is just the start and best of all it is for free! But if you want more then this blog and this blog have enough information to make you satisfied. So pay a visit to these blogs and learn more. And you should not go without reading this post because you will learn the fundamentals of link building.

So, start with the fundamentals and do other things as you learn on your way to becoming a better blogger and if you persist one day you will surely wonder how did you get there.

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Beginners - How to Get Free Blog Traffic

So, in this post I am going to share the list of plugins that I think bloggers should start with and will also give you a brief description as to why you need them.

Plugins to begin with:

• Admin Drop-Down Menu - makes it easier the navigation by placing a CSS drop down menu, which in turns saves you a lot of clicks and you should have it right from the start.
• Adsense Deluxe - a very useful plugin to insert adsense code anywhere in you blog. Note:I recommend that you write at least 5 posts and submit your site to several directories before you integrate adsense withing your posts.
• Akismet - another plugin without which you will be flooded with spam comments.
• All in One SEO Pack - very usful plugin to make your blog search engine friendly, google likes it.
• Enhanced WP contact-form - when I wanted to create a "contact me" page this plugin was all I needed.
• FeedBurner Feedsmith - do you want the visitors to subscribe to your blog then you need this plugin.
• Google Analytics - instead of having to go through the trouble of finding the right place to place Analytics code this plugin makes that job simple.
• Google XML Sitemaps - you need to have a sitemap for you blog supported by all major search engines (Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN... you name it) and this plugin does just that.
• Most Commented - you now what it is and why you need it, it will generate a list of most commented post.
• Recent Comments - it retrieves a list of the most recent comments.
• Recent Posts - it retrieves a list of your most recent posts.
• ShareThis - I think this is the best plugin out there that makes it easier for you readers to share with other what they read on your blog. A must have from the beginning. Problogger.net uses it!
• WordPress Stats - with this plugin you can track page and post views, clicks and referrers and much more right from your WP Dashboard.
• WordPress Automatic Upgrade - if you are a complete beginner you will really have problems upgrading WordPress and this plugin is a life saver.
• WP-Affiliate - if you want to start promoting affiliate products right from the start than you need this plugin to mask the affiliate links.
• WP-Amazon - this plugin adds the ability to search Amazon and add Amazon items to your post while you are writing them. You need it if you start promoting Amazon products and have an affiliate account with Amazon (Amazon ID).
• WP related posts - it generates a list of related posts according to their tags.

Of course there are a lot of plugins that you will need as you go on but this is the list of plugins that I think are enough to start with and build on it as you go on blogging.

If have searched the internet for blogs that share the plugins they use and the following are the best blogs I found, each with a very good list of plugins:

1. Slickmania - this blogger has the best list of plugins and with very good description.
2. quickonlinetips.com - has another very good list of plugins that you will need, and
3. Problogger.net - the blog celebrity Darren has shared his list of plugins.

The above are the three best lists I found on the net... I also suggest that you subscribe to the above blogs as they really have good content, especially problogger.net.

I think I have suggested a very good list of plugins that every blogger should start with and even gave you three links to other blogs with very good list of plugins and in case I missed some, and I am sure I did, then feel free to suggest any of them using the comment form below.

Now go to the next post and learn the "Beginners - How to get free blog traffic".

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WordPress 2.5 List of Plugins for Beginners

Installing WordPress 2.5 manually

The first thing is that you need is an FTP client and the one I use is FileZilla . If you don't have any FTP client then go get FileZilla you don't need any other fancy and costly FTP client and FileZilla does it's job very well. You can also use the File Manager from within the Cpanel of your host account but it is easy using an FTP client. The second thing is that you need to decide whether you are going to install WordPress on the main directory; example "www.youblog.com" or if you want to install it on a sub-directory example www.yourblog.com/blog, then you need to create that sub-directory in your hosting account. The third thing is go to WordPress.org and install the wordpress zip file and extract it somewhere on your computer. After you have downloaded and extracted the WordPress you can then copy and paste the themes and plugins, if you have any, into the appropriate sub-folders withing the wordpress folder. You can skip this step because you will go through this step many times in the future. Just download the latest WordPress software and extract it somewhere on your computer.

Create a MySQL Database

Go to your host account Cpanel and create a MySQL database and assign a user to that database or create a new user and assign that user to MySQL database you created. Copy the name of that database and paste on a new notepad page. Do the same with the user you created and assigned to that database. Copy the user name and the password in that same Notepad page. You will need them to configure a file wp-config.php withing WordPress folder.

Rename the WP-config-sample.php

Go back to the wordpress folder and open it. Find the WP-config-sample.php file and rename it to "wp-config" or simply delete "-sample" and hit enter.

Configuring wp-config.php after renaming it

Now, after renaming the wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php you now need to edit it with the information you stored in that Notepad file or wrote in a piece of paper. Go back to WordPress folder and right-click on the file you just renamed "wp-config". If you have Windows Vista like I do you wold have the option "edit" on the drop-down menu and if you don't then click "open with" on the drop-down menu and then chose NotePad.

Replace the above red underlined information with the information of MySQL database you created and hopefully you stored somewhere in another NotePad page or in a piece of paper. After doing that just close the NotePad editor and when asked to save click "save".

Uploading WordPress to your hosting account

We have come so far and now we need to upload WordPress folder to our site. If you were not able to configure FileZilla to use it to upload WordPress then you need to do so. Go to your cPanel and click on FTP accounts to find the way to configure your FTP client, in this case FileZilla.

Take the above information of your FTP account to configure your FTP client to connect to your site and do the uploading of not only WordPress that we are going to do it now but other files whenever you need to in the future. Ok, let's upload WordPress to your site. Open FileZilla and connect to your site and on the left pane find the WordPress folder wherever you extracted it and just drag it to your site on the right pane. Look the example on the image:

On the above example I just clicked on the wordpress folder on the right pane and dragged it to the root folder of KosovoBlogger. Now wait until all the files have been uploaded, have a cup of coffee because this might take several minutes to upload depending on your internet speed. If you don't want WordPress installed on your website root directory then just create a sub-directory. How you do that is this way. In my case I right clicked on KosovoBlogger and chose "crate directory" on the drop down menu.

Name that directory to "blog" www.yourname.com/blog and then upload the WordPress folder into that directory you just created. Note: Uploading WordPress to your site using an FTP client takes a lot more time than if you were to use the File Manager from within the cPanel on your hosting account. Now we are almost finished just few steps more and we are done. It depends whether you have installed wordpress to the root directory or the sub-directory that you have created. So, if you have installed wordpress in the root directory then open your favorite web browser, I use Firefox, and visit http://yoursite.com/wp-admin and if your have installed wordpress in the sub-directory you named for example 'blog' then visit: http://yoursite.com/blog, and you will be taken to the screen shown below to provide your blog title and your email address where WordPress will send you the admin password to log in into your blog.

So, enter the blog title and your email address but make sure you enter the correct email address if you don't want your password be sent to someone else's email account. If you want your blog to appear in search engines then check the box and then click Install WordPress. That's it, and you are done and you will be taken to the following screen:

Now, your wordpress 2.5 is installed. All you need to do is highlight the password and copy it and then click on Log In button below.

Enter the required log in information Username: "admin"; Password: "the one you were given from the previous screen" and that's it. You have installed WordPress 2.5 and now when you first log in you will end at the WordPress 2.5 dashboard. Now all you need to do is to update your password that you were given. So, click on 'admin' in the upper right corner of your WP 2.5 dashboard and after the page loads scroll down to the bottom of the page and enter the new password twice and click update profile to update the new password you've entered. This is how you install WordPress manually. If you still are confused or have any question, do not hesitate to ask by leaving a comment or sending me an email.

Now it's time to go and read the next post WordPress 2.5 List of Plugins you need to start with.

I hope that this post helped you learn how to install wordpress on your blog. Feel free to ask any question using the comments below.

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How to Install WordPress 2.5 step-by-step

WordPress Requirements

As you might already know there are several things that WordPress requires before installing it. Therefore it is your job to make sure that the web hosting company that you are going to chose to host your blog meets those requirements. If you already know the requirements you might just want to skip this section and continue reading the next one but if you I assume you already know the least WordPress requirements and if you don't then check the short list of Wordpress requirements below. Don't forget to check the Wordpress Technical Requirements for a more detailed explanation.

• PHP 4.2 or higher. Almost all web servers run this, however, check to see if the servers of the hosting company you choose runs PHP 4.2 just to be on the safe side.
• My SQL 4.0 or higher. My SQL databases are needed to hold the data that you are going to put on your blog. Nowadays, most hosting companies offer you the choice of My SQL 4.0 and 5.0 and they also provide you the access to set up several My SQL databases and if they don't offer these services than you are better hosting your blog somewhere else.

Most hosting companies handle the above WordPress requirements but it is your responsibility to check and make sure they do.

My Reasearch

Here comes the best part of this post. Hey I don't really know which one is the best but I share my experience with you here and my research for the best hosting company before I decided to register my domain and host my blog. Two or three months ago when you checked WordPress suggestion of best hosting company BlueHost held the first rank then came the others. Well, that has changed as you might have already noticed BlueHost is no longer the first. Right now the Hosting Company that holds the first place is DreamHost. Even though BlueHost was in the first rank I did not say, 'yeah, WordPress is saying that and so it must be'. I did my research and decided otherwise because I felt WordPress.org review of the best web host was rather obsolete. During the time I did my research I was looking for something good and cheap. This is a double edged knife, which can hurt you and your blog and one must really be careful. Three months ago the disk space that the host companies offered was 200 to 350gb with 1000gb of bandwidth a month and the price per moth was 6.99 dollars. Just few days later HostMonster, the company I read a lot of good reviews about, raised the disk space to 600gb and the monthly bandwidth to 1600gb and was promoting this for only 4.99 dollars a month. Remember I said I was looking for something good and cheap. I think everyone should do the same. Right now all Hosting Companies are offering 1500gb disk space, 15000gb monthly bandwidth and the price remained 5.99 and 6.99 for quite some time.

One more thing about HostMonster, they keep changing the price from 5.99 to 6.99 dollars each and everyday. I don't know why they do that, it could be one of their strategies, however, if today you see that they went back to 6.99 don't dispair check back later and you'll see they went back to 5.99 dollars for 24 months hosting package.

Few reasons why I chose Hostmonster:

• They offered a lot of bonuses 50 google adwords and yahoo credit
• I read a lot of good reviews from other bloggers that were happy with it
• The monthly hosting price was the cheapest at that time, and
• The ability to host unlimited domains with one account

I chose HostMonster and so far I am happy with them because I had not problem whatsoever.

Now that you got this little advice from this post you should go and do your research before you decide where to host your wordpress blog and you should always do a research for anything.

One thing more is that I would not recommend going for free webhosting offers because they come with strings attached, be it in a form of very little disk space and monthly bandwidth or your site filled with ads from the hosting company.

Finally, the three companies that I suggest right now are:

1. HostMonster
2. DreamHost
3. HostingPad

HostMonster or BlueHost is the same company under different names. Do a WhoIS of my other blog www.lexoblog.com and you'll find out it says it is hosted by BlueHost where in fact I use HostMonster. Anyway, they both offer the same services under different price. Hostmonster is cheaper for one dollar at the moment. Now, go choose your hosting company and return to learn how to install WordPress 2.5 (the latest) the way I installed it on this blog.

Now go the next post and learn how to Install WordPress 2.5 step-by-step

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Where to Host your WordPress Blog

Throughout these series of post I am going to show you exactly how I set up this blog "KosovoBlogger", which is also the same way I set up the other two blogs that I have. You are going to learn everything you need to know to have your blog ready to post.

Things you will learn on each step to building your blog:

• Picking a Domain Name
• Where to Host Your WordPress Blog
• How to Install WordPress 2.5 step-by-step
  
• WordPress 2.5 List of Plugins You Need
  
• Beginners-How to get free blog traffic
• When and How to Monetize your Blog

There is one thing I know and that is that you can find all these information elsewhere but not in one place like I am doing it here in this blog, so keep reading if you want to have your blog ready to start posting on it.

Picking a Domain Name

One should think before speaking and this goes for everything, meaning you have to do a research before you undertake something. Finding a domain name is a little tricky and it can also mean the difference between success and failure of your blog. That is why you should be picky on your domain name. So do a little research on the domain name that you want depending on what you want to blog about. Use the free online keyword searching services such as Wordtracker free keyword tool to search the keyword/s that you want to use for your domain name. When I picked KosovoBlogger as the domain name of this blog I researched the keyword Kosovo using the above free keyword tool and the term "Kosovo" was being searched 1649 times a month plus the same amount of times the term "blogger" was searched monthly and that made it a very attractive domain name. However, consider the following before you chose a domain name, this is the advice given by everyone but the one that made me remember is the author of SEOBOOK:

• Pick a domain name that is highly brandable. What this means is that someone can easily associate it with the product or service that you are offering.
• Use a short and memorable domain name, you see my domain name consist of two keywords 'kosovo' and 'blogger'. If the domain name matches the keywords that you chose Google gives you a relevancy bonus for your site. What this means is that when someone searches Google for "Kosovo Bloggers" and "Kosovo Blog" my site should rank well on these searched keywords.
• If you aim to enter highly competitive fields, or have large sites, you should be choosing different domain name for different language or field you are targeting.

The above are the points you should have in mind when you are thinking of the domain name you want for you blog.

After you have picked the domain name that you want you now need to register it with one of the domain registrars. As you might already know GoDaddy.com is the most popular as well as the most trusted domain registrars. So, go and register your domain name with GoDaddy.com and return to learn which hosting company to chose to host your site because some hosting companies are better than the others.

Now go to the next post and learn where to host your wordpress blog.

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How to setup your WordPress Blog Series