EDITED TO ADD BY NAOMI: Johnny says he’s going to give y’all a free report called How to Create a Blog in Less Than Half An Hour For Less Than $20 Even If You’re A Total Idiot (or something) next week. So don’t go confusing yourself on all this now if you feel that would be a good thing for you. Just wait till Monday.

It’s been an interesting week for me. I debuted here, I had a birthday, and then I finally hit a revolutionary point of disgust with my current situation and wrote a big, long, unfunny rant that, apparently, people identified with. I didn’t like writing it, and I especially didn’t like the fact that I forgot that my blog posts to my personal Facebook page, meaning that all of my IRL (Naomi’s note: IRL = in real life) friends got to read about my shitty financial situation.

But ultimately, it’s a good thing. The intention of this project is for IttyBiz readers to watch a major success story unfold in front of their eyes, and every major success story has this obligatory chapter where the hero declares that he’s had enough, that he’s going to date Jennifer Grey even if he is just a dance instructor at a stuffy 1950s summer lodge — no matter what Jerry Orbach says. (Naomi’s note: Johnny is referring to the movie Dirty Dancing starring Patrick Swayze. What he’s trying to say is that he’s the underdog. Or that he looks like Patrick Swayze.)

So.

To start this whole thing, I needed a topic. IttyBiz’s topic is small business marketing, but I needed one for my Online Business School project. I could have chosen humor (marketing my own “Johnny” books), but that’s not really that applicable to the rest of you who may be following along.

And if you’re not following along with your own project, why the hell aren’t you? Are you a pussy? Get out of here, pussy. Go be a pussy somewhere else, like maybe on the Hello Kitty website.

(That’s me being motivational. Good, huh?)

So anyway I picked something that was like something any of you could pick. I know a lot about diabetes and I know a lot about weightlifting, and I’ve noticed that that particular combination of interests tends to inspire people because many diabetics feel like victims who will never live a totally normal life. Well, fuck that. I’m a diabetic, and I’m a weightlifter, and I’m in better condition than most nondiabetics. I figured I could write about how to be a kick-ass diabetic, and maybe inspire some diabetics to stop being so “diabetic-minded,” especially if they’re carrying a lot of extra weight, because they can totally lose it and be awesome no matter what anyone says.

(That’s also me being motivational. It’s my thing. Please don’t be offended if you’re diabetic and fat and don’t think you can do anything about it. I’m cool with both — particularly fat — if you’re cool with it. I have many friends who are totally content being fat, much like the late, great Biggie Smalls, who I think also may have been a type 2 diabetic. But if you want to get fit, then I can help. Diabetes and obesity aren’t things that should tie you down.)

(By the way, I’m not implying that I knew Biggie Smalls. He was a member of my opera group, but we never spoke at the tea and petit-fours socials.)

Anyway, for the site and it’s branding, my slogan is going to be, “Don’t just manage your diabetes. Kick its ass.”

It’s like I’m the Naomi Dunford of diabetics.

Then, after picking a niche, I figured it made sense to do some keyword research so that as I built my blog, I could try to eke out some search engine traffic in addition to the other direct promotion I’ll do. Like, take IttyBiz. What are some of the phrases she’s targeting? Well, look at the page title. How about “small business marketing ideas” and “starting a home business”?

Now, I’m new to this. That’s the nice way to say it. Or you could think about it the way I do, which is that I’m an idiot about it. So take it as that, which means that if you take my advice as gospel, kindly slap yourself back to reality because it’s not a healthy way to live.

Anyway, here’s a vid I made: Niche selection and keyword research. I realize I look dumb on video, and this may well be the least professional video you’ll ever see. It’s your chance to laugh at me for once rather than laughing with me.

Classy production, huh? Bottom line, pick one nice keyword that you want to rank under and you’ll be building everything around that. The others will be used liberally throughout posts on the blog, one keyphrase per post.

The first place you’ll use that main keyword will be in your site’s address. The best example I saw of the reason for this was when I saw Ed Dale trying to rank for the term “vintage electric guitar” and he discovered that the #6 or so result on Google was a blank blog called like “vintageelectricguitar.com.” The site had NOTHING ON IT AT ALL but the keyword was in the URL, and that’s all it took to rank that well.

So you’ll want to pick a domain name with the keyword in the url.

Like: I picked “weight diabetes,” so I registered “weightdiabetes.com.” (Time will tell if that was a good choice or if it was sub-awesome. It could easily be the latter, but I could change the URL if so.) But if your niche is knitting pet loin cloths and that turns out to be a good keyword, you might register “knittingpetloincloths.com” or “knittingpetloincloths.net” or “knitting-pet-loin-cloths.com” or something.

At this point, allow me to motivate you again.

If you’re following along with your own niche, don’t be a douche and tell yourself you’ll do it later. You’re reading now, and you’re inspired now, so just do it now and get it over with.

(Naomi’s note: This is not just because procrastination is lame. This is because the older your domain is, the more Google likes you. Domain age does not start the day you bought it. It starts the day Google found it.

If you are not ready ready, but only sort of ready, here’s what you do. Buy the domain. Put up one page of copy. Make that page say something like “this is where my blog about knitting pet loin cloths is going to be. Stay tuned!” Then go to an old post on your blog, one that no one reads, and add a bit at the end. Have it say something like, “Wanna see a lame site about knitting pet loin cloths? Yeah, me neither.” Yes, it’s stupid, but you can take it down in a month. Use the keyword as your anchor text. That means Google will crawl your site NOW instead of later. Then you can go back to your day job for a few months while your site is hanging out, getting older.)

I’d suggest using GoDaddy. I’ll be doing some article marketing later on, and GoDaddy makes it really easy to forward and mask domains, which is something you’ll need if you want to promote affiliate products using articles. (I’ll show you how to do it when we get there).

So, it makes sense to keep all of your business with one registrar/hosting company for simplicity. And also, Naomi is always getting all hot and bothered about GoDaddy because her site was hosted there each time she hit the front page of Digg. You know how people say that your server will crash when you hit Digg’s front page? Well, that didn’t happen for IttyBiz on GoDaddy. ‘Nuff said. (Naomi’s note: I am not HOT AND BOTHERED. I am just pleased with the customer service and the fact that my site didn’t crash. Yes, their site is ugly and impossible to navigate. But my site doesn’t crash. That’s all I care about, frankly.)

So head over there and get your hosting, and then get a domain name with your keyword in it. I’ll wait. Get the “Deluxe” hosting plan. Don’t get the “Economy” plan. For only $2 more for the Deluxe plan, you get the ability to host unlimited websites. You’re going to want more than one site if you’re following along with me, and this will save you from having to get extra hosting later. Then go back to the “domains” section and find a nice domain name to go with the hosting, with your keyword in it.

(By the way, when picking domain names, remember that you can NAME your site whatever you want even if the URL isn’t that name. You’re getting the URL for search engine reasons. So for instance, I’ve named my site “The Diabetic Weightlifter,” but the URL is weightdiabetes.com. Later, if I want, I COULD also go get thediabeticweightlifter.com or something and direct it to that same site.)

I’m currently humming the Jeopardy song while you go get your hosting and domain name. I’m only doing it once or twice, though, so hurry back or I’m going on without you and then you’re going to look really stupid, chasing after me with your arms flailing, possibly with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of your shoe.

(Naomi’s note: Johnny put a paragraph in here about going to the WordPress.org site to organize installing their software and so on. As a website developer who knows lots about webby stuff, there is absolutely no way he can explain this appropriately in a space short enough to fit in this post. So I cut it. I’ll ask him to write a free ebook for anybody who’s interested so the rest of you don’t die from boredom. I don’t know if he’ll do it, but you can contact him or comment if you think it would be valuable.)

At this point, if you’d like, you can see what I’ve done by heading over to see my infant site at www.weightdiabetes.com. It’s brand new, still pretty empty, and it isn’t funny, but I think it’s a good start and will grow as the weeks go on. And remember, my goal on this one is to be a badass inspirational diabetic success story, not a comedian. I’m not sure if I can swear much over there, either. Do diabetics have a profane sense of humor? Not sure yet.

As of when I’m writing this, I have two posts up on that site. I wrote them to incorporate my keywords liberally in the text and post titles.

• The main keyword phrase for the whole site is “weight diabetes.” So as I write these posts, I’ll use them to link back to the homepage of the site with the words “weight diabetes” in the anchor text.

• The keywords for the first two posts are “best diet for diabetics” and “exercise for diabetes.” You’ll see those phrases throughout the text. I’m hoping I can rank for those terms and get a few visits from people who searched for them. And of course, over time, I’ll add more posts with more terms, which will also give me more backlinks to the whole “weight diabetes” thing.

I also put an affiliate product in the sidebar, below my “About.” So if people buy that, I get a commission. Yes, I bought it myself and yes, I read it and yes, it’s worthwhile. Is it great? Good, not great. Not fantastic. Adequate for most people, quite informative, and very helpful in helping people take control NOW, but not fantastic. That’s why I’m going to write my own and replace that one down the road.

Lastly, I submitted each of those first two posts to Digg, StumbleUpon, Propeller, Delicious, and Twitter using a different name than JohnnyBTruant. You know how we all hate the Twitter spammers who just post self-serving links? Yeah, that’s why I used a different account. I don’t want anyone to associate it with the “quality” shit I normally post. (”Quality” is in quotes on purpose. Kind of like this roadside stand I saw that was selling “fresh” strawberries; implying that they were only “fresh” under certain loose standards.)

I submitted them to those social networking/bookmarking sites because I’ve noticed that Digg submissions for other stuff I’ve done tends to rank really well. Doing this also builds links back to your site, which is important to get you higher authority and ranking. I can explain this more if people ask for it, or Naomi can since she understands it far better. (Naomi’s note: I will explain no such thing because I hate Digg now. Not professionally. I just personally hate it, which means I’m not going to talk about it. If you have questions, you’re going to have to ask Johnny. Or, you know, Digg.)

That’s it so far. This week, I’ll add more posts and start writing my diabetes e-book. I’m also working on some niche sites using AdSense, so who knows when I can tackle that here.

Damn, it’s hard as hell to get everything into these weekly posts that I feel I need to say. Would y’all mind giving me some feedback? Is this too much info for one post? Too little? Do I need to go into more detail? Less detail? Is it easy to follow, or too hard? Is it helpful? I’ll adjust in coming weeks, and maybe do more in video because that seems easier to explain as I go.

In the meantime, you really should read the post on my blog about the bagel deli I used to work at. You don’t get to see the phrase “Cleveland Steamer” in print very often, so here’s your chance.

Seacrest out.