EBN Basic Training
This is the same content you receive to your email in the first few days of subscribing to EBN.
[1/8] Adding Your First Blog and Blog Networks
In the next few days, I'll be showing you how to best utilize Easy Blog Networks. Before we do that,
make sure to whitelist support@easyblognetworks.com because you might receive important emails that will require action.
Now let's start with adding your first blog.
Please note:
we do not allow porn, pharma or gambling blogs or blog posts. Our system does regular scans of all blogs and if it finds specific keywords it will automatically remove the blog post and flag the blog for review.
Adding your first blog is a really straightforward task. Just enter your domain (it needs to be registered), Blog Title, and Blog Network (keep the default for your first blog).
Think of
Blog Networks as niches you are optimizing your sites for. For example, if you have a money site in the health industry, create a blog network "Health Network". All blogs in that network will get a unique IP. If you have another money site in the blogging niche, create a "Blogging Network". IPs between these two networks will be the same but that doesn't matter because you'll be linking to other money sites.
Blog Networks are not just simple tags or categories. Blogs are deployed to different servers based on their set network. Changing networks means moving blogs to different servers, so make sure you do it right from the beginning.
If you need more information, see video tutorials for
adding a blog and
setting Blog Networks on our help center. If you have issues with a blog, make sure to use our
Report Problem button.
In the next email, I'll write about setting nameservers and using third-party DNS providers.
[2/8] Setting nameservers and using third-party DNS providers
By now you probably already pointed your nameservers to your first blog. We highly recommend you always use the default nameservers since they’re being used by all customers on the hosting providers (meaning thousands of regular websites have these nameservers). You can also skip this step if you set
Automatic Nameserver Configuration where EBN does everything for you.
Keep in mind it can
take up to 48 hours for DNS changes to propagate and the blog to start working from all worldwide locations. Until then your blog will not be online.
In some cases, you will need to use
third-party DNS. This goes for domains .de, .br and some others, or if you want to use a third-party email service (and have to change MX records).
You can learn more about everything in our
help center article.
The next email will explain blog management and how your blogs are set up.
[3/8] Managing blogs on EBN
EBN does A LOT of things for you. You don't need to worry about security, backups, updates, or performance. All that is
done automatically for you.
When your blog is created, we use common administrator usernames and
set up your mailbox for info@yourblog.com and a few other addresses (ask support if you need to know more).
Activity Page shows you
everything that's happening to your blog - from updates to indexation status, SEO metrics, nameserver updates, and everything else.
You can use the
EBN Blog Login browser extension for fast blog log in.
Did you know you can edit your blog immediately, even before DNS resolves? You can do that by changing your hosts' file, see more at the
end of this help article.
In the next email, I'll let you know where you can learn more about PBNs and where to get the latest news on PBNs.
[4/8] Follow our blog for advanced PBN tips
Besides developing an awesome platform for PBN hosting, we also spend a lot of time researching different topics related to SEO and writing blog posts about them. Here are just a few blog posts that are a must-read:
Also, read our help article for additional information on
how to prevent blog deindexation. I highly recommend you read and follow our advice because you'll save a lot of your time and money by not having your blogs deindexed. If you're new to PBNs, check out our
free PBN Masters course which is a step-by-step guide to building your first PBN.
My next email will talk about security, backups, and why we block some plugins on our platform.
[5/8] Security, backups, and blocked plugins
WordPress is the most commonly used CMS (Content Management System), and as such it's also the most targeted by hackers. That is why you need to secure your blogs... unless the blogs are hosted on EBN.
Your EBN blogs are *fully secured* against any and all attacks. Our team is running daily checks and we have systems in place against DDOS attacks. You should not install any security plugins because they will just cause issues.
The same goes for backup plugins. You can
download daily backups at any time from the Blog Info page. Any additional plugins will just unnecessarily consume resources. We want to keep the usage as minimal as possible so we can keep the prices low.
We also block some plugins that we consider harmful or poorly coded. This is again to avoid attacks and possible server issues. These plugins will show as "Not Available" inside your WordPress plugins menu.
While some users might think we're limiting a lot of things, we're doing this just because we want to offer you a 100% hands-off solution for hosting blogs.
There is nothing for you to worry about but add content and links. And we want to keep it that way.
In the next email, you'll learn how to remove footer links and make other changes to the theme.
[6/8] Removing footer links and other theme changes
A very common question we receive is how to remove the footer links of a theme. If you chose one of our popular themes, then just select 'Remove theme footer links' in the Add Blog form.
If you want to do additional changes to a theme, you will need to create a child theme. Now, before you panic - it's a really simple, step-by-step process that doesn't take more than 3 minutes and you can use a
WordPress plugin to create a child version of your theme and edit it. Read more on our
help center article.
Why do we require this? Because
when themes are automatically updated, they overwrite all changes that were made through the WordPress editor. If you have a child theme, the parent theme can be updated while the changes remain on the child theme.
Hosting a domain with www, subdomain redirects, and .htaccess changes will be discussed in the next email.
[7/8] Adding a blog to www, redirecting subdomains and htaccess changes
This email will all be about URLs and redirects. If you want your blog hosted on www, all you need to do is
go under WordPress settings and change it there.
If you want to redirect subdomains to your domain, then you'll need to use a third-party DNS provider and set up CNAME records.
See how to do this in this help center article.
Some users want to change the .htaccess file. Be warned though, this file is very important for keeping the blog working, so change only if you know what you're doing. You can change it with any plugin. If you want to block bots and crawlers, use our
free Spider Blocker plugin that automatically changes the .htaccess file.
The last email will give you some last pointers on how to resolve any issues you encounter.
[8/8] Fastest way to get answers to all your questions
We've come to the last email of our email training series. I'll just quickly go over the steps for the fastest answers to your questions.
If you have questions about the system, if something is not working as you expect or you're missing something, search the
Help Center first. If an answer is not there, contact our support (the link will show after you search Help Center).
If there is something wrong with a blog, go to its Info page and click "Report Problem" in the sidebar. You can
try Automated Fix for the most common issues.
If you have questions about SEO or PBN, the best way is to first read through our
PBN Masters course. Myself, my partner and other members are there daily and can help you answer any questions.
That's it! You now know everything to run a successful PBN with Easy Blog Networks. If you still have any questions, don't hesitate to let me know.