Step 2 in my 10 part series, "How to Make Extra Money Blogging" - Now Where Do I Begin:
As you began to ponder the possibility of writing about something you love, you begin to ask yourself the basic questions, "how do I start...where do I begin?"
This has technical implications, convenience implications, and potentially financial implications as you begin to explore the options for how and where to host a blog.
No doubt you have reviewed my post on content, and your idea is ready to find a home.
The first step is to chose your medium. I knew about Google's "blogger" program and knew that to get started, it would cost me exactly ZERO dollars! That's right, to get a blog started on Google blogger, you pay nothing. Zip, zilch, nada. As I'm saving pennies everywhere I can, this was a big deal for me.
A blog on Google will get you a url - that address with the "http://www.com" stuff - that reads something like, http://kickdebtsbutt.blogspot.com. Not too bad, and there are millions of good blogs out there with Google's blogspot address embedded in them.
If for branding purposes you want to move your content to a new domain, such as www.kickdebtsbutt.com, you certainly can. If you sign up at Google, and if you have an extra $10.00 to spend, you simply go to the Settings Tap - Publishing Option - and follow the instructions for switching your blogspot address to a custom domain. This is super easy as Google's custom domain partner changes all of the Domain Name Server settings for you automatically...if you don't even know what a Domain Name Server is, then this is definilty a good option for you. ;-)
Within the first week of starting one of my other blogs, a now highly visited blog on soccer, I was finding myself at the top of Google searches for World Soccer stories and was averaging 100 impressions a day.
I'm fairly technologically savvy, but an XML programmer I am not. Google's blogger is a great way to start getting your content pages out of your head, and in to cyberspace.
Links You Need:
http://www.blogger.com/home
2 comments:
Blogging is becoming a much more difficult way to make money these days due to the fact there are already so many established blogs in most niches. That's not to say it can't be done, it just means for the amount of time it takes, you can probably do better figuring out another money making idea. I don't want to discourage anyone trying to do this because it can be done, but it really does take a full time commitment mentality to succeed these days.
What most people won't tell you is that while good content is important, networking and getting people to your site is much more so. You should be spending 3/4 of your time doing other things than writing blog posts -- commenting on other blogs, writing posts for other blogs, establishing yourself on social networks. That's what they never tell you ;)
Good luck with the blog and getting out of debt -- you will feel a lot of relief when that day comes -- Do Good
Excellent advice savingsadvice! I'm using this series of posts to chronicle my attempts and at the end of the day, I want to come full circle and let people know IF, WHEN, and HOW MUCH extra money my blog makes. If it's pennies, then it's pennies.
I like your ideas around networking and pulling people toward your site...there are literally thousands if not more PF Blogs alone - standing out in the crowd has got to be the biggest challenge.
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