Making a blog is one of the more common website types; it can be very personal and very impersonal, making blogs very versatile. However, one thing is very clear; blogs can still be extremely profitable, with moderate amounts of work. Blogs can take anywhere from three months to three years to get a great profit going. Let me show you how!
Step 1: Get a Domain, Script, and Website Hosting.
I have decided to combine these three, technically four steps (script installing would be step 4), but in order to save time I have combined them. So, down to business, get a domain, but first choose a topic for your blog, for example, InternetIncomeTeacher.com is a blog that teaches people how to make money online, you can also do a blog about your personal life, your hobbies, or another topic such as search engine optimization! After you have chosen your topic, choose a domain name you like, from a registrar you like (such as MadDogDomains.com), make sure to choose a domain with a few keywords about your blog topic. Next, buy or download a script you like. I highly recommend WordPress, this script is fantastic for blogs and it is very search engine friendly with a few add-ons. For InternetIncomeTeacher.com we use a couple add-ons, such as the All-In-One SEO pack, and the XML sitemap-generator. This makes our website very search engine friendly and very easy for Google to index! Here are some templates to customize your new blog with, and here is the plugins directory. Now, you will need great website hosting, and as I have always suggested, use hostmonster.com. Yes they make you pay for a year in advance, but trust me, it is worth it! You don’t want your website being taken offline because your billing information was denied by a hosting company that does month to month billing. Lastly, script installation, and as always I offer a service to all my readers, $5 is full script installation! Email me at gschneider@internetincometeacher.com for an installation request!
Step 2: Write Content to Your Heart’s Desire!
Some people don’t like to write, I am one of those people. But when you find a topic you love to talk about, well, talk about it! Only to a sheet of paper, seriously! I find that writing your ideas down on paper and acting like you’re talking to someone next to you will really help you expand on that specific article and make it interesting to your readers. When I write these articles I am excited to write, and I normally hate writing! So give it a try! And also email me and tell me what helps you write!
Step 3: Promote Your Blog!
Most people have a difficult time with this step, because it is the hardest and most time consuming. However, promoting your website doesn’t really have to be all that hard and time consuming. Most bloggers only promote their websites through two sources: webmaster forums, and article directories.
First, webmaster forums, if you are already active in a webmaster forum, for example I am active in the webmaster forum DigitalPoint, I simply add a catchy title and URL to my blog on my signature and go about posting normally, if you make an average of one post a day on a webmaster forum, that can lead hundreds of interested and targeted readers to your blog every few days! Imagine now if you post actively, like 10 posts a day! That could mean thousands of visitors every month! Another great way is to actually post an article or two of yours in these webmaster forums, this will help increase exposure to your website as well as get readers interested in you and your content faster, because more people will read it, and if they like it and you put a URL at the bottom with a title that says something to the effect of "for more great articles, click here!" They will hopefully subscribe to your websites RSS feed, or bookmark your website!
Next, article directories, this is the best place for bloggers to get their articles read and their blogs promoted. Millions of people use article directories every month in search of something to read or learn about, and if your content just happens to be what they are looking for, then you might have yourself another subscriber to your blog! I have heard several bloggers tell me that the only article directory that they use is ezinearticles.com; this is contrary to what I will tell you. I will tell you that while ezinearticles.com is a fantastic article directory, arguably one of the best; it is not the only place you should submit your articles to. I have provided a link to a list of over 200 article directories, at the top of this paragraph, and I will suggest that you submit your articles to as many of those as you have time for. The more you submit to, the faster your blog will climb to the top!
Step 4: How To Make Money Off Your Hard Work $$!
The final step, how to make money off your hard work. This has been a controversial step between me and a few of my fellow blogging buddies, some say that it is better to not have any ads on your website to start out, they say that the ads will kill your reader base and will drive more readers away. While I say that if you don’t use too many annoying pop-ups or ads that have sound files, you will be fine. I highly recommend using Google Adsense; they have high quality ads that will not get in your way, not to mention that they pay very well. However, don’t blow off what they say just because I tell you to ignore them. Too much of any kind of ad will be annoying. I recommend extreme moderation for your first few months, no more than two ads, one on bottom of every article (428x60), and maybe one skyscraper on the side (120x600 pixels).
When you get big… I, as well as most bloggers, will recommend that you sell your own ads. This is the most profitable part of blogging. While your income from Google will be nice, I recommend investing in an ad banner manager script so that you can sell ads yourself. I can’t give any good recommendations because I haven’t found a good ad managing script. I just do it the old fashion way. Using a combination of Microsoft Office: Excel and a calendar with alerts, customer buys a monthly ad, I note it on Excel and put it on a calendar and a month from the date the ad goes up, the ad will come down, this is simple and effective and requires little work; and one week till the ad expires I send an email telling the advertiser to renew or else the ad comes down.
And that’s how you start a successful blog, a bit of elbow grease and due diligence and you will be off to a fantastic start.
Read More......
