STARTING A BLOG

Starting a Blog – But Don’t Know Where to Begin?

Starting A Blog For the First Time

“Help me with starting a blog!” I’ve got some subscribers and visitors out there that really want to jump on the blog bandwagon. Blogs have been around for awhile – but there is no time like now for starting a blog of your own!

Of course – the big question is can I earn money with a blog? Like a website – there are certainly ways to earn with your blog. But before we jump into the money side of a blog – let me start with saying….
Find a topic you LOVE before start a blog. Like anything…if you love it – you will pour yourself into it. It will
be real, genuine and most of all FULFILLING for you, your soul and your readers. Just slapping a website about “my day” isn’t going to make you happy, your readers happy or make you any money. Now…if we were a

celebrity….MAYBE we could simply write about our day. Not to say our lives aren’t JUST as interesting or deserving of notoriety – but you know what I mean! So give serious thought to your topic before starting a blog or you might go nowhere with it.

Starting a Blog: Important Step 1

Pick Your Passion – And Begin to Blog

OK – now that you’ve found something you truly want to write about – you can decide the name for your blog. Say you want to rate pancakes across the United States. You and your husband have sold all your worldly goods, bought an RV and your going to earn your living reviewing pancakes. (OK…this is a just a secret dream of mine….but it works for an example!)

You can buy a domain name, and go that route for your blog. What I did for MoneyMakingMommy’s blog – is I simply use WordPress (which is free) – uploaded it to my existing site and it now sits there. It just made sense because it’s a blog of work at home jobs. Now my pancake blog…..if I were brand new to the entire blogging concept – I might try out something like Blogger.com. You can create your own blog within minutes and it costs you nothing. You can do this same thing with WordPress and eventually move it over to it’s own domain. I’m not sure how much creative control you have if it’s not on your own domain – but this will give you an idea of blogging and if you like it. There are other free programs:
Live Journal
MSN Spaces

Typically these programs have themes you can pick from. As you learn more – and feel more comfortable – you can start branching out and creating your own themes if you wish. A solid web design program like Expression Web or Dreamweaver is a place to start – but be ready for a HUGE learning curve if your new to web design. I taught myself, starting back in 1996 and I’m STILL learning! But do not get discouraged. This is a fun challenge – not a life or death chore.

If you’re looking for more detailed information on starting a blog, there are some great kits and programs out there. The Easy Blogging Guide offers helpful videos and step-by-step blog development help. The Blogging for Wealth package offers downloadable ebooks that guide you through the blog process and ways to monetize your blog.

There are millions of people out there with a blog these days – so sometimes helpful guides and programs like the
ones above can help give you a little edge on where to begin, especially with the “making money” side of blogging. That’s where a lot of new bloggers have questions. Blogging and writing about something you love is truly the easy part – turning that love and your content into “money” – that’s a whole different side….

Advertising on Your Blog (Pays!)

Once you’re up and running, you can place advertising on your blog. For instance, I would maybe put pancake mix ads on my site that paid me to advertise there. Or syrup, travel guides, restaurants, hotel coupons, recipe websites, grocery coupons….
Advertisers love exposure on a high traffic blog. Search engine spiders that crawl and index websites love “fresh” content. So writing on your blog every day will help you with rankings. You can find programs that offer advertising affiliate programs like MaxBounty.com and OffersQuest.com.

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Thanks for visiting our Starting a Blog page – hope it was helpful!

 

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