Chapter 2 – Create your Blog and Learn How to Make Money

 

What is a Blog

By modern standards a blog can be many things. The definition of what a blog is has changed quiet a bit since people first started creating them back in the mid 90’s.

“Blog” is an abbreviation for “Web Log”. These web logs were originally created in the form of online diaries or web journals.

As blogs evolved people started using them for different purposes like creating “niche” sites that covered specific topics leading to the creation of online communities of bloggers with shared interests.

Today most blogs still focus on web journals. While others act as websites that provide niche information about various hobbies and interests. These niche sites now compose a large portion of the blog community, and cover many different topics.

• For more detailed information about “Niches” and why choosing the right niche is important, make sure you check out my guide on how to Choose a Niche to Maximize Profits on Your Blog

 

How Do People Make Money with Blogs

As I mentioned in my “How to Make Money Online by Blogging?” article, there are many methods people use to make money with their blogs. The primary way people do this is through monetization of the blog itself.

• Monetization means adding features to a website that enable the site to generate income.

This can range from Pay Per Click advertisements, to selling goods for online stores, to writing reviews about products and services.

The ways you monetize your blog are completely up to you. In the next few guides I will outline the ways that I think are the best to help beginners get started monetizing their blogs.

Free Blogs vs. Hosted Blogs

There is a lot of thought surrounding free blogs and hosted blogs. Everyone has his or her own opinion and neither is right or wrong. I lean more towards hosted blogs because of the extra layer of polish it adds to a site’s professional appearance. It also provides many easy ways to promote your blog.

I will cover the specifics of both types of blogs so you have the information you need to decide which best suits your needs.

 

Free Blogs that will Allow You to Make Money

There are many free blog services out there. Two popular services that come to mind are “Blogger” (Google’s free blog service) and WordPress.COM. Both websites allow users to sign up for free blogs that they can get up and running in minutes.

One thing to keep in mind is at the time of this writing WordPress.com does not allow users to monetize their blogs. This may work for “sandbox blog” **ARTICLE HERE**, but even for testing purposes I feel that you need the ability to use different advertising methods, so I would recommend using Blogger if you decide to go with a free blog.

Blogger is a good service because users have a lot of freedom with how they can use their blog. For a free alternative it is a much better option than WordPress if you plan on monetizing. Free blogs will always have their drawbacks over web hosting. I have listed some of the considerations below.

The main drawbacks to using a “free blog” service are:

• Not being able to easily relay a site name to someone.
• Lack of overall professionalism.
• Fewer options to customize your blog and less control over the interface.
• Any popularity you generate for your blog is linked to the blog service instead of a Domain you own.
• Terms of Service imposed by whatever service you decide to go with.

 

Get Your Own Web Address

Having an easy name to remember is great. This is especially true for a website address. A short memorable dot com can make a great impression on people and guarantee return visitors.

• For some great considerations on creating a site name and address checkout my guide entitled “Choosing a Website Name that will Sell Your Blog“.

The problem with having a free blog is you are forced to create your blog on a sub domain of their site address. This means instead of being “RandomTechBlog.com” you will be “RandomTechBlog.blogspot.com”. See the difference?

Having a dot com makes it much easier to tell people the name of your site without needing to write it down or give them a business card. This is one reason having a hosted blog is more appealing to me, as a lot of my sites rely on word of mouth advertising.

Sell Yourself as a Professional

The issue of overall professionalism is also addressed by having your own dot com. People have been trained to look at dot coms as the “Official” version of the internet. If you have a site that does not have a .com on the end people question why it doesn’t. In some cases people may even have negative associations with the non-standard address and be less likely to view the site.

Give Yourself Options

Having fewer options may not bother some people, but it does bother most users that like having full control over their site. In this case, it also comes down to having full control over your business. The old saying “If you want something done right” definitely applies here. I don’t want to have to rely on someone else’s interpretation of how something should work. I want it to work the way I tell it to.

While free blogs have come a long way and offer a lot of options to their users, be aware that you still do not have full control over your site.

One good example of this is the use of an htaccess file which allows you to set custom rules for the way traffic to your site is handled. A lot of larger sites rely on this for organizing information and optimizing their site for their readers.

Search Engine Popularity and Page Rank

Site popularity is also something you want under your control. As with real life, online popularity is hard to get. It is very difficult to work your way up the ladder, and requires a lot of work on your part.

When you get to a point where your blog becomes popular you want to make sure you can take control of that popularity and spread it throughout your site. This is very easy to do if you control your domain and have your own dot com. On the other hand this can be a very difficult task if you are using a free blogging service.

The reason being that you are building popularity for the service you are using. If you have a blog at blogger, all the links into your site and all the traffic you drive works to build blogger’s overall popularity. While your site will still benefit from this popularity, if you ever decide that you want your own dot com, it is hard to transfer a lot of that popularity with you to your new site.

The Benefits of Web Hosting

If you are setting up a blog to try and make a couple of quick bucks than by all means do what you feel is best suited for your project. In this case a free blog may be a good alternative for you.

If you are looking at the long term potential of a money making website then I strongly suggest you look into getting a dot com and a hosting service.

Even if you are not ready to get your own hosting keep in mind that you can get a web address for less than $5 dollars a year. Yep, it’s that cheap. So even if you go with a free blog you can point the address to your site, so people have something easy to remember instead of “randomblognamehere.blogspot.com”. You can always setup hosting later and redirect your web address to point to the new site.

Now you can see why it’s such a good investment to have your own web address for $5 a year.

Hosting has also become dirt cheap in the past few years. I remember 10 years ago when it cost over a hundred dollars a month. Now with all the great services you can get hosting for as little as $5.95 a month.

If you are ready to setup hosting I would recommend going with a service like Dreamhost. They are a very professional service that offers great deals on web hosting. The also provide great benefits to bloggers by offering easy, “one click installations” of blog and site building software, including WordPress.

If you sign up for hosting, Make Money Life can give you a $10 discount with Dreamhost by using the coupon code: MMLSavings

That way you can get setup with cheap hosting today for next to nothing. For a full review on Dreamhost and their services feel free to check out my review here:

“Great Hosting for the Cost of an Extra Value Meal – Dreamhost”

 

Setup Your First Blog and Start Making Money

Now that you understand the concepts behind making money with a blog and the considerations to make when setting up your first blog we can actually get started setting up your site.

Click the link below to check out my guide on how to Install and Configure Your Blog for the First time.