Steps in Setting Up a Money Making Blog
Setting up a blog from scratch is a bit of work. Here is a checklist of things you need to do to start things off.
- Set some goals for your site.
- Decide on the niche you will want to write about.
- Choose a domain name.
- Find a hosting service.
- Have a clean, nice looking design
- Set up a tracking service.
- Register with search engines.
- Submit articles to submission sites.
- Read other blogs.
- Set up a sitemap.xml file
- Create an rss feed
- Register with Technorati
- Register with FeedBurner
- Sign up for monetization
- Adsense
The grandfather of them all. Let's you put a variety of ads in different styles in your page.
- Text Link Ads
Will double underline various key words in your article. Clicking will go to a advertiser's page. These guys will only deal with you if you are high enough PageRank and traffic.
- ContentLink
Same as Text Link Ads, but you don't have to have the higher profile blog to get an account. Actually, I think anyone can get an account.
- Adult Friend Finder
Yeah I know. Not very classy, but it pays well. I haven't signed up, but I've been to a lot of sites that have.
- CrispAds
I don't know much about these guys.
- Write, write, and write content.
- Get involved in link exchanges.
- Ask for postings on other websites.
- Read other blogs, comment legitimately, and get involved in the community.
Seriously. Just take piece of paper or write yourself an email. Jot down a few things about what you want your site to be about and some cool features you would like to see on it.
If you can think of something that you feel is lacking from most blog sites, it might set you apart from the crowd.
This was a hard one for me to do, but it is recommended by everyone. You should focus on a niche that you are good at or have an interest in. Being generic will kill you. I'm generic right now. I have written articles and articles to see where I would end up. Unfortunately it is still a pretty wide swath.
If you are using a free blogging site, it will be whatever they have available. If you are registering a domain and building your own site from scratch or some open source code then the sky is the limit.
Again, if you are using a free service then you are fine. If you are going to pay for your own space then shop around. GoDaddy is quite cheap, but if you are looking for higher bandwidth, you might have to go with more expensive solutions.
Take the time to make your page look nice. If you can find a template or a friend with good graphics skill that will be the easiest. Open Source Web Design is a great place to find some sleek, simple designs for a blog.
This is a must. Find a company that will provide you with web tracking. This will tell you how much traffic you are getting, how many unique visitors, how they are getting to your site, if they are returning visitors, and a lot more. Some web trackers are free and others you pay to get the better service. I'm currently using ActiveMeter.
Register your web site with search engines. It seems to take a long time before they will index your site, so just do it and then forget about it for a few months. Keep in mind that if you get a link from another site to you, these guys will pick you up in time. This just helps the process. You will want to register with
This is how I got most of my traffic to begin with. Ezine Articles has give me the most success. I post articles I like the most to there. You need to not give everything away in your posted article. Keep them wanting more and then link back to yourself in it for more information or pictures. Other blogs will pick up these articles and post them as well. Gives you link backs and traffic.
Get involved in the community, seriously. Read other blogs, post comments, and just get interested in the whole process. Start with John Chow, then go to ProBlogger, and try Kumiko's Cash Quest after that. You will start to find more and more of these sites that are useful.
This is about good web design. Google and other search engines will use this file to make sure they index everything on your site properly. I don't know how well it works, but it doesn't hurt to have one.
This is a simple and useful technique to appeal to those who use RSS. It is a great way to provide easy access to a summary of your articles. You can read about it in my article Adding an RSS or XML Feed to Your Website.
This a site that maintains a collection of blog listings. They attempt to rank the top blogs based on the amount of links that point to your blog. I think it can be manipulated a bit, but it will still give you some exposure nonetheless.
If you followed my instructions about RSS feeds above then you might want to check out Feedburner. They will provide you with some stats on people accessing your feed and make a pretty summary page for you as well.
You want to make money right. Then you will want the automatic systems established by some of hte higher end companies. Try to strike up a balance of placing ads around your site. Banners, text link ads, purchased links, and more can be used.
You are going to need good content. Write it yourself and if you are too busy, you will need to pay for it. Free articles can be picked up off of the article sites, like Ezine Articles
I shouldn't even say this, because I haven't done it yet. Well, that is kind of lying. A couple of my favourite blogs have initiated it on a mass scale to their readers, so I took part in it. They will link back if you write a review. There is nothing stopping you from sending an email and asking them the same thing though.
I have not done this at all. I will try it sometime in the future and let you know. I want to have a high quality article that I really feel like throwing out there.
Not only do you get some links back to your own site, but far more important is the learning process and sense of involvement you will get. If you visit other people's blogs and offer constructive feedback, there is a chance they will return the favour, see an article they like, and perhaps do a posting for you as well.
Start with some of the mainstream sites and then branch out, you might find someone in the same area with some interesting articles. Some of my favourites are...
This is just the beginning of some of the lessons I learned thus far. Look for posts to follow as I learn more about what I'm doing.
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Category: Blogging
Original Post: Friday, March 16th, 2007
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