How to Start a Blog
Sunday, October 19, 2008 11:11Blogging is now incredibly easy. If you have thoughts, you are qualified to start a blog. That’s the hard part. The technical stuff is the easy part. Here’s how:
Go to Wordpress.com and sign up. There. You’re done. Instant blogging. Good for everyone who wants to share thoughts with friends and family. But, if you want to take your blog to the next step, and perhaps make money blogging, you’ll need to take a few more steps.
Hosting your Own Blog
Think of a clever name for your blog, register the domain name, and find an inexpensive web host for your new website. You can do this all from the same place with a reputable web host.
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An excellent choice for this is Blue Host. With the push of a button WordPress is installed and you have technical support to help you if something goes amiss. You can register the domain name, choose a hosting plan and be off and blogging in minutes.
HostICan is another excellent choice for hosting your new blog. It is $6.96 per month and offers WordPress installation, as well as templates for websites and e-Commerce applications.
Signup with Feedburner to make it super easy for people to subscribe to your blog. Feedburner allows your viewers to subscribe via a reader, or via e-mail.
If you don’t already have it installed, download the Feedburner plugin for WordPress. This will reassign all of your RSS links to your feedburner account. You can then track how many subscribers you have.
If you would like to make money at blogging, start looking at affiliate programs which will pay you for referrals. A good place to start is Google Ad Sense. You earn a few cents each time someone clicks on one of the links. The more visitors you get to your site, the better your chances of someone clicking on one of those links. Cha-ching! We’ll have more reviews of affiliate programs in future posts.
Instant Professional Blogger
If you want to immediately become a professional blogger earning money for posting, but aren’t quite ready to host your own site, try Today.com. You are paid by the post, and by the number of people who visit your blog. Your blog can be up and running in minutes. Just add content!
