Business at Home Income

How to start blogging is fairly easy.  In the two previous posts we’ve gone over what does blogging mean, as well as the basics of blogging.  WIth that information under your belt, we’re ready to look at how you can start your blog.

The first thing you need to decide is your blogging platform.  From the last post, you know that means where your blog is hosted.  Your hosting can be free or you may pay a fee.

If this is your first blog, and you just want to test the waters to see if you like it, I suggest one of the free blog services, like blogger.com or wordpress.com.  Both are popular and easy to use.  Most people can be up and blogging within about 15 minutes.  (Here’s a larger list of free blogging sites.)

If you have already done some blogging and want to take it to the next level, you will most likely want to host your own Wordpress blog.  The Wordpress you host on your own server is far and away more robust than what you get on the free hosted site. It’s very customizable, easy to install (usually a click of a button) on most web hosting services and provides plenty of SEO (search engine optimization) features.

 Now if you choose to go the hosting Wordpress on a web server route, you will have to pay a monthly hosting fee.  This is generally less than $8 a month, depending on how much disk space you need.  Two web hosts I’ve used that have an automated Wordpress installation are GoDaddy and BlueHost, so you may want to check them out.  Installation normally takes less than 15 minutes.

Here is the BlueHost free domain with $6.95 per month hosting package

And here are the GoDaddy.com hosting plans.

OK, that’s how to start blogging.  The next post will be about the all important creating a blog theme (what to write about)

OK, in the previous post we’ve looked at what is blogging; now we’re discussing the basics of blogging.  And to start, we want to define a few words.

Blog:  Web log, a quick and relatively casual method of publishing information online.  Less setup than a website, close to being as flexible.  Blogs contain posts, which are published in reverse chronological order (i.e. most recent first).

Blogger:  One who writes in a blog.  Usually the owner, but some bloggers “ghost write”, or are “guest writers” for others.

Blogsphere:  The world of blogging.  Encompasses not only blogs and bloggers, but also the way they work together.

Frequency:  How often you post a blog entry.  Frequency has a direct effect on traffic; the more frequent the posts, the more the search engines tend to pay attention.

Platform:  This usually refers to where and how the blog is hosted.  For example, Blogger and Wordpress.com are free blogging platforms.  TypePad charges a small fee, or you can host your own blog platform on a web server.

SEO:  Search engine optimization.  Search engines tend to love blogs to begin with, due to the nature of the frequent postings.  But SEO lets a blogger better his or her chances of making it to the top of the search engine results.

So these are the basics of blogging; terms you want to know before you get into the nitty-gritty of the next post, how to start blogging.

So what exactly what does blogging mean?  In this and the next few posts, we’ll be going over blogs and blogging.  From the basics to the more advanced, and also (of course) how to make money blogging.  So let’s start.

Blog stems from the two original words, web log.  This was later shortened to the word we know, blog.

Blogs became well-known at first as online diaries of sorts.  Yes, there were a lot of people talking about their cats, or what they ate for breakfast.  But eventually, these digital diaries evolved into something else; a way to spread information.

Along the way, a curious thing happened.  Blogs started rising to the top of the search engine heaps, even above websites.  Readership began to grow, traffic became great and the next thing that happpened was…people started making money from their blogs.

At first the amounts were enough to pay for the blog upkeep.  Then more and more bloggers began making some serious money, and were even able to more than replace their monthly income.  Bye-bye 9-to-5, hello to blogging full time!

But what does blogging mean for the average person?  Probably not fame, glory or riches — unless you are serious about it (and that’s a whole other post).  But the average blogger can certainly earn enough to pay for their daily Starbucks, or even make the car payment.  Yes, it’s possible; you just have to know how.

So, I’ll be posting a series on blogging.  This one was just an overview, and we’ll cover all kinds of topics relating to blogs, traffic and money in the coming sessions.  Stay tuned!