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Posts Tagged ‘blogger’

Are free blog sites good for when you want to make money blogging? The best answer to that question in most cases is no, but there are times when free blogging can be useful. Let’s find out how.

Free Blog Sites

Free blogging is a situation where your blog is located on another company’s or another person’s blog server. You don’t own your blog in the sense that the blog hosting company can pull the plug on your blog with no warning. While I’ve not had it happen, I know several people to whom it has; one person lost almost 100 sites when Google pulled the plug on blogger. Ouch!

Free blog sites are great for many reasons one of which is to learn how to blog, but if you are serious about profitable blogging, look elsewhere.

Now I will admit that I have a few free blogs at wordpress.com and Google’s blogger platform. And although I’ve never made money off blogger, I have from wordpress.com. The bad news is that your monetization is limited on the free blog site, and you most likely will not be making near the money you would if it was your own site. So live and learn!

MySpace Blogs

Another of the popular free blogging sites is for MySpace blogs myspace.com that is. If you have a MySpace page, you can certainly use it for a free personal blog. The main use of a MySpace blog is to send traffic to your blog that makes money.

And naturally, the same applies to Facebook. The approach on Facebook is a little different it’s great for personal stuff. But when it comes to making money you must work from permission based marketing concept rather than a direct approach.

What Makes a Free Blogging Sites Useful?

Free blogging sites are useful for making money blogging in two ways. One is to provide a backlink to your profitable blog, and the second is to use that link to drive traffic to your money making blog.

Now here’s the problem with free blogging links back to your main blog site aren’t useful unless your free blog content is related to your money making blog. Without properly targeted traffic visitors are not likely going to visit your make money blogging site.

If you have not done any blogging before, free blog sites are a great way of getting your feet wet, so to speak. And an excellent way of deciding if blogging is something you would like to do. Then if you decide to seriously pursue making money blogging, you’ll have a little experience under your belt.

How to start a blog; it’s more than just opening an account at a free blogging hosting site and writing the first thing that comes to your mind.  Or…is it really that simple?  Let’s take a look at how to start a blog.

You Need a Goal

So, what’s your goal for your blog?  Since you’re reading this article, I’m going to assume that you’d like to make at least a little money from it.  But money aside, what do you want to get out of your blog?

Quick, grab a piece of paper and white down three things you want to see your blog do.  For example, you might have a money goal, a traffic goal and a “satisfaction” goal.

Got your goals written down?  Let’s move to the next step.

Selecting a Blogging Subject

So, what is it that you want to blog about?  Is it about your favorite hobby, something new you’re learning, something that you hope makes you some income?  Before you can blog, you need to know what to write about.

You may be asking, “Do I really need a subject?  Why can’t I just write about whatever I feel like?”

You can.  But unless you are a celebrity, you’re not likely to get much in the way of traffic doing that.  And traffic is the lifeblood of a blog.  So pick a subject also called a “niche” and blog about it to your heart’s content.

Free Blogging Sites

If you have never, ever had a blog before, I recommend that you go over to one of the free blogging sites like blogger or wordpress.com.  While I’m partial to the wordpress.com a free blogging site, I have used both and both are good.

Using one of the free blogging platforms lets you experiment and get used to what it’s like to blog.  If you like it; great!  You’re one step closer to making money with a blog.  If you decide you don’t like blogging, you’re only out some time.

Hosting Your Blog

Hosting your own blog isn’t as terrifying as it first sounds, but it does help a little if you are familiar with how blogs work before you try it for yourself.

I’m going to tell you straight out if you want to have a profitable blog, you need your own domain name and your own blog hosting.  I’ll talk in greater detail about this later, but get used to the idea.

The best blogging software available costs nothing it’s free!  WordPress.org software is available as a 1-click installation with pretty much all the major web hosting services.  So it doesn’t cost you anything extra, and it pays you back a ba-zillion-fold with its power.

How to Start a Blog

If you want the absolute easiest way to start a blog, go to wordpress.com and register for one of their free ones.  It doesn’t take long to register and set up your blog; you can be writing within 15 minutes.

I have a wordpress.com blog that I started back in 2007.  I wrote several posts on a specific topic then got busy doing other things and promptly forgot about the blog.  In late 2008 I stumbled on it again, took a look at the traffic statistics and just about fell over.  Wow!

So start a blog today.  Get used to how it works, and decide how much time you have to spend on it.  Pick your topic and get blogging!