Private blog or blog from blogging service?

GoodCallYouWin · #1 04-03-2007, 12:57 PM

Assuming my final goal is to make money by having a popular blog, what is a better route? Should I host my blog on an adsense website? Or should I sign up through one of the main sites for my blog? What sites pay out the most? How do you make money off blogs?

majesty2009 · #2 04-03-2007, 03:02 PM

If this is your first blog then something free like blogspot is not a bad idea. You can learn a lot and you dont have to put any money out. Everything will be pure profit. I was able to make about $1,200 a month from 5 blogs using blogger. Blogging is a hard way to make money, but some people have been very sucessful. I would say the ultimately you need to have your own domain name and host the blog yourself. Its a good starting point for someone who wants to get into internet marketing. You can go from a blog to some larger project down the road.

When deciding what to write about you have to keep two things in mind. First you have to have original and interesting content. You want people to enjoy what they read and come back. It is hard to build traffic if its a one time thing. Write about stuff that actualy interests you and that you have a passion for. Dont write about stuff because you think it will make you money.

Second and less important is keyword selection. I wouldnt worry too much about this, but its something to keep in mind. I have a loan blog that pays over $1 per click. It gets decent traffic from search engines so its a good earner. I have a business blog that pays around 10 cents a click, but it has much higher traffic. I wouldnt worry about this too much, but some topics have low paying adds that are also not interesting. If they pay little and dont get clicked much then you will have problems.

Tips for a beggining blogger

1. Go to www.blogger.com and make an account.

2. Come up with a concept for you blog and begin making posts. Make them around 3-4 paragraphs. You dont want them to be too long, just make it interesting.

3. Sign up for adsense. You will have to submit your site. If you have at least 3 posts you should get accepted to the program. "There are going to be steps you have to take after this before you can get paid, but they are easy. Just worry about getting it set up for now."

4.Blogger has easy adsense integration. Just follow the directions on the site if you need help just come back to the forum im sure someone will help. I would suggest that you blend the adds and have only text adds. You can play around with the different settings available and see which give you the highest CTR. I like the the 160X600 Wide Skyscraper for blogs. I set it up to run down the right side. It looks more like links than adds and seems to get good CTR.

Now your ready to go. Keep adding content. Try to learn as much as you can about SEO. Mess around with add placement and track wich gives you the highest CTRs. Once you get a good idea of what you would like your blog to be then you can get a domain name and some hosting and use wordpress or something like that to make your blog.

I hope this helps, just get started and continue to learn as much as you can. You may find blogging is the thing for you or it may lead to other things. Good Luck

HonestRyan · #3 04-03-2007, 03:38 PM

easiest way to start blogging on the cheap I think is just create a free blog on a blogging service and then go get a URL registered at godaddy and have it redirect to your blogsite. that will cost about $20. I did mine through midphase.com and they gave me 2 years of hosting and a URL for $96. I originally got my name registered www.ryanstampke.com but too many people had difficulty w/ the spelling so I registered www.honestryan.com at godaddy and had it redirect to my hosted site. just a poker blog w/ a slowly expanding user base, once i get enough subscribers then I can bring out the poker Ebook. I am not worrying about adsense and the other stuff till I can start getting some significant hits. I also used wordpress for the site design, and it was so easy, and I know nothing about webdesign or html.

Good Luck!,

majesty2009 · #4 04-03-2007, 03:48 PM

There is nothing wrong with having adsense right away. If you can only make $25 a month you might as well take it and you can still learn a little while you go.

Im not saying you have to, there are many strategies. Just something to think about. Also depending on your topic you might want to think about commision junction. I have made a few sales on here and the money is pretty good.

www.cj.com

matt nover · #5 04-03-2007, 11:49 PM

if you are setting up a blog with the final goal of making an ebook off of it...do you keep all your posts about the subject or do you have some personal posts and off subject posts? thanks

GoodCallYouWin · #6 04-05-2007, 06:54 AM

Hello everyone.

So I've made my blog (http://childofreason.blogspot.com/ no ads up yet) but I don't know exactly where I should put the adds or also where in the HTML page equates to where on the screen. When I put the adds in and attempt to view them, nothing shows up yet.

Where would the best place to have my adds be?
How do I get them there?

GoodCallYouWin · #7 04-05-2007, 11:16 AM

help! I've placed the adds but they don't show up/

majesty2009 · #8 04-05-2007, 04:33 PM

With the new blog setup you cant simply paste the code into the html you have to go to template tabe and click add page element.

GoodCallYouWin · #9 04-06-2007, 11:44 AM

Thanks! The process is so easy I've started a second blog and I have adsense on both of them. I don't think I've made any money yet, I will be checking daily to see if I make any : ) What are some basic ways of generating traffic without spamming?

BruinEric · #10 04-06-2007, 01:34 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks! The process is so easy I've started a second blog and I have adsense on both of them. I don't think I've made any money yet, I will be checking daily to see if I make any : ) What are some basic ways of generating traffic without spamming?

[/ QUOTE ]

The _BEST_ way to generate traffic is to have good content, which will be found via search engines, organic links from other bloggers, etc.

After you get some early good content, consider some other "white hat" means to generate traffic and improve search ranking. If you want schemes and methods such as link exchange, keyword seeding, etc -- check out the many freebie "SEO" resources out there.

Examples of quality (not quantity at first) traffic generators:

-Create a commenter login on sites that allow your profile (or better your name) to have an embedded http: link and comment on your favorite other blogs.

-Link to other blogs in the body of your posting (when its relevant). Many of those blogs will notice your "trackback" and it will be listed.

-Good _ORIGINAL_ content that gets linked elsewhere. Were you playing at a casino and a celebrity drops in? Take a pic and host a story. This is blogging beyond the usual "rant o' the day."