The Barebone Basics To Professional (Money-Making) Blogging Part 1
Paolo, a friend of mine, wants to make money online. The first thought that came to his mind was professional blogging. Inspired by the story of Carl (the young yet humble technopreneur), he figured he could do the same thing.
Professional blogging can be quite lucrative. For a very small investment of around $50-100 (P2500-P5000) a year, you can revenue of up to $3600 (P180,000). It takes a bit of work, time and focus to get to an extremely profitable position but it can be done - as young Carl has shown.
Paolo asked me, "Paano ba magsimula?" (How does one start?).
Since I've been doing this for quite a while on my spare time, let me share the very barebone basic steps to professional blogging.
1. You need a niche topic - preferably something that searched by people online regularly. Conduct some keywords research to find out if a certain topic is popular. It pays to look at news trends. This is what Benj did when he took advantage of people looking for digital content reviews:
- After seeing the government announcements over and over on TV, I decided to search for Digital-to-Analog TV converter boxes online and look for suppliers. I found 4 main suppliers.
- In the last week of November, I put together a website with several Digital TV Converter boxes and reviews compiled from other reviews of these products and placed them on http://www.digitalconverterreview.com/
2. Once you have a topic in mind, find a suitable domain name. A domain name is a string of letters and numbers (separated by periods) that are used to name organizations and computers and addresses on the internet. For example - jozzua.com. For Search Engine Optimization purposes, find a domain name that is apt for your topic. Check if the domain name is still available. How do you do that? Go websites that usually offer webhosting with free domains. These have domain name checkers. A domain name will cost around P500 per year.
3. Get web hosting. This is 'virtual space' where you will put all your content. In the old days you needed a computer that was always on and hooked to the internet for this. Now, it's just easier to rent out web hosting space online. This will cost around P2500-P3000 yearly.
4. Install a content management system (CMS). I recommend WordPress. It is easier to publish articles and content when you have a CMS. 10 years ago you need to write using HTML (the language of the web). Today, you just install something like wordpress and you can start writing immediately.
In the next few articles, I'll discuss each step in detail and provide you with valuable tips and tricks to help you get ahead of everybody else.
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March 5th, 2009 - 05:23
Now, this is what I need. I have a website but it just tackles some of my personal daily experiences. I want to setup a website that will, eventually, make me earn money.
Waiting for more….
More power to you Jozzua. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
March 5th, 2009 - 07:40
Cool. I’m looking forward to more on these fundamentals which often get buried underneath the peripheral Internet Marketing topics. And I would also like to know all the ways to monetize a niche site, which you’re definitely an expert on.
March 6th, 2009 - 05:24
I think that the blog’s theme also should be optimized. I hired a web developer before to create an optimized theme highlighting the adsense ads.
Writing good quality articles also is a plus. An article that will be beneficial to the readers that will keep them coming back.
Search Engine Optimization is of course a must be also. But trying to hijack the particular keywords or keyphrases without shifting from my niche is pretty hard. Nevertheless, I try to optimize keywords related to my niche.
Lastly, marketing your blog is definitely very essential. Comment on top blogs within your niche. Participate in discussion forums. And spread the link online and offline.