How does one go about starting a blog?

[NuclearNed]

A few of you have enjoyed some of the stuff that I write, and have encouraged me to maybe start a blog or something. I've really warmed up to the idea lately, and my wife and non-internet friends have encouraged me to give it a shot. One friend of mine sent me this link:

Making money from a blog

I think it would be nice to make a little money on the side, although I don't expect much to happen.

So I have a ton of questions:

Who would be a good host? What costs can I expect? Where would I go to pick up some advertisers? How do I get listed in search engines? Are my rants here at ATOT owned by AT, or could I cut and paste them onto my own site?

I've never tried anything like this, so I don't know how to proceed or what to expect. Any advice would be welcomed...

 

[MisterJackson]

A lot of people just use this place for their blog....you're headed in the right direction by making this thread, just add more emo.

 

[SunnyD]

Go to www.blogspot.com, sign up, and post. Done.

 

[Blieb]

Originally posted by: SunnyD
Go to www.blogspot.com, sign up, and post. Done.

FTW!

 

[legoman666]

or live journal? my brother has a blog there...

 

[FoBoT]

if you want your own domain vs. the blogspot type places, all web hosting packages have blog software that you can setup via their control panels, quite easy to do

 

[NuclearNed]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
if you want your own domain vs. the blogspot type places, all web hosting packages have blog software that you can setup via their control panels, quite easy to do

I think I'll start small and just go with one of the blogspot type places, if they allow advertising. Do they? One of the biggest reasons I want to try this is to see if I can make a little cash.

 

[Twista]

Originally posted by: NuclearNed

Originally posted by: FoBoT
if you want your own domain vs. the blogspot type places, all web hosting packages have blog software that you can setup via their control panels, quite easy to do

I think I'll start small and just go with one of the blogspot type places, if they allow advertising. Do they? One of the biggest reasons I want to try this is to see if I can make a little cash.

the cash u make is not taxed so at the end of the year you have to file the google ad sense w2 thingie and it takes a chunk out of your returns so be careful. If you get paid little yearly than these ads help, till the end of the year for taxes lol than they burn you in the butt. I just found out this the hard way lol..

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: NuclearNed

Originally posted by: FoBoT
if you want your own domain vs. the blogspot type places, all web hosting packages have blog software that you can setup via their control panels, quite easy to do

I think I'll start small and just go with one of the blogspot type places, if they allow advertising. Do they? One of the biggest reasons I want to try this is to see if I can make a little cash.

Yes. I signed up for and added my AdSense account to my blog. See my sig, scroll to the bottom of the blog, you'll see ads.

 

[LS21]

get your own domain from godaddy.com
buy hosting at 8-95.com for 4$ a month
get an account at blogspot.com - publish it to your domain (easy)

put in good contents. cross-link to lots and lots of blog. get exposure. get adsense. try to win

 

[IceBergSLiM]

blogspot.com is free. You can literally be "blogging" within 5 minutes.

 

[MaxDepth]

* Start one on blogspot or typeset
* Sign up for adsense or one of the top porn hosts
* Have an ego so far out of whack that you actually believe that you should the have the same status as a "journalist" and that your pontification actually does change the course of Earth's events.
*Refresh content daily that does not use keywords from previous posts

Since they are expecting to do away with domain tasting, it looks like you'll have to pay for your blog (if you want full control of your ad space).

But you'll have to work on that ego. I hear you're just smug and not insufferable.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: NuclearNed
Are my rants here at ATOT owned by AT, or could I cut and paste them onto my own site?

You wrote it, do whatever you like with it.

 

[Injury]

There are two hard things about making money from a blog. I didn't bother to see if the author said anything about it, but there's no point if you can't tackle these two. This guy's site has little content and is laden with worthless ads. The one page you linked to might as well be spam.

1) Subject matter. Making a blog of rants gets old, fast. Something Awful, Maddox, and a couple of others pretty much have the market cornered, seeing as rant sites haven't been popular in 5 years. You need enough content to generate loads of pageviews and you need to update fast enough to keep it coming. The goal isn't to write stuff that entertains you, the goal is to write what entertains your audience. It's not as easy as you'd think. The guy in that link start showing money figures but the truth is that it takes a few thousand regular visitors to make it START being lucrative. That brings us to number two...

2) Gaining and Maintaining traffic is just as important. A one hit wonder website doesn't pay the bills and if people don't see a reason to come back once or twice a week, they won't come back at all. This is why forums with an active crowd thrive and expand faster than they can often handle, while forums with no patronage die a slow, horrible death. Getting people to visit is easy enough but it doesn't matter for crap to an advertiser if you can't keep it going. Advertisers aren't attracted by sites that have an average of 20 visitors a day, but tens of thousands of visitors a month.


That said, if you're still feeling like you can pull it off, you want to find webhosting and a catchy domain name for starters. Ideally, you're not going to get anything worthwhile without paying $50/yr, and it's not something you want to skimp on as unreliable hosting isn't worth it.

 

[Duddy]

I've been thinking about starting a Google Android blog. Actually I want to start a forum but that's just too much for me to handle right now.

I wrote for a Zune blog awhile back with one of the members here, then life got way to hectic and I quit. I'm sure it made some money.

 

[bctbct]

Any chance you will have a newsletter?

 

[NuclearNed]

Originally posted by: bctbct
Any chance you will have a newsletter?

Sure. I can send out my favorite recipes.

 

[bctbct]

Originally posted by: NuclearNed

Originally posted by: bctbct
Any chance you will have a newsletter?

Sure. I can send out my favorite recipes.