|
|
|
Written on september 16th, 2009 at 13:47 pm by Dayo Nurudeen
-
First of all I would like to apologize for the word I have chosen (MUST), I know few people don't like that word because they feel they don't must have, know or do anything.
This post is divided into two sections for clarification:
You see before you think about blogging there are so many things you have to put into consideration. I personally created this post to clarify few things people don't really think of before jumping into blogging.
Top Ten Questions You Must Ask Yourself Before You Start A Blog
Before you make your decision about which part you belong to I would like you to ask yourself the following questions;
What is your budget? How much time do you have? How good is your writing skill? How much do you know about computer and Internet? Why do you want to start a blog? How long do you want to blog? How many post can you post per week? How do you intend to run and manage your blog? How will the world know about your blog? How will you make money from your blog?
Non-Profit Blog:
-
It is 100% free, you pay nothing for hosting your blog (which sometimes means you cannot make money from it because you wont be able to put Ads), you don't need a domain name but you have to decide what you want to name your blog (the name of the blog platform that you choose will be your domain name which means you have access to only the subdomain name, i.e. "yourname.platform-name.com", the good news is that its absolutely free.
Blog Platform:
Is normally a Website/software script that provides blog hosting and services. Users can download the software in order to have a full control over their blogs or they can register and use the services provided by the platform which means no full control over their blogs. There are so many blog platforms out there, according to a poll the most common used blog platform is WordPress.
Before you make a decision about the platform that is suitable for you I recommend try to make a research about what people in your niche are using and also which platform provides space for what you need. I have put together Top 16 blog platforms that are mostly used in the blogosphere so you could just try to check them out one after the other to determine which one suits you. Mind you, they all have their Con's and Pro's.
Top 16 Blog Platforms
Blog Template: You definitely need a fresh and good looking design for your blog to make it more attractive and to make it easy for your readers to navigate your site. A good blog template will attract more readers and it will tell the readers how creative you are, it will make you stand out from your competitors.
Blog Logo:
Oh Yeah!!! you need a logo for your blog for a blog is your online company and it reflect everything about your product and services, so you need a brand name as well as a good looking logo that makes you stand out from your competitors.Logo Maker is a good Website to create your logo with few clicks (its not free).
Money Making Blog:
-
We all would love to make money from whatever we do because we are putting in time, even if we blog for pleasure or for the beauty of blogging atleast few dollars per day from whatever we do is not a crime. The fact is that most people blog for money not really for the pleasure, putting money and pleasure into the equation makes blogging more fun and worthy.
If you would like to blog for money you have to know that; You are 100% responsible for your blog, you either host your blog yourself or pay someone to host it for you, You must have a domain name like "www.yourname.com" to run your blog.
Financial Capital:
You need money to finance the operation of your blog. Money brings Money. The more money you invest wisely in your blog, the more money you are eligible to make from your blog. Since you want to start a money making blog it is obvious that you will need some money to sky-rocket it.
You will need atleast $3 per month to pay for a domain name You will need atleast $4 per month to pay for the hosting You may need some money (atleast $10 per month) to pay for outbound links to your site to increase the ranking You may need a graphic designer to design your blog theme, price varies with the person and your taste You may pay someone to create a good looking logo for your blog You may some money for advertisement You may need someone to write for you You may need SEO (search engine optimization) to make your blog visible to search engines You may need Keyword expert to help your blog appear in top 5 of search engines You may need something more
The number 1-3 is what I am doing on the Website, the rest I do alone without paying anybody, but this Website pay for itself so I only needed to pay the 1-3 for just the first 3 months. Ofcourse you can go around all these without paying a cent for anything, but you will either spend lot of time doing it by yourself and the result might not be as effective as that of someone that actually pays and invest in his blog.
Domain Name:
Domain name is crucial, your ability to obtain the matching domain name that reflect what your blog is all about is important, you need a domain name that defines the purpose of your blog. If you choose a wrong domain name you might end up sending traffic to another Website or competitor.
Some people always end up purchasing already made domain names because they cannot find a domain name that defines the purpose of their blog, purchasing an already created domain name can be very expensive atimes. To date, and according to Guinness World Records and MSNBC, the most expensive domain name sales on record as of 2004 were:
Business.com for $7.5 million in December 1999 AsSeenOnTv.com for $5.1 million in January 2000 Altavista.com for $3.3 million in August 1998 Wine.com for $2.9 million in September 1999 CreditCards.com for $2.75 million in July 2004 Autos.com for $2.2 million in December 1999
So the earlier you start your own blog the better, if you fail to plan sometimes you can end up planning to fail. Another good news is that, if you are able to build a good and productive blog that rank well you can make huge amount of money from it in the nearest future by selling it.
Hosting Service:
A blog or web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own Website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center, called collocation.
Top 10 cheap web hosting companies
Blog Platform:
Is normally a Website/software script that provides blog hosting and services. Users can download the software in order to have a full control over their blogs or they can register and use the services provided by the platform which means no full control over their blogs. There are so many blog platforms out there, according to a poll the most common used blog platform is WordPress.
Before you make a decision about the platform that is suitable for you I recommend try to make a research about what people in your niche are using and also which platform provides space for what you need. I have put together Top 16 blog platforms that are mostly used in the blogosphere so you could just try to check them out one after the other to determine which one suits you. Mind you, they all have their Con's and Pro's.
Top 16 Blog Platforms
Blog Template:
You definitely need a fresh and good looking design for your blog to make it more attractive and to make it easy for your readers to navigate your site. A good blog template will attract more readers and it will tell the readers how creative you are, it will make you stand out from your competitors.
Blog Logo:
Oh Yeah!!! you need a logo for your blog for a blog is your online company and it reflect everything about your product and services, so you need a brand name as well as a good looking logo that makes you stand out from your competitors.Logo Maker is a good Website to create your logo with few clicks (its not free).
|
|
|
|
