When you’re new to blogging, a free blogging web site is a good way to get started. Popular blogging web sites like Blogger and Eponym allow users to set up and host a blog for no cost at all. The fact that one of these sites can provide you with all of the tools that you need to get your blog up and running for free, encourages people to start a blog. As it’s free, you don’t have anything to lose. Many people that have never had any other kind of web presence before find themselves drawn to blogging, partly because it is so easy to find a way to blog for free.
Compared to starting your own blog from scratch, signing up with a free blogging web site will get you listed in search engines much easier. For example, Google, that runs the free blog hosting site Blogspot, crawls its pages very often to look for updates. As a result, if you have a Blogspot blog, you are almost guaranteed to be listed on Google’s blog search engine. This way you can spend less time on promoting your blog, and you can gain a following with a minimum of marketing effort.
If your blog attracts many readers, you may want to think about moving your site. Many people think that a blog that is hosted by a free blogging web site has a kind of amateur flavor, not appropriate for a high-profile blog. Your own domain name can help you make your blog feel professional, and finding a webhost is not difficult or expensive. Once your blog starts to attract a large readership, you will probably be able to sell enough advertising space to be able to afford to buy your own domain and pay for a hosting package, and still have money left over. However, until you have a sizeable readership, there’s really no need to invest in these luxuries.
When you want to build a following before you spend any money on your blog, using a free blogging website is a good idea. Later, when you feel ready to take the next step and pay for your own domain, your readers will follow you to your new home.
When I first set out to quit my job and make money online it seemed like a very big task. Everything out there tells you how easy it is. They tell you how much money you can make in a month, or a week, or even a day depending on what you’re looking at.
The money won’t just fall into your lap, but I can tell you what you can do to make the steps to getting there much, much easier. I’ll skip the part of long hours, time put in, how you seem to think about it even when you’d think yourself “off work” and the like, as you probably are already familiar with that stuff before you even thought of trying an online business.
First, KNOW exactly what you want to sell and/or what service you want to do. This will save you lots of time just in trying to make your website or sales page correct. The rest of your website will make sense around it as well and your web page will look and feel complete. You need to know as specifically as possible what goods or services you’re offering. A subject that is too broad will not only make your site hard to find, but hard to update and keep track of as well.
Second, is get familiar with Search Engine Optimization(SEO), even with a finished site and a product ready to go, if noone can find your site you won’t sell anything or get no visitors. You don’t need to know it in the expert sense, but you should know what aspects search engines look for and adjust your website accordingly. Research the keywords and phrases common to your website’s topic to find what people are searching for to properly optimize your page for the right traffic you want to go to your website.
Third, promote your site in as many different ways that you can think of. While it’s not normally recommended to directly submit your website to the biggest search engines, taking out a few seconds to do it can’t hurt. You can do so many things to promote a webiste, and as you work with one way, you’ll often discover another way to get the word of your site around. From posting on forums to email advertising to Google Adwords, try and do as much as you can. Not every person surfing online will use the one or two ways you started promoting your site and may not see it. Get your hands dirty and experiment with as many as you can to give your site it’s best chance of being seen.
This will hopefully help tweak and refine your site so when you follow the steps after it visitors will see what they were looking for and keep coming back or buy from you.