Blog That Generates Income - Where To Start?

[bangkokburning]

Objective: Blog that generates income

Skill: I know my way around a PC well enough but I left the IT world after Y2K and my skills have only plummeted since.

Site: No coding, I have enough writing to do as it is. No flash, esp no flash intro. Prefer top web building site. I've looked at Wix and WPress. I can't put banners on either. Basic tools for tracking and management. Loads of photos and video (can I hotlink to youtube?). Clueless on purchase of domain name and site hosting - appears one company can hold the name and another host the site?

EDITED: OH, BTW - I'd like to possibly have a little store. Some drop-ship stuff and some stuff I'd need to mail out. ***

I will manage and upload most of this in Asia but will be assessed presumably mostly in western countries.

Anything, esp links would be a help. The Internet is just awash with (bad) information...

I realize this has been asked in a current thread but ... reliable host (that can be accessed in Asia)?

Thanks

Edited April 19, 2011 by bangkokburning

[nickmanchester2]

Adsense is quite easy to get going - although dont expect too much cash unless you have a lot of traffic

[bangkokburning]

Hi and thanks. I've dug into this a bit more seriously AFTER my initial post - which is pretty clueless honestly. I will have to learn the technologies if I am going to make any money at this. Adsense will certainly play a part but I would in time also like to solicit mfg's if I can get this off the ground.

So far I am gathering - buy the domain on godaddy and have it transf to a web hosting site like hostgator.

I will have loads of photos and video. I'm concerned that "unlimited" does not mean unlimited

I'm playing with the sitebuilder, very basic. Wordpress seems more to my liking.

EDIT: OOPS I have found templates, much better.

THANKS TO ANYONE WHO HAS READ THIS. I AM SORRY I HAVE NOT DONE ENOUGH HOMEWORK BEFORE POSTING. ILL GO AWAY NOW AND DO SOME READING.

Edited April 19, 2011 by bangkokburning

[MikeWill]

What do you want to write about?

[up-country_sinclair]

^

And (more importantly if profit is your goal) what do people want to read.

[bangkokburning]

It will be a travel related website and yes a billion exist and yet most are crap.

ad revenue is what I am after - perhaps some select products as well as product reviews of travel gear.

[ManOnTheRoad]

Just dont click the ads yourself or you will say good buy to your frends adsene hehehe

[jimky]

Let me help you get off to right start here.

Step 1: Registered the domain (Godaddy is fine).

Step 2: Decide on hosting. What you need to consider here is where are your most of your visitors going to come from? If this is unknown then go a site like HostGator or BlueHost is fine. If on the other hand most of your visitors are from the UK you're also from the UK, will be using UK English on your site, then you probably are going to want to host this site in the UK (This will help slightly for search engine optimization which I'll get into later.

Step 3: Purchase Hosting (Set name servers to point to host, this will come in instructions from web host if your not experienced, but any questions ask in this thread and I'll respond).

Step 4: Decide on CMS (content management system). Based on your posts so far I strong suggest Wordpress. You can install this in the fantastico section of your Host Gator or Blue Host account, or if you host somewhere without the self install download it from wordpress.org (Might be a good idea to do this anyways so you're familiar with it for upgrading later - install manual is easy to do there are instructions inside the download if you have questions come back and ask).

Step 5: CONTENT!

Let me give you some tips on this. The first basis to search engine rankings is CONTENT. Later having links is important, but in the beginning, content is king and content is key.

Now considering you probably don't know much about Search Optimization here's some basic tips.

DO NOT OVER DO THIS:. When writing content for a page think. What keywords are idea for this article. After thinking about this go to this tool:

https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS#search.none

Here change the search box to "Exact Match" broad won't help much in identifying keywords.

Now let say your trying to decide between "fly to asia" or "asian flights" this tool will give you an idea of what's better.

You generally want to go with the one that has the most search volume, but there is also a tab you can look at to see competition for the word and how much people are spending on pay per clicks and decide from there.

Now what you need to know is these words should not be "forced" into your content. Select one main keyword, and then maybe have a couple subs (main the important) and then use it naturally in the article. Excess use might get you an over optimization penalty for that page (over use on every single page might hurt your overall profile).

You should never be thinking "what is too much" If it's natural and how someone would write, then its entirely fine.

What you do want to do though is if this keyword is not used enough make a conscious effort to make sure its at least included a few times on your page.

Next when you give the article a title, be sure it includes this keyword (by title I mean what appears on the intro text, also its ideal if your code does these as h1 tags)

A wordpress plug in you should download is headspace2 (google it).

Here you can add a unique meta to your posts, title and description which is what people see when they google search.

Your title and description should both include your keyword.

When you reference this page from other articles the link to it should usually contain your keyword, but you do want to mix this up a little. Sites are expected to have some links such as "this article" or "click here to read that" etc. Don't force these I'm just saying natural 80% of the time when you reference and link to something in another article do it with your keyword.

Now I mention all this to get you off to the right start. There are other minor things to do, but it will sure be a lot easier to get into optimizing and getting traffic from Google when your initial content uses these methods.

From here at this time just build your site. When your ready to discuss more search engine optimization stuff let's do it then. Start a thread and then PM me asking if I'll comment on it or discuss, I will I've been affiliating marketing for many years and the past 3-4 been lazy living off the income from it, but ready to jam again building a few more. I consult for FREE out of boredom quite often with friends building sites and don't mind it. Just know this, when you first start it takes a while to make money because there is a lot to learn along the way. Eventually it gets easy, but when working long hours and making next to nothing in the beginning its a struggle and most give up before they make it. Meanwhile I know about 30 people who make site after site now, make money build big brands sell them for $250,000 US and its actually a good deal for the buyer (is usually huge publicly traded high profile companies buying them) because of the keywords they rank for. Me personally I'm no where near as baller as my friends that do that, but have done it on a smaller scale for many years and have sold dozen of sites for five figures(US), and no ones ever complained about them after and I still talk to many people who got into internet marketing as a result of buying a site from me.

Also to make sure no misunderstands, I have nothing for sale, am not soliciting business in anyway. but if I can help out in these discussions (again for free) feel free to PM after making a thread and I'll be happy to comment (in the thread - so its archived in case others want to read)

[jimky]

Just dont click the ads yourself or you will say good buy to your frends adsene hehehe

^THIS

Under no circumstances, and I mean never ever ever click your own pay per click ads.

[SoloFlyer]

Thanks for being so helpful jimky. I'm about to start a commerce website - ... would it be ok to PM you for some opinions??

[innerspace]

To emphasise the best point so far which was made by Jimky - CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT!

Quality content will do the following:-

Help get your site found in search engines for various key phrases.

Encourage readers who genuinely enjoyed it or found it interesting to link to your site.

Make your site stand out from the crowd.

Attract advertisers.

Adsense is easy, you set it and forget it - but to be honest you need a very busy site to earn an income.

The trouble is so many people recognise the adsense links and avoid them unless it really catches their attention.

Once you are actually getting visitors to your site a better earning potential is through private advertising and affiliate schemes.

Rent out advertising slots in either text links or banners. You can set the price on these and secure a reasonable monthly income on a good site.

If it's a travel site sign up for affiliate deals on flights, holidays etc from the like of expedia or similar.

Everyone that purchases after clicking your link pays you a commission.

And best of all find suitable companies to pay for a sponsored report.

Writing an article about a trip to Chang Mai? Then find a company in Chang Mai to pay a one off fee for a banner or mention on that article.

Lots of opportunities and best to mix many in so all isn't lost if one method suddenly stops being effective.

[Member]

Why so many always talk about Godaddy ? They suck, probably the worst customer care of all hosting providers, here you can read some stories about them. I would say go for Just Host instead. Quote: Just Host gives you your own free domain name with their Just Plan and 3 free with their Premium Plan! With all plans you have the ability to host as many domains as you wish together in 1 account without extra costs.

OK their customer care does not have the level of the One.com cc but overall they are better, especially the access to your database. I moved all my elsewhere hosted domains to them and save a lot of money this way. At the sign up form just enter coupon code 50OFF an you get 50% discount on the already cheap hosting. What you get with JH is really amazing, including 3 site builders for those who prefer this, a huge amount of templates. I would host the domain and the site at one company.

Think with 1,000 visitors everyday day with the right ads you earn around USD 150 a month. With average 5,000 people online all the time you can have a simple living out of it. The choice of ads is very important, spend time on studying this. You can either hotlink on embed YouTube videos on different sizes. To embed a store the far best option is Myshop.com, a Dutch product of very high quality, available in any size starting EU 5 a month and 3 months free to try. Include a neath looking photogallery with or without smooth Flash slideshow. Here you can see a screenshot of the JustHost, controlpanel, it's pretty amazing what they offer.

Have fun

Edited April 28, 2011 by Member