Blogging for fun and profit: Brainstorming Ideas.
Note: This will become an ongoing series of articles on how to blog as a serious hobby. Covering topics such as building readership, monetizing, etc. To read the series in its entirety when it’s completed, click the Blogging for fun and profit category to the right. Thanks!
Part 1: Brainstorming Ideas.
So as the typical 1950’s PSA would go, “So, you’ve decided to start blogging?” Well as someone who’s been in the internet scene for a years, but only a blogger for the past year or two, I have a bit of advice to give you. This series of articles is designed to help people avoid the pitfalls of blogging that I’ve encountered over the years, so that hopefully you can thrive.
The first thing you need to do is to pick a topic. This may seem like common sense, but the number of people who don’t follow it shocks me, so listen up. Make absolutely sure that you write about something that you’re actually interested in. You may see a niche that you can exploit in the riding mowers area, but if you don’t like or know anything about riding mowers, you’ll soon find your blog without readers, and without you writing on it.
Also, try to focus on one general topic. I know I shouldn’t talk considering all the things I cover here, but I consider this more of a personal blog than a business venture.
Once you have your topic and tone down, you should pick out your domain name.
This is where you say, “Wait! Domain name? Does this mean I have to… spend money?”
And I’m going to answer yes. Sure there are places like blogger and wordpress.com where you can host a blog for free, but eventually if your blog starts to take off, you’re going to want to move your blog to it’s own domain with it’s own special design, and its own hosting. If you decide to move from one of these free services, the chances of you retaining your old readers is almost nil. You will have old links going to one site and new links going to another, and it will be very difficult for your readers to find you again.
You’re better off spending the money ahead of time if you’re serious and setting up with your own domain, hosting, and installing your blog platform on your own server. Don’t worry it’s not as hard as it sounds.
I’d recommend DomainDiscover.com to buy your domain from, and Hostgator.com to purchase your hosting from. Hostgator has a great feature where you can do a 1-click Wordpress install automatically. The domain should cost you around $10, and the hosting around $10/month or so after that.
For your domain, pick something that fits with your topic of conversation, something catchy and interesting that people will remember. Try your best to keep it short. People are lazy, they don’t like to type in long URLs.
Ok, so you’ve got your idea, your tone, your domain, and your hosting. Come back next time for part 2: Why Wordpress?