I’ve been working with a decent guy called Anuj whom I met on the DigitalPoint Forums. He’s been helping me develop content for several websites. Recently, though, he’s been thinking about developing his own blogs for websites that are personal pet projects.

Kenneth

… I wanted to ask you some questions…This is for my personal use, i have a site on guitars(http://guitarheat.com/)
This is the blog page http://guitarheat.com/lessons/

Can you suggest me ways of how to built a blog and monetize it…

Also does your site have a wordpress theme?? or something else??
I have bought around 34 domains in the recent time, and i am thinking of devoluping a few…

So can you give any suggestions of how should i go with my regular blog? Will follow the same guidelines for all upcoming sites….
Also do you use Adsense? or any other affiliate?

If you have time and can suggest me something, it will be really kind of you.

Thank You
Anuj

These days with over 110 million blogs and more being created daily there are a number of challenges that need to be overcome.

But success boils down to three primary principles. There are three things you need to do to build a blog…

a. find content for your blog that is unique, relevant and well-written;
b. find an audience that needs your content or is motivated to read it, return to your blog or subscribe to your RSS feeds; and
c. find ways to monetize your blog through advertising, textlinking and affiliate marketing.

It’s that simple, and that difficult. If this is the first time you ran your own blog, I’d suggest that you work on one blog at the beginning otherwise you’ll find it to difficult to learn how to manage everything. When you have mastered the first blog, you’ll find the second and subsequent blogs much quicker to develop.

Finding a blog host

For your first blog, you can use Blogger if you wish or WordPress.com. I would strongly suggest that you don’t as there are a number of limitations for each of these. You won’t notice the limitations at the beginning, but after a few months you’ll begin to wonder why you didn’t make a different decision.

Blogger Limitations

I loathe the commenting system on Blogger. I hate the fact that most themes on Blogger don’t show the comments after the post; I hate the fact that titles aren’t clickable in Blogger themes, so it’s difficult for me to find the post URL to put in my article. That means less trackbacks and comments from me. I also think that other limitations will begin to annoy you seriously after a few months.

Wordpress dot com Limitations

On Wordpress.com there are a number of limitations, including the fact that you can’t add your own plugins, you’re not allowed to sell particular kinds of advertising; and both Blogger and Wordpress may decide that your blog is SPAM and lock it down or remove it, with little or no redress on your part.

HOWEVER, saying that using either of these is a good way to get a feel for the phenomenon of blogging and the tools that you are likely to use. In Wordpress.com’s case, it will help you to understand how WordPress Software actually works. Very helpful.

Hosting your own blog

This is ultimately the best solution for most people. And when you pay for your own hosting, you will get your own domain name thrown in. You will also have your own server space, bandwidth, your own email accounts… and much more. Most importantly, you’ll be free to add your own plugins, use whatever themes you like, sell whatever advertising you like, write whatever kind of content you like, and much more…

For example if you sign up with BlueHost, you will get GB’s of space, TB’s of bandwidth, a ton of good features such as emailing, and mailing list help, … take a look at the panel from the demo.

Many full-size host offer WordPress as a simple install on their panel once you register. Dreamhost, BlueHost, MediaTemple, etc… all do. I’d like to look at installing Wordpress manually in this post, but I think that’s beyond the remit of this “Getting Started Series”.

In general, despite the learning curve on Wordpress software, you can still get started pretty quickly, esp. after learning the basics on Wordpress.com’s trainer blogs. Once you’ve signed up for hosting, chosen your domain name and installed a blogger platform, why not do some test posting.

In Lesson 2, we’ll look at two or three different platforms; In Lesson 3, we’ll look at developing different content and so on; Lesson 4 brings up the issue of finding traffic; and Lesson 5 brings up how to monetize the blog. It’s likely that I’ll write longer posts so I may delay some of the later lessons.

In September 2006, I discovered a great little company called Payperpost that I thought was innovative and exciting. It offered a whole new model for paid blogging that was novel, exciting, connected, and free of the problems associated with Adsense.

My PayPerPost Track Record

Since then I wrote over 180 opps for Payperpost and earned something around $1650 or a little more. During the time I learned a tremendous amount writing for a blog, my blog’s various themes, the WordPress platform, marketing my blog, and much more… For that, I’ll always be grateful to the wonderful people at PayPerPost (and SocialSpark) but today I had another frustrating experience with the limitations of their blogging requirements.

Rejected Again?

I recently did my SocialSpark opportunity that was rejected. In the past, I simply would edit the post to satisfy the requirements, but this is my third rejection and I’m beginning to wonder if all the work that went into each of the posts was really worth it. So let’s look at the posting process…

How it works!

The typical opportunity offers the payout of about $8.50 (at least that is my long term average over the time I was involved with PayPerPost). For that payment, you are required to perform a number of steps.

1. Log into the Payperpost system;

2. Navigate to the opps – there could be dozens for you, there could be none;

3. Find an opp that is available to you and one that you find appropriate for your blog;

4. Once you’ve selected an opp, you have to read the opp in detail, then visit the website page that relates to the opp, click ‘take opp’, enter a captcha code, read the basic details;

5. You then write the post according to the requirements of the opportunity, making sure that you include the required links (at least one), the disclosure, the tracking image, any additional images. In addition, you have to make sure that your opp fulfills the word length, the tone, and the type of post;

6. Of course, your post must also be written in good English with good grammar, punctuation and style. It must also be relevant to the advertiser’s wishes;

7. You then submit this opp through the system; if approved, you will then allow the advertiser 30 days to advertise on your blog for either SEO or traffic reasons; if rejected, your advertiser will have had days of advertising for free; if rejected prior to payment, it’s all for nothing;

8. While you wait for payment, you are then required to post an intermediate post that is of sufficient quality and length BEFORE you can take another opportunity;

9. While you are waiting for payment for this post, a good blogger will seek ways to increase exposure, traffic, your PR, respond to comments about the post;

10. Even before you are paid, you have already granted accepted that:

Blogger grants PayPerPost and the specific Advertiser purchasing the content a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sub-licensable, unconditional, perpetual and transferable license to use, display, perform, reproduce, republish, and distribute the content or any portion thereof in all forms of media and through any media channels (now known or hereafter developed), including but not limited to television, radio, print, Internet site and other electronic communications.

11. Oo! It was rejected. You’re invited to resubmit it, sometimes this will be a quick edit, other times you will spend a lot more time finding out what’s wrong.

And that’s… how much?

In other words, you have done a heck of a lot of work for a post that you are paid for only once. Now how much did you get? $5? $8.50? $15? Oh, and by the way, the blogger is still …

… responsible for the payment of all federal, state and local taxes on compensation received from an Advertiser, (iii) responsible for any reporting requirements imposed by the federal, state or local government, and …

… you have to pay for your hosting each month if you take this even half way seriously… there are additional costs related to PC repair, ADSL connections, software purchasing (if you buy blogging software), etc.. that the payments do not cover…

In return, and much of the reason that I no longer enjoy doing posts, you are not free to write posts as you see fit; you cannot include any other links, videos, referenced materials, or other “distractors” to the Advertiser’s opp: “There are to be no third party links, ads or other detractors located within the sponsored post.” You are also not expected to remove the posts as they are part of the archive.

Is it time to give up posting for pennies?

While there are few restrictions on other sources of revenue that you can generate for your blog, such as private advertisers, Adsense, Text-Links, etc… there is a lot of potential for alternate streams of income. In reality, the way that the system works encourages bloggers to “post” for pay. In fact, some of the other revenue streams, I’ve been finding, offer a lot more rewards for a lot less messing about. And I get to write about what I like, how I like, when I like. I’m wondering: is it time to give up “posting for pennies”? Mmm.

There are a ton of posts about the new version of WordPress 2.5 , so I’m not going to do a post about that. There’s little point. Also, I’m not going to cover the same announcements. Other people do that just as well.

Here are some cool screenshots: these illustrate some of the surprises I found.

Nice looking dashboard

I love the new color scheme, I immediately adopted the standard colors, but I like the layout – it emphasizes why bloggers blog. I like the simplified format on the top command bar, though some things are counter-intuitive – why are the write buttons so far on the right? I do like the fact that users can change the RSS feeds in the dashboard (something I’ve longed to do for a while).

Simplified streamlined post management

In the manage posts options, things are much clearer bar one feature. You can search the posts like before, but you need to click on the ‘status’ to view the post on the website. I also like how the comments are highlighted in the manage view. You can easily see how many comments a post has!

Neatly arranged blogging tools

In the post view, apart from the rearrangement that hides the complexity, the tools are nicely laid out and more beautifully presented. I didn’t see much difference in the arrangement except the headings on the far right are now visualized (nice touch!) and the media button which when clicked brings up the following media options in a new window.

Embedded Media Menu

And the fifth little treat came as rather a surprise.

Automated Plugin Updates

WP2.5 now allows you to update your plugins with one (or two) clicks: Just go to plugins, find any that need to be updated and press ‘update automatically’. And it was done. I was not looking forward to downloading any of the new plugins and manually updating them specially since several have almost daily updates (very annoying). That is neat.

This is a very refined tool now, and about as smooth as a fine red wine. Wonderful. Rather than writing a review about this, I’m just gushing! It’s a great improvement.

Upgrade if you can, want to or must!

So if you are starting a new blog, then you SHOULD just go to WordPress 2.5. It’s so much smoother in its operation, and you will find it easier to get started. If you are upgrading, I’d suggest updating provided that you don’t have any plugins that you absolutely need to use. If you do, you may wish to hold back until your favorite plugin is updated or patched or confirmed as working.