Setting up a brand new blog for money

[eastkygal]

I have decided to start one and maybe to niche blogs that I would like to set up to be able to add advertisers and for me to become an Amazon affiliate. My current not-for-profit blog is through wordpress.com. I'd like to go through wordpress.org I suppose. What are the first steps? Do I register a domain name first, or set up an account with wordpress.org? Also, is it pretty self explanatory? I am not versed in HTML or webpage design. I function now on templates and simplicity. I guess that's called apps? I don't want to get in over my head, but I do want to start doing a few things to bring in some income. I desperately need to help my husband with money, but I also need to be home with my children. Also, once I'm set up, do I contact people to tell them about my blog for advertising, or do I build readership first? Is the Amazon affiliate thing pretty easy managed?

Thanks.

[lisarussell]

All of mine are wordpress.org- I use godaddy.com for my registration and hosting. Amazon was easy for me to set up. any coding you need to know for amazon you can learn as you go IMHO. I liked godaddy the best so far because once I registered, I could call them & they'd walk me through anything I had trouble with. (so far not much) the wordpress for google hosting is an auto-install through the hosting interface, no coding necessary. domain is like $10/yr, hosting- I don't know about for one site, I have like 30 on one account and it's $7/mo

Originally Posted by eastkygal

I have decided to start one and maybe to niche blogs that I would like to set up to be able to add advertisers and for me to become an Amazon affiliate. My current not-for-profit blog is through wordpress.com. I'd like to go through wordpress.org I suppose. What are the first steps? Do I register a domain name first, or set up an account with wordpress.org? Also, is it pretty self explanatory? I am not versed in HTML or webpage design. I function now on templates and simplicity. I guess that's called apps? I don't want to get in over my head, but I do want to start doing a few things to bring in some income. I desperately need to help my husband with money, but I also need to be home with my children. Also, once I'm set up, do I contact people to tell them about my blog for advertising, or do I build readership first? Is the Amazon affiliate thing pretty easy managed?

Thanks.

[snowbunny]

You'll register a domain name, set up a hosting account and then install wordpress on that account. Many hosts (including godaddy) offer 1-click install which is probably your best bet in terms of ease of use. From there you can upload a theme, and start blogging per normal on the new site.

In terms of blogging for money. It is HARD freaking work and income doesn't happen overnight. Many ad networks won't even accept you unless your pageviews are over 50K/mo, and several more won't accept you until your pageviews are over 100K/mo. Google Adwords and Amazon don't usually yield a whole heck of a lot of income. (I think I've made like $100 from Amazon all year!) CPM ads are really where the money is and direct advertising too. Of course, it'll be hard to get a direct advertiser until you have the traffic to back it up, you know?

I'd caution you first to build up a very, very solid readership and really begin to leverage social media before you put up blog ads. Will add more later.

[lisarussell]

Originally Posted by snowbunny

I'd caution you first to build up a very, very solid readership and really begin to leverage social media before you put up blog ads. Will add more later.

Or, find a great niche and SEO the heck out of it. My biggest earner started off with a bang, $500 in the first 3 weeks and earnings increase every month. I add content 3-4x a month and I have my titles planned out for the next several months for SEO. It has maybe ten subscribers and gets about 300 hits a day and the top CPC ad is less than $5. I'm running adwords, chitika and infolinks. The site isn't a personal blog (though I do tell first-person stories sometimes) and I have several amazon astores on the site. I don't pay to advertise, but I have placed links in ehow articles, about 3 free ezine articles and I auto-tweet the rss feed. I don't leave social comments to promote or build incoming links, in fact, I don't think there are any incoming links. PR is 3/10.

For some blogs, you need to build a steady readership. Not with SEO and niche blogging, though.