Category: Blogging

By Donna Knight

If you are a beginner at blogging, the easiest way to get started in blogging is to use free blogging services.  Popular blogging web sites like Blogger.com ( http://www.blogger.com ) and TypePad ( http://www.typepad.com ) allow people the convenience of setting up and hosting a blog without paying monthly fees. This allows you to get started with a blog with all the easy-to-use tools you need. The fact that it’s so easy to get started without having to learn HTML is why so many people who were never inclined to have a website now are avid bloggers. Blogging has truly brought web publishing to the masses.

By signing up with a free blogging web site, you may find it easier to get listed in search engines than you would if you had to install your own blog from scratch. You don’t have to know how to register a domain, find a host or install a blog script. If you can write, you can blog. Because Google owns its’ own free blog hosting site, Blogger.com, it also crawls its’ own pages frequently for updates. If you have a Blogger blog, you’re almost guaranteed to be listed in Google’s blog search engine. This easy listing in search engines can take some of the work out of promoting your blog, and can help you gain more visitors with less marketing effort.

If your blog attracts a lot of visitors, that is when you might want to consider hosting your blog on your own website. Just like with free hosting, free blog hosting can give an unprofessional appearance to your visitors. But the fact is there are successful businesses who use blogspot because they would rather concentrate on running their business and marketing their website than hosting their own blog. In many cases, it doesn’t seem to damage their reputation at all.

Having your own domain helps give you a professional appearance. It may be scary to register a domain and find hosting if you’ve never done it before, but it is not rocket science. You can register a domain for a yearly fee of under $10. You can find decent hosting also for less than $10 per month.

One benefit of having your blog on your own domain is that you can sell advertising space to cover the cost of the hosting and make a profit. However, it may not make sense to invest in these luxuries until you have enough traffic to your blog to generate revenue.

Some people might worry that if they switch their blog to their own web site, they might lose visitors. If you build up enough of a following, people will follow you to your new domain. Also, you can do a lot more with a blog on your own domain than you can on a free blog host. You can add other traffic building and money generating features to your website or pay someone to add them for you. Likewise seperate blog scripts for a website are just as easy to post to as a free blog is, once it is set up. Getting someone to install the blog script for you can be relatively cheap if you hire someone from a site such as http://Scriptlance.com.

In the end, if you want to dip your toes in the blogging pool, there is nothing wrong with starting with a free blog site. That is how I got started, and despite the fact that I did virtually no promotion, and didn’t even have much on my blog yet, I did get traffic. Free blog hosts are very easy to use and can help you decide once and for all if blogging is for you. Sign up now. Go to http://blogger.com and get started today.

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Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 250 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com. Copyright (c) 2006 Donna Knight. Permission granted to reprint this article as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

By Donna Knight

Because there are so many blogs and web sites about blogs on the internet, it’s more important than ever before to make your blog stand out from all the others. Whether you are starting up a new web site that benefits bloggers or you’re trying to make your existing blog more unique, the key to building and maintaining a site that will capture the attention of a group of bloggers is to find a profitable niche. If you can fill a unique need in a way that no other blog does, you’ll receive a steady stream of visitors to your blog. Always remember, though, that finding a target market is only the first step.

Every great blogging web site starts with a great idea. You can’t build a site that will become successful without a firm foundation. There are already plenty of great sites aimed at today’s bloggers, and competition for the attention of this constantly increasing group is vicious. To make your blogging web site stand out from the rest, you will have to offer something completely unique  that can’t be easily imitated. An alternative is to mimic an already popular site but do something to make your site more valuable in some way.

One way to find the best model for your blogging site is to look at the sites that have already successfully captured an audience and them decide if you can use some of the same strategies to create your own site to draw a captivated audience. The site you are imitating does not have to be a blog. Because search engines seem to prefer blogs over traditional websites, you are better off finding a niche where there isn’t much blog-based competition. The important part is that you will have to add your own unique spin on it so that you will stand out from the competition.

In most cases, the sites that stand out the most on the internet today are those that have their own memorable personality. All kinds of web surfers from different backgrounds respond well to a site with a strong personality. The web is very impersonal so if you can add a face and a voice to your site, you will attract people who will keep coming back to read what you have to say.

Once you’ve decided on the right niche and have a brilliant idea for your blog, you then add your personality and determine how to get your site in front of an audience who might be interested in the subject of your blogging site.

The right target and a great idea alone won’t make your site successful. You need one last ingredient to guarantee your success. Like most businesses you need to develop a marketing plan in order to promote your site and get traffic from intersted viewers, who might then become buyers of whatever you’re selling.  Once you’ve sinked your teeth into avid bloggers, if you give them something good to chew on, they’ll keep coming back for more.

The great benefit of having a marketing plan that works for your blogging site, is that you can use this same plan to start another blogging site and drive it to success.

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Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 250 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com. Copyright (c) 2006 Donna Knight. Permission granted to reprint this article as long as the article and resource box remain intact.