Make Money From Blogging: Get Off To A Great Start

Make Money From Blogging:  Get Off To A Great Start

When I help people get their first blog up and running, I always sense a feeling that they are stressed out about all the new things they need to learn and do.  I always tell them how much easier a blog is compared to even the most simple HTML coded page.  I have found that I can help reduce the stress on my clients when I give them a very simple start up checklist to accomplish.  Here are my best thoughts on how to get your blog up and running in the most pain free, effective way I know.  Here you go:

1.  Get A Quick Setup With Fantastico —  If you do not have your hosting yet, make sure you get the Fantastico feature as part of your cPanel.  I view this as a “must have” feature for new bloggers.  You can get a bare bones blog up and running in 10 minutes with Fantastico.  It is a great time saver and will allow you to get a blog up correctly in a hurry.

2.  Use A Simple Theme —  A great thing about using a WordPress blog is you can make changes to it and improve it over time.  You can do this without major rework and effort.  Therefore, I strongly recommend that you get your first blog up and running with the basic theme that is provided with your WordPress setup.  It may not look beautiful, but it gets your blog up and running.  At this point in time, that is the most important factor for you.  People will learn to enjoy your blog for the information provided on it much more than how it looks.

3.  Limit Your Plugin Usage —  There are thousands of “plug ins” you can use to add functionality to your blog.  Many of them are great tools.  Very few of them are essential for your success.  I would recommend using a Google XML site map and Platinum SEO as start up plug ins.  As I mentioned earlier, you can always add plug ins to your blog down the road.  You can easily get bogged down in selecting and using too many plug ins.  I recommend keeping it real simple at the beginning.

4.  Set Up Basic Navigation On Day 1 —  I can not emphasize strongly enough the need to make your blog easy to understand and navigate.  You want to have your main pages set up day one.  These are the Contact Us, Earnings Disclaimer, Terms of Use, and Privacy Policy.  These pages will help you stay in the good graces of Google, so you should get them up right away.  You also need to select your categories and get a post up in each of them as soon as you can.  This will start to build out your navigation, and you can test out how your blog will look to new visitors.

5.  Get A Post Up Right Away —  You want to make sure you get the “Hello World” post replaced immediately.  You  do not want your blog up live with that standard post in place.  It tells the world that your blog is not fully set up.  Take the time to replace this post with a welcome post as soon as your blog is up and running.  It is a good habit to get into.  Once your blog is alive, the search engines will start to come and visit.  You want to have a “real post” there from the very beginning of your blog’s life.

6.  Make Sure You Post At Least Weekly —  Your blogging and your income are going nowhere unless you get posts up on it.  You need to post at least once a week to get things rolling.  I highly recommend more often than once a week, but it is the minimum you can get away with.  Now that you know how to post, start getting your best quality content ready to share with your readers.  This is where the rubber meets the road in blogging, and getting content up is now your number one priority.

As you can see, getting a blog up and functioning is really not that difficult.  The first time is always going to be the hardest… so just go for it!  Once you have your first blog up and running, you will be in a position to start making money from blogging.

Tagged as: how to start a blog, make money blogging, make money from blogging, make money with blogging