Personal Blog Income

Its time for the next step setting up your blog, choosing a theme and its important for a number of reasons that include that its the first impression and that your theme choice can influence how your site is seen by search engines.

I will be honest when i say that i am not an expert on themes which is why I am going to refer you to a post by Meg on Blogpond Top 5 Steps for Choosing a Blog Theme where she breaks down finding a theme into 5 steps:

1. Researching - understand what makes a good blog template
2. Define your Requirements - including code structure, validates, emphasises post title and blog name
3. Investigation - finding the right theme from the multitude on offer
4. Testing/Validating - When you find that theme
5. Installation, Customisation and Follow Up

I thin its great and i have already found some errors in this theme that i will need to fix in the near future!

Next i am going to talk about a trap for new bloggers with their blog.

In the initial posts of this blog I am going to talk about how to set up your blog which includes everything you will need to get your blog set up and ready to start earning money. You may be past some of the steps I cover in setting up a blog but hopefully you can still learning something.

The first step to successful personal blogging is to pick a name. It’s a task that can be fun as you think of possibilities or daunting. If you want to make money from your blog then you should seriously consider getting your own domain name rather than relying on a URL supplied by your hosting provider and there are many advantages of having your own domain name even if you are a personal blogger.

Why Should I have my own domain name?

There are numerous reasons that having your own domain name can be desirable if you aspire to making money through your blog which can include:

· Many advertisers either prefer not to or do not advertise on blogs lacking a domain name. If they do then it’s generally lower quality advertising

· It’s easier to create your own unique brand or personality for your blog

· Usually comes with email addresses with the same domain

· It can also enhance your Search Engine Rankings

· It can be easier for your visitors to remember if they ever want to come back and didn’t bookmark your site.

There are numerous other reasons but those are some of the key reasons.

What should you consider when choosing a Domain Name?

There are a lot of different schools of thought about what you should consider when choosing a domain name and while most of them relate more to professional blogging they can never the less impact on your choice of domain name. Some of the issues to consider include:

· What Dot? There are a lot of different opinions over what extension (.com, .net, .org, .com.au) known as the top level domain. The general argument goes that .com names are best and that .net and .org are also good.

· Country Codes – If your blog is likely to have a focus on local issues then you might want to consider a country code which can benefit you by identifying you with the local audience and also help you get indexed quicker in the local search engines.

· Length – like everything so far there are differing opinions as how long that you should make your domain name. Common opinion sides with shorter names are better because they are easier to remember and leave less room for typing mistakes. I also find that they look better.

· Legal Issues – avoid picking names that include trademarks of companies or products. There have been situations where bloggers have had the threat of legal action force them to different domain names

· Regional Spelling – another trap to fall into is if you want a global audience is using a regional spelling in the domain name. Examples of this can include colour and color, center and centre and the list can go on. If you do have your heart set on a particular name then you might want to consider multiple domains that I will discuss later

· Avoid a name that is going to offend. It might get you more attention but in the end it’s not the attention you want. It’s possible it may also harm your ability to have your blog accepted for advertising networks and for advertisers to advertise with you

A note about country specific domains.

You will find that a lot of country code domains have legal issues associated with them. For example .com.au requires the person registering the domain to have an ABN or ACN. Similarly .us requires the person registering to be a citizen or resident of the USA.

Multiple Domains

A lot of experienced bloggers and webmasters including myself recommend that you secure other similar domain names to the one that you choose which can have some benefits:

· Keeps potential competition from registering a similar domain name that draws your customers

· You can use a different extension to promote a different theme or target

· You catch the people using the wrong extension when typing your name in (like .net for your .com name)

· Capture common misspellings of your domain name (like colour and color that I mentioned above)

I am a big believer in multiple domains where I can. While this domain operates as personalblogincome.com.au it also operates under most of the common extensions. So if you type in personalblogincome.net, personalblogincome.org, personalblogincome.info, personalblogincome.biz, personalblogincomes.com or personal-blog-income.com then you will still arrive at this website. I did this to catch the stray visitors and also recently I had a domain squatter that jumped on a similar domain and was trying to produce similar content.

What about the cost of domain names?

Amongst a lot of people there is a school of thought that domain names cost a lot of money which I guess relates to the early days of the internet when they did. These days you can pick up domain names for anything from USD$1.99 to USD$8.95. Anything more than that and they are overcharging you. For .com.au domains you are looking at around AU$19.00 a year

What about webhosts offering a free domain name with every package?

While it could be that you might be getting a good deal I strongly encourage you to avoid this kind of deal. I have heard many reports of web hosting companies holding domain names to ransom when the customer tries to leave and go to a different web hosting company. My advice is to register your domain name at a recognised registrar like godaddy and then if you need to change web hosts then there are not going to be any issues.

Preowned Domains – a good deal or trouble?

These days on the internet there is s a thriving market for preowned domain names. These are generally a domain name that the owner no longer wants for any number of reasons and it is true that you can pick up a bargain. But there can also be problems. Spammers in particular often buy up domain names and once they have got them banned everywhere then they dump them which means unsuspecting buyers can come along and buy the domain only to discover that it’s been banned in Google and other places for spamming.

In summary these are some suggestions in buying your domain name. There are no hard and fast rules so at the end of the day if you like it and want it, then go for it.

Feel free to add your own tips and suggestions in the comments below

So you have taken the plunge and decided that you want to host your blog or website on your own domain. Good for you, it’s going to allow you a lot more freedom and you can truly establish your own identity.

With any new venture there are always risks and finding good web hosting is no exception. There are good hosts and then there are the rest which can be bad to worse to downright terrible. With this in mind I have created 14 tips for helping to find a good webhost and avoiding the bad ones and also a couple of recommendations:

1. Always shop around for the best deal and features in a webhost. It is largely a buyer’s market and there may be a better deal around the next corner
2. Always try and find out what existing users are saying about their webhosting company in their user forums (if they have them) and by doing searches in your preferred search engine which may highlight problems or issues the company doesn’t want you to know about
3. Never trust ratings or recommendations from so called hosting review sites. Most are little more than paid advertising by the relevant companies with the best reviews and rankings going to the highest bidder, not the best host like they claim to be.
4. Always select a hosting plan that matches your level of expertise. Especially for beginners setting up applications on their site including blogs can be a battle. Many webhosts offer simplified or one button set up of common applications that can include WordPress, PHP Nuke and mailing lists
5. Most companies offer some form of demo facility for their accounts. Give the demo a good work out and make sure it does what YOU want it to and offers the features that you want it to.
6. Never sign up for a long term commitment to webhosting. While you can save money that way, you can also get burned by web hosting that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. While it might cost more, payment by the month can save you money in the long run and gives you flexibility that you may wish to utilise in the future.
7. Establish what level of support the hosting company offers and also if there is any additional cost for using support. I have encountered a few hosting providers who cut corners on cost by charging when something goes wrong. In most cases doing searches it seems like things went wrong more often on those providers.
8. After you have established what support they have, test it. If they have a number to call see if they answer it as its surprising how many 24 hour support numbers never get answered out of hours.
9. Take a look at what the web hosting company offers. I’ve encountered web hosting companies who state amongst other services that they offer professional web design services, yet when you look at their website there are broken links and it looks like it was slapped together in 10 minutes in FrontPage.
10. Some webhosting companies offer a free domain name with their accounts. Be very careful and establish who actually owns the domains as in the past people have utilised “their” free domain and made it a success only to find unscrupulous webhosts misappropriating the domain name. Whoever is the technical contact has control of the domain. It is far safer to buy a domain name at a domain name registrar and point it at the domain name servers (DNS) of your chosen host.
11. Always trust your instincts. If the offer is too good to true then usually it is. Offers of unlimited space or bandwidth usually prove to be anything but when it gets down to trying to make use of the promised capacity.
12. Ensure that should you need to, it’s an easy process to upgrade your account quickly and easily.
13. Don’t feel constrained to shop for webhosting only in your country. If you go international then you may save big money as the internet knows no borders
14. And finally, if your webhosting company is failing to deliver on what you require, never be afraid to move along. It is after all a buyer’s market

I am sure there are many more tips the voice of experience out there could add but it’s a good start. As promised I said I would also include some recommendations.

For the record I use Hostgator on a shared hosting plan. They serve my needs and for that i pay $9.95 a month for 5gb of space and 75gb of traffic. Also i can host unlimited domains on my site (at last count 31!). And the best part, for a relatively inexperienced user like myself they have the cpanel control panel that allows for the easy management of my account without having to get into the hard stuff. Their support in the rare times that i have required it has been first rate every time.

Bluehost is a company i have heard some good things about. I used to be with one of the companies that now make up BlueHost and it was some of the best hosting i have had. Like Hostgator they use easy to use software which means installing blog platforms like WordPress is easy.

There are many other great webhosts out there so give me a shout if you know a good one.

I will started out by saying I am not actually going to tell you which blog platform is best because at the end of the day it is all about personal opinion. There are some great platforms out there and while it would take something pretty special to ever move me away from WordPress, you may find things in different packages that is what you want. After all it is your own blog and you should be making it your own. So saying I will be writing most of my posts primarily with WordPress in mind

What I will say is if you are interested in maximising your income from your blog then you are going to make a lot more money using a hosted blog with your own domain name. I will be talking specifically about domain names on wednesday in a lot more detail.

Considerations before deciding on a blog platform

Before you do decide on a blog platform there are some considerations that you need to take into account with your choice:

· What is your budget? It’s a thorny question I know – it can cost a little to a lot setting up a blog. Its my experience that my blogs break even by about 60 days after being started on average and by 120 days they have paid for themselves for year. That’s using WordPress which is free. If you use a paid platform or buy a custom template then that figure is going to blow out

· Design – every platform comes with predesigned platforms plus you may be able to download additional designs for free. However if you want to have that individual look then you can pay big dollars for a custom design. My advice is work up to a custom design somewhere down the track.

· What is available for your platform? Depending on the platform that you choose there are tools available that you can add to do everything from statistics to running an email service.

· How technologically skilled are you? Its another aspect that I will cover to an extend on my web hosting post in that some web hosting packages are more user friendly that others. Depending on your skills there are some platforms that are more suited to your needs until you learn the basics or find someone that can help you out. Most platforms have a strong community knowledge base that you can search to find the answers that you need

· What is everyone else using? Another thing that you might want to do before you pick a platform is have a look at what everyone else is using. It will allow you to get an idea of what it can do and whether it can do what you want it to.

Stand Alone Blog Platforms

This is where the platform is hosted under your own webhosting and with your own web address which comes with its own advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:

· While you might be paying for the webhosting, the platform can often be free with many of the popular platforms being open source.

· You have your own domain name, identity or brand to truly make your own.

· Full Control – you have a lot more control over what you can do with the blog including content and advertising within the limitations of your hosting contract.

· Flexibility – WordPress in particular has a lot of plugins which can extend the functions of of the basic version of the blog and many are available for free. There is similar work done with many other plugins also.

Disadvantages

· Cost – as I mentioned in budget above it does cost more to have your own stand alone platform but if you are planning on making some money then it can pay for itself quickly.

· Complicated Set up – setting up your blog can be complicated depending both on your technical abilities and your webhost . The technical side of things is definitely not my strong point and I use webhosting that has an easy to use interface. To set up a blog for me is easy, I just enter some details and a couple of buttons later its done. Its something that I am going to touch on more with tips to finding a good web host.

· Web hosts brings me to another disadvantage. You blog is at the whims of the hosting company you are with. While some are fantastic, there are others who are far from great. I will be providing tips as to how to find a good one.

· Updates . Like all platforms they go through different versions and depending on your webhost it can be complicated to update them. Again it depends on your webhost, two buttons and my blog is updated.

Hosted vs Stand Alone Blog Platforms

You do have the option to use either a hosted blog platform (one hosted by others), it is kept on their own domain. Hosted domains have a number of advantages and disadvantages that you need to consider

Hosted Blog Platforms

Advantages:

· Easy Set Up

· Cheap or even free to run

· Generally they are designed to be simple to use

· Normally Easy to Set up unless you want to tweak things

· Updated automatically – if the blog platform is updated to a new version then that is done automatically for you.

Disadvantages

· As mentioned your opportunities to get revenue from your blog may be reduced and some programs may exclude you from taking part

· Less Control – a lot of bloggers like to have control over their blog and they are at the mercy of their platform when there are content restrictions or downtime

· Upgrading later can be tricky. Meg on Blogpond recently moved her blog from Wordpress.com to a Self Hosted Domain which caused some frustration and serves as an example of what can happen.

· Generic Web address – it can be frustrating to be trying to build your own identity and be tagged with being just another one in the crowd.

Combination of the two

Some hosted applications have the option to post to your own domain, most notably blogger. This does have the advantage of being able to have your own domain name with all its advantages while reducing the amount of technical knowledge required to blog. It still however has many of the disadvantages of hosted domains.

Weighing up the options

I know so far there has been some food for thought and its complicated. My advice is if you want a blog that you can post to as a strictly personal blog then probably a hosted blog is the answer for you. Alternatively if you are seeking a chance to make some money then you should consider a self hosted platform.