Blogging on Blogging

I haven’t yet written anything about what your blog should be about.

This was deliberate on my part in that most people starting out will “know” what they want to write about. This is fine – it is how I started out.

However, if you are looking to make money from blogging, you will need to be very careful in picking the right niche.

There are lots of factors to take into account – interest, audience, competition, ability to monetarise and so on.

This will be my theme for all next week’s posts. Picking your niche blog!

One of the reasons why I will be concentrating on this so much is not just because of its importance. It is because that is the process I will be going through in picking my niche blog – the one that I will be making my million from! So get your thinking caps on over the weekend, and let’s work together to find out what I / we should write about that will make us money online!

Tags: Blog Audience, Blog Competition, Make Money from Blogging, Make Money Online, Million Pound Blog, Monetarising a Blog, Niche Blog, Picking a Niche

As a web designer I always want to know the statistics on any website’s use.

How did visitors find the website?

What are the looking at?

How long do they stay on the website?

And so on…

There are a hundred and one uses for any or all of this information.

There are also numerous web statistics programs, websites and add-ons. I will write about some of these at a later stage – but for now; setting up your new blog, I recommend putting Google Analytics  onto your website.

Visit the Google Analytics website. You will need to register and give details of your website. Google will then give you a piece of code that you need to put into your website.

In the folder wp-content/themes/whatever-theme-you-have you will usually find a file called footer.php . Open this file, scroll down until you find the end of body tag. Just before this copy and paste the code Google gave you. Save and upload the file and you are away!

Google will update your stats daily and give you more than enough information to start tracking how well your website is doing!

Tags: Footer, Google, Google Analytics, Web Designer, Web Statistics, Web Stats, Website Statistics, Website Tracking

Here are my steps to setting up a new blog.

(I use Wordpress, but there are several other very good blogging platforms out there.)

Buy a Domain Name.
I use RddR Web Design & Hosting, but there are lots of other providers out there. Don’t pay over £10 for a .co.uk domain name, and double-check the price doesn’t increase at renewal time.

Get some Web Hosting
Again I use RddR but there are even more web hosting companies out there than domain providers. Lots of things to be careful of, if in doubt look for a more reputable alternative!

Install Wordpress
Many web hosting companies provide very simple one-click installation of Wordpress and other blogging platforms on their servers. This saves having to download and upload the package in the first instance.

Start Writing!
The important thing about blogging is to get into the routine of writing right from the start. You can change the appearance, add adverts and affiliate links and everything else at any point – but unless the content is there, you are wasting your time. Get writing straight away!

I will obviously expand upon each of these over the next week or two, but let’s be clear about this – starting blogging is not hard. You can do it all for free if you wish – but for the sake of £20, you can start out professionally and be well on your way to a blogging income.

Tags: .co.uk Domain, Blogging Income, Blogging Platforms, Buying Domain Names, RddR Web Design & Hosting, Routine of Writing, Web Hosting, Wordpress, Wordpress Installation

I am an avid reader. I never have less than two or three books on the go at any one time, and generally have a stack of to be read books alongside my bed.

This journey started with a book.

I started reading ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett. I already ran several websites, although mainly for friends or groups I belonged to. (As an aside I teach IT for the local authority – Web Design using Dreamweaver, Search Engine Optimisation and Facebook courses)

I decided at that point that this is how I wanted to earn my money! No more work for me, just writing about the things I love and interest me – whenever I wanted.

And then I promptly did nothing about it…

Then six months ago I started writing a small website on Vulnerable Missing Person Search and Rescue in the UK. It started out mainly as a place to put presentations and documents that I had produced online for all to share. (Another aside here; I am an Independent Search Consultant and volunteer instructor in vulnerable missing person search and rescue in the UK.)

But it slowly grew into what I would consider to be a “real” blog. Not only that but it showed it’s potential to earn money. However, vulnerable missing person search is a very small specialised field – with not much in the way of a commercial market (or chances to make a substantial income!) That is not to say it isn’t or hasn’t been worthwhile. The website has greatly enhanced my “image” in the field.

It has also given me a chance to practise my blogging skills, put in place some useful working practices and generally prepared me for my next splash into blogging – turning myself into a professional blogger.

This blog is the record of that journey – outlining what I have learnt, what I will learn and so on. This is not intended to be the main money making blog – rather an instruction manual for others in my position and a record of what happens.

If you are in the same position; starting out blogging, or maybe you have a blog already and are now looking at how you can make money from it; I’d love to hear from you…

Tags: Blogging Skills, Blogging Your Way to a Six Figure Income, Chris Garrett, Darren Rowse, Dreamweaver, Facebook, Money Making Blog, ProBlogger, Professional Blogger, Search Engine Optimisation, Web Design

Like a story, sometimes it is difficult to pinpoint the start of a journey – especially when that journey is one of self-discovery, self mastery, learning a new skill or starting a new business. The journey seems to start a long time before the first fews steps are taken.

Sometimes it starts small; a tidy grain of an idea rattling around, slowly gathering pace, gathering mass until it becomes large enough to be noticed and taken seriously. Sometimes the idea just arrives, full, rounded and waiting to be acted upon.

This is the story of a journey that began several years ago. You, the reader join the journey part way after it has started – but nowhere near the end!

This is the story of a journey in blogging. More specifically it is a journey towards professional blogging; to finally getting rid of the day job, to managers and an inflexible working day. It is about my attempt to make money online through blogging.

Is it a success story? Only time will tell…

Why not come along for the ride?

Tags: Blogging, Learning, Making Money from Blogging, Making Money Online, New Business, Professional Blogging, Self Discovery, Self Mastery