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One of the easiest and most cost effective ways to begin your very own online business, or home based business is by starting a blog.

There are a number of reasons you should start out with a blog is that you can actually setup a blog for free, through hosted blog solutions such as:

The only reason you would use a free hosted blog solution is if you are dead set on starting your online business for zero cost.

The downfall of a free blog service is that they only allow you to set your blog up on a subdomain of their domain - eg webmoneyblog.blogger.com

In my humble opinion if you’re serious about starting a blog you need to at least have your own domain name (especially if you’re blog is a personal blog - to assist with building your personal brand).

Here is my  7 Step Checklist for Starting A Blog:

1. Understand Your Why

There are many different reasons for starting a blog:

  • To write as an outlet for something you’re passionate about
  • To keep family and friends updated with your life/travels/happenings/thoughts
  • To educate others about a particular topic
  • A make money blog
  • To drive traffic to your primary website
  • To build your personal brand

I’m sure there are others, but that’s a good general overview of why most people start blogging.  I am a very purpose driven person, so I like to understand that my activities have direct purpose to them.  Its good to have it clear in your mind the purpose for your new blog before you start writing it.

2. Choose Your Domain Name

A good activity to undertake in choosing the right domain name for your new blog, if you choose to set up a blog which allows you to have your own domain name (like with Bloggerama), is to do some keyword research within your chosen topic or niche (which you will have determined in step 1).

Using a free keyword research tool such as Google Keyword Tool you will be able to research high traffic keywords and select a domain name which will assist with building your organic search traffic.

Obviously if you are blogging for personal branding reasons I definately recommend that you register a domain name which is directly related to your own name (eg darrenrowse.com).

3. Get A Basic Blog Set Up

As previously mentioned I’m not a fan of the free blog sites, as they dont allow you to customise the setup of your blog and some dont allow you to install widgets and plugins which will help you drive traffic and make money.

For this reason I think services like Bloggerama.net are great for newbie bloggers who are starting a blog, as they provide a One-Stop-Shop for blog setup, hosting, and email and they understand the make money blogging industry and will set you up with templates, widgets and plugins to assist with monetization and promotion of your new blog.

4. Start Writing

There’s nothing worse than going to a blog or a website to find just one page or post of content.  So before you start promoting this brand spanking new blog of yours, make sure you get some content in there.  Create some categories for your posts and put one or two posts in each category.

Make sure you create an ‘About’ page, so the reader can learn about the author of this new blog, and also a contact page so you can interact with your readers.

If you dont have a lot of time to write all of the posts yourself you can also use Article Directory sites such as Ezine Articles to grab free content, but make sure you keep the footer and links which acknowledge the author of the articles.  This is probably not the best idea if you’re trying to present yourself as the expert, or build your own personal brand.

5. Commit to Writing Regularly

Early on I definately recommend posting a new post at least every day, this helps you build up a great collection of content for the search engines to start bringing you traffic.  It also helps you build your blogging habits, and in the beginning it can be hard fitting it in to write everyday but in the long run it will pay off.

6. Promote, Network and Converse

Now that your new blog is up and running and you have some awesome content get it out there!

If you’ve had your blog set up with some good promotional plugins, you will already be promoting it through your social media networks such as twitter, digg, del.icio.us etc, and also building up your RSS subscribers who will receive your blog posts daily via their RSS feeds or email.

Also get out there and post comments on other blogs which are relevant to your blog topic or niche.  Remember your manners and dont start spamming, make intelligent conversation and comments, but always remember to add the link to your blog, building your back links and also it will help you pick up traffic.

7. Rinse and Repeat!

You need to continue through the last few steps at least… continue to write valuable content and promote, network and converse.

However if you are in the business of making money online, and you can rinse and repeat from step one, not with just one make money blog but as many blogs as you can find profitable niches.

In doing this, be careful not to stretch yourself too far, like the art of spinning plates, we all get to a point where if we add one more plate, they’ll all end up falling in a heap.  So just pace yourself and make sure you put good time into writing good content and promoting your blog to build traffic.

If you cant tell, this is something I’m passionate about… so get to it!

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Lets Make Money!

Nathan Hulls
Internet Marketing Expert and Intrepreneur

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