Blogging for a second income - does anyone else here do this?

musashi10

HI, I have a business idea for a website, so I guess not too disimilar to a blog. But I have no knowledge of computers, start up costs how to maintain etc.

It's going to be a hobby and I'm hoping that one day it can expand into a business making a second living as there are a few potential revenue streams.

But how do I get started on this?

What are the approximate set up and maintenance costs for a website and ads and stuff?

How do you market a website?

Any help would be great.

quinechinoise

musashi10 wrote: »

What are the approximate set up and maintenance costs for a website and ads and stuff?

Set up costs can be zero, if you go for a simple blog hosted by a free service e.g. Blogger.com or Wordpress.com.

A domain name can be as little as a few pounds per year. A .co.uk domain will be around £5 per year, depending on where you shop.

Hosting can be up to a few pounds per month. Lots of hosting providers, so shop around. You don't have to use the same service provider for hosting as you do for your domain name - but you can.

Ads are something you put on your website for other people i.e. they are paying YOU to have the ads. However, you can also pay other people to put YOUR ads on THEIR websites. Which do you mean?

Stuff...? Free email account from Gmail? Set a free catch-all on any domain you buy? Download free FTP software? Pay someone to code your website? Hire a graphics designer? What stuff?

Marketing costs... How long is a piece of string? The usual free initial steps are to submit your site to a bunch of search engines, stick your URL wherever you can (e.g. email signature, forums), tell all your friends, etc. The social networks (e.g. Facebook) can be good for marketing. You can also pay people to advertise your site, directly or via a program such as Google Adsense. Heck, you could write your URL on a t-shirt and walk around town. It's impossible to price up all the things you might dream up! But good luck with it all.

musashi10

Thx. But how much to make the website (not blog) do you think?

quinechinoise

musashi10 wrote: »

Thx. But how much to make the website (not blog) do you think?

Really, it depends on what you want to do. If you code it yourself, then the cost will be zero for the coding/design. There are free webhosts out there but otherwise it'll be a modest amount for the hosting and/or domain. If you don't have a budget, you really can do it all yourself for nothing or next to nothing. You can even get royalty-free images for use on websites, if you don't want to pay for graphic design.

If you have deep pockets, then you can hire a web designer - I'd be surprised if you can't get a basic one page type site designed for around 100 quid or less. If you want something complex - database driven custom CMS, etc - then you'll want to agree some package deal or at least an estimate of hours worked. Some websites run into the thousands.

If you have aspirations but limited budget... Your options might include buying a website template and customising it yourself, using whatever website design tools your webhost provides, taking a chance on a cheap freelancer (e.g. via Fiverr.com), etc.

It's really very difficult to pin down costs for you. Asking how much it costs to design and run a website is like asking how much it costs to buy and run a car. There is always cheap versus expensive.

daz501

quinechinoise wrote: »

I like it! The blog is bright and clean and easy to read.

Keep it clean, keep 'em keen!

quatrofromageo

How is everyone making money through their blog?
What's the best source of income?

I was doing well from an affiliate scheme, but that sort of dried up.
Now AdSense seems to be the best because it can convert people globally, not just in the UK/EU like the affiliate scheme.

jamesflood

I'm not being 'searched' yet. All my visitors so ar are coming from here and forums where my signatures are.

Anyone got any SEO advice, coz I'm crap at it lol

quatrofromageo

jamesflood wrote: »

I'm not being 'searched' yet. All my visitors so ar are coming from here and forums where my signatures are.

Anyone got any SEO advice, coz I'm crap at it lol

Sure thing :beer:

First, have you allowed your blog to be crawled by search engines?

Also what platform are you on?

Do you know the basics about optimising your pages to rank in search engines?

Have you submitted your blog to blog directory sites like Technorati?

How many words are your blog posts in length?

How often do you post?

Are you on other blog's Blog Rolls?

That's just a few things off the top of my head.

quinechinoise

jamesflood wrote: »

Anyone got any SEO advice, coz I'm crap at it lol

My top 3 initial checks are:

Is your site loading correctly? (HTTP headers, etc)
Does your site load quickly? (minimise bloating, use caching, etc)
Can you find your site in a search engine? (Googlebot still luvs ya)

Assuming your site is in apple-pie order, you'll want to ensure you have a sitemap. And then... you'll want to do a ton of link-building. There is no fast and easy way to do that. You'll just have to join in the pain and suffering of the rest of us! lol

There's other stuff you can do but, frankly, nothing compares to backlinks.

quatrofromageo

quinechinoise wrote: »

There's other stuff you can do but, frankly, nothing compares to backlinks.

It's a shame, because your website can look like an absolute dog, but if it's got tons of links it will rank well. :mad: