What You Need to Begin a Blog
Many people ask what you need to get started in order to make a profitable blog. The answer is nothing, provided that your only goal is to spend no money at all. Now, if you want higher returns and if you’ve the money to spend, the answer to “what you need to get started” might several hundred dollars to invest in tools that could make your climb to the top faster and smoother.
One of the most important things you will need to get started is some form of keyword research tool or database. Currently, there are dozens of these products on the market, which range in price from free to around $500. The most popular tool on the market is probably WordTracker, which offers a limited trial version for free-or a fully-functional version for $7.50/day or $45/mo. This will grant you to find out which keywords are most profitable and have a reasonable demand (aggregate search)/supply (aggregate site) rating.
Other than a keyphrase tool, the answers to the “what you need to get started” question will usually depend on the project. For instance, if you’re hosting a blog and you want to monetize it with Adsense, you may want to add a thumnail generator to your “what you need to get started” list. A thumnail generator will create code that, when inserted in your blog, will generate scraped-thumnail pictures from related searches on Google images-and will place them next to your contextual ads, increasing the click-thru rate.
In contrast, if you’re planning to sell your own products, you may want to add an autoresponder to your “what you need to get started” list. An autoresponder will allow you to greatly improve your conversion rate by allow you to put all follow-up emails on autopilot, rather than doing them personally or strictly using your salespage.
So what exactly do you need to to get started? Nothing. You can create a profitable blog without paying a cent, but if you want to take advantage of automating tools to further improve your profitability and efficiency, you’ll have to purchase at least a few tools.
Submitting your blog to RSS & blog directories is considerably easier than submitting fully-functional sites to website directories. This is because there are free, automatic systems in place that allow you to submit an updated version of your blog to...
Submitting Your Blog to RSS & Blog DirectoriesSubmitting your blog to RSS & blog directories is considerably easier than submitting fully-functional sites to website directories. This is because there are free, automatic systems in place that allow you to submit an updated version of your blog to...
The Good, The Blog & The Ugly: Make Your Business Blog a SuccessBlogging started off as a fun way to share about yourself and showcase your personal passions. Now it is becoming more common to use blogs as tool in business to further your marketing or public relations strategy. There are ways...
Blog For Money – Get Paid To BlogBlogging for money is a great way to generate revenue online. With decent writing skills you could get paid to blog after you learn how to set up a blog and generate traffic to your site. You may be able...
The Importance of Updating Your Blog OftenWhat is the importance of updating your blog often? Some might see no value in it; and might instead create multiple blogs, each of which they attend to for only minutes each week. Other blog owners see the importance of...