Step By Step Guide To Build Your Blog The Cheapest Way

When starting a blog, many people don’t seem to understand the costs and what do they need to pay to get their blog running. People that have the money, they like to spend in anything that they could think of to make their blog at its best. People that don’t have the money cannot do this. They have to think carefully on what they should invest in.

I don’t encourage you buy everything to build your blog. You still can save money and still have your blog running. Don’t build a blog if you wake up today and thinking about blogging. Do a lot of research before you can start one. If you jump in the water with both feet, you will regret it later.

Before starting my blog including this free blogspot blog, I also do some research but it takes me too long to do so. It takes me about five years before I started to blog seriously. During those five years, I have many blogs but none still exist now. It was an experiment even though I regret shutting a few of them down.

You don’t have to get that far to start a blog. A few months are just enough. I had to ‘think’ for five years because of the costs. I was so scared that I will lose money if I invest on the wrong thing. I guest everyone who don’t have a fat paycheck also thinks like me but you are lucky that I share it here so you don’t have to wait a few years to start a blog.

Okay, on this post I want to share with you on how to build a blog the cheapest and effective way. If you are really a newbie and you don’t know anything about blogging, you can read my ideas below. Here is my step by step in starting a blog the cheapest way:

Step 1: Learn simple HTML

Blogging is like building a website from scratch. Even though you buy the template but you still have to learn a few HTML basics. You don’t have to be a pro but you have to know a few things. See this post as example. 

How learning HTML is going to save you money.

It does save you a lot of money. If you don’t know a thing or two about HTML, you will have to ask someone else to do it for you. Website designers are not cheap. You can check it out at Freelancer.com. I don’t know about you but I hate to waste money on something small like this. 

But there are also other choices. If you have any friends or family member that knows about HTML, you can ask them to help you. This also can save your burning pocket.

Step 2: Buy blogging books

Go to a book store near you or you can click the below image to buy from Amazon the books about blogging. I love reading and I also hope you love it too. Blogging is not about just writing, it’s about reading too. If you hate to read, you can’t blog. You have no point to start a blog.

How buying blogging books help you save money

When you ask successful blogger, they will advise you to have a mentor. A mentor can be someone you know or someone you pay to train you. This kind of people is not cheap. They charge you according to how many hours they train you. However, the results are the best. 

Like step no. 1, there is exception if you have friends and family member that can help you. One by one training creates the best result. Don’t feel so down if you can’t have a mentor. It’s not up to them that make you successful. It all depends on your own hard work. 

Step 3: Learn or buy a book about internet marketing

Internet marketing is the most important element in blogging. Even if you don’t plan to make money out of your blog, you will still have to market your blog. No one starts a blog with zero readers. This is why I love blogging. Blogging is a way for me to communicate with other people about the topic I love. 

Step 4: Do research for the topic that you want to blog

When I read other blogging gurus’ article about doing a research about the blog topic, it’s quite hard for me to understand why I have to do that. At first I thought blogging is about writing on a topic about what I like and that’s it. Then I realize that I need to have readers for my blog. That is why research is important.

By doing research for your blog topic, it is including topic searches and keywords. If you manage to keep up with both, you are in the right track. If there are nobody is searching for your topic, what’s the point to write about it? 

How doing topic research is going to save you money

It doesn’t save you money but it saves you a lot of time and energy. Don’t waste your time and energy to build a business that no one wants to know about or no interest in. 

Step 5: Learn about search engine optimization (SEO) and keywords

This part you can learn from the internet. I also have this topic in this blog. You can read about SEO here and keywords here. You will learn the basics but the important part is when your blog is already running. You will see how visitors come to your blog using search engines by looking at your blog analytics. 

How learning SEO and keywords are going to save you money

When your blog is up and running, you will see the visitors’ flow by looking at your Google Analytics. This can be a frustration for some people because it can take a lot of time to see your search result at the search engine. Some people will start to hire SEO experts to optimize their blog and you can guess it, it’s not cheap.

Step 6: Choosing a template

This is a tricky part for some people and also for me. My eyes are sparkling when I go shopping for my template. There are a lot of choices and also different price selection. Most of the place I check ask you to become its member and you have to pay monthly to use their template. 

It is okay if you are a professional in blogging but for newbie like us, I don’t recommend you to pay monthly for a template because you don’t know when you are going to need some extra cash. 

For newbie, I recommend you to buy your template from Themeforest. They sell their template ala’ carte style. You only pay for the template you buy only once and the template is yours forever. 

How is choosing the right template going to save you money

Need I to explain? I guess you already know by reading the paragraph above. Template also can be customized by website designers. If you don’t know yet, customized also means custom money. 

Step 7: Register you domain name and hosting account

I guess you can’t save a lot of money here. The price is almost the same. However, I give you these choices of well-known web hosting and domain company that you can register to. 

Webhosting:

Hostgator.com – write down ‘albertheywood9433’ at the coupon code to get 25% discount. Discount is usually 20%. This discount doesn’t apply to domain name registration.

Bluehost.com

Read More

It's 2014 and I don't Want To Live in Poverty

 

It is a bit late but I want to wish every reader of this blog a Happy New Year 2014. A lot of thing had happen during these few days in the new year but all about price and tax increment. But you have to remember that this does not affect your online business at all.

I came to my senses when I heard about all the bad news involving money. What I realize is, I don’t want to live in poverty. That is why I started blogging and blogging is the cheapest way to start a business. Don’t complain about expenses when you are doing nothing about it.

If you try any other physical business such as a flower shop, you need a lot of money to open one. I’m not interested in physical business because I don’t have that kind of money to spend and I can’t afford to loss that money. 

I am sticking to online business forever. The hardship of doing online business is the same as physical business but I enjoy going online because you don’t have to go out from your house to meet people especially your customers.

If you want something, you have to work for it. You can’t get anything for free these days. Sometimes it really saddens me to see people who complain a lot but don’t do anything. Get that lazy ass of yours and start doing something for yourself.

Blogging is like an ordinary business. Yes, it does start slowly. It takes me at least six months to see money rolling in for a few cents. You heard me right, a few cents. A brand new website really takes a long time to see some results. Don’t be discouraged. Stick to it and you will be rewarded. 

Find the right motivation for you to keep you going. For me, my motivation is money and success. Money is a second thing. Success is what everyone really wants. If you are not success, you can’t have money. When I see other people who are better than me, it will motivate me to keep going further. 

Don’t be jealous with other people and their success. Make it as a competition for you. You don’t know what they have been through to get to their status now. They have been in your shoes. What makes them success is their own hard work. If you stop now, you won’t make it like them. 

Conclusion

I won’t make this blog post very long because I know some people hate to read something that motivates them especially if it comes from a nobody like me. But the choice is in your hand. Next time if you see someone is better than you, don’t complain like a little girl.

Read More

Can't Preview Blog and Blog Post Using Wordpress

When I first started my new blog, I was surprised that WordPress has been changing a lot. Maybe because they wanted it to be user friendly and going with the flow of trends. I had to start slowly because there are some new features and the pluggins are also new.

The first thing that I wanted to do is to add the 'www' in front of my domain name so I change the setting of my blog and add the 'www'. After I done this, I can't seem to preview my blog and also my post. To tell you the truth, I felt like an idiot after doing this.

I don't know what's going on with the blog. I even contacted HostGator and the went to Bluthemes (my theme) forum to check what is the problem. I was suspecting the theme was faulty because it was cheap. Then I tried to change the theme with WordPress default theme but the problem was still occuring.

I surf around the net to find some solutions for these and I found a few methods. I tried them all until I find out that the problem was caused by adding the 'www'. After removing the 'www' my blog returns to normal. Such small matter can change the whole blog.

From what that I understand about the domain name, you got what you pay for. If you didn't put the 'www' when purchasing your domain name, you can't change it anymore. You can try to change it in WordPress instead but it will ruin your blog (can't be seen).

Read More

Done My Latest Blog

In these few days it is really tiring. I build my new blog from scratch. Its been a long time since I didn't touch Wordpress. It feels quite different and confusing. Even the menu have change a bit. Doing these things back is like learning the same thing all over again.

My hosting is Hostgator, which is my favorite hosting company. I tried to buy my domain name with Namecheap but they could not process my credit card. What even worse, they blocked my account for 24 hours. Its look like that they don't want my money LOL. That's ok, I give my money to Godaddy (type wow9433 for 35% discount. Applies for new purchase only).

It was going all well until I installed a theme from Themeforest called Bliss. I love that theme so much but it cause me headaches. Everything was fine except for the social icon and the menus. They never appear. The social icons won't appear in Firefox but it was ok with chrome. The menu was bad news. It never appear at all. Now I have to use the free Wordpress default theme. I hope I can settle this problem as soon as posible.

 TheBlog

My blog is called casually-asian.com. It is my personal blog and my passion. The blog is about casual fashion and lifestyle for Asian men. I already told you in my article that I am not an internet guru. This blog is my personal note. If you like what I write here, you can follow what I write.

The blog is still new. There is nothing to read there yet because I'm struggling with the technical issues which cost me a lot of my time for writing. I will update my latest blog post with the note that I've taken during tackling the technical issues.

Read More

When Article Writing Can Go Wrong

Don't be bored with the next sentence - "content is king". Some people are bored as hell when they hear the sentence again and again and again. If you have any personal mentor to your online business, they will also tell the same thing until you puke.

I've been writing a few stuff here about creating unique content and don't lie about it. People are so bored about writing article and they tend to 'cheat' doing it. Some people do write their own content and their own personal opinion but is it enough?

What can go wrong if you write your own style? I'm not suggesting that you write 'according to the book' with the right format because blogging is a different thing. Any writing style will do especially in your own tone and suits your personality.

What I'm trying to say here is unique article writing really can go wrong. I have seen a few blogs or persons have this problem. It was a sad thing because their content is nice but it failed. By the way, I'm talking about new blogs here.

Usually, it takes up to a maximum six months to get your blog to have readers or at least unique visitors. It also depends on how hard are you working on your blog. This is not including any sales, just readers and visitors. Sales can take longer.

So many questions rose from my head thinking what can go wrong with the articles. There are times when I thought that the blogs are in the wrong niche or unprofitable niche, bad title and bad keywords. But that is not it.

Unique and creativity is not enough. Think what people want to read. How can you solve their problem and what is your suggestions. Most important is get creative with the tone and pitch on your articles.

Imagine that blogging as your Facebook or Twitter. It is the same thing called socializing with people. Blogging doesn't meant that you write like in a news portal or a funeral. It means you are having conversations with your readers.

The reason why people visit your blog is because of you. You are the creator of the blog and you are the one who owns the idea and suggestion in the blog. Express your feelings in your blog so that the readers know how you feel when you are writing the article. Read the below example:

"Did you watch the new Superman movie? It is a great movie to watch"

and

"Did you watch the new Superman movie ? It was awesome and Superman finally wear his underwear beneath lol" 

Did you get what I meant by expressing your feelings? From both sentence above, which do you prefer to hear from your friend who watched the movie? As you can see, people love to hear opinions or suggestions but if your tone of writing is bad, it will chase away your readers.


Conclusion
Unique article can really go wrong. Don't expect anything you write is the best and different from others. No one is perfect but there also no formal writing style in blogging.

Even if you have crap products to sell, intonation is important. That is why you can see a lot of people being conned everyday on the internet. And if you have the best product in the market, it will be worthless if you can't sell them the right way.

Remember that feelings are important because readers are humans. You can be happy, excited, sad or any other feelings that you want to express. Mix these feelings in all your articles. Just don't whine about anything.
People hate cry babies. It shows that you are an unreliable source of information.

Read More

Blog Terms That You Should Write Down

These are the few things that you should remember and you should write it down on your note as future reference. It is the blog terms that everyone talk about when they are building their website or trying to make money online.

It is important to know these terms because any forum, social networking site or any blogging guru will use these terms. It is the basic to the internet world.

Browser - Software to browse the internet such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera.

Keyword - Words or keywords that you use on your blog to attract visitors

Search engine - The place where you search anything you request such as Google, Yahoo and Bing

Organic traffic - Traffic that visits a website through search engine

Direct traffic - Traffic that type your website url directly in the browser

Traffic/Visitor - Internet surfers. Bloggers will try their best to attract them. Traffic will become customers if they are interested in what they like in a website.

Bookmark - A website bookmarking using the browser. Visitors usually does this when they love your website.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization. Tweak keywords of a site to become search engine friendly.

RSS - Real Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary

PPC - Pay Per Click. An advertising medium usually associated with Google Adsense.

PPV - Pay Per View

PPT - Pay Per Text

CPC - Cost Per Click. The cost when you are using adsense for your advertising medium. It will be determine by how many clicks you will get and how much the keyword is worth. Some keywords are expensive and can be costly.

CPA - Cost Per Action. An advertising medium but used by bloggers to make money. Bloggers will drive traffic to a CPA website to fill a certain form. If the visitor fill the form, the blogger will be paid.

Read More

Why I Use Blogger Blog

True internet entrepreneurs will use paid hosting or will be advised to use paid hosting as their business platform online. This is because free web hosting platform does not belong to you. You only 'borrow' the platform from the company. In my case, I borrow it from Google.

Besides Blogger blog, there are many other free web hosting that you can use such as Wordpress, Tumblr, Hubpages, Squidoo Lens and 000webhost. If you love quick and easy blogging platform, just choose any that you like.

But by choosing these platform, don't expect to earn from it. You can still make a few cents from adsense but that's it. Don't expect to earn a few thousands and make a living with it. However, there are a few blogs succeed in using free web host but the case is really rare.

Now, why would I use Blogger blog if that is the case? The answer is really simple. This is not where I want to make money. This blog that you read is actually a note. This note is personal and I write down my experience or any technical stuff that I found online.

Even though this is a personal note but I share it with everyone who are interested with what I write. Maybe you can gain some knowledge from it. The best part of learning is teaching. By teaching, you actually learning.

One more thing, this blog was actually my assignment but I keep it as future reference. Everything that I learn, I write them here and some article are not published.

I'm also not an internet guru. I don't really teach people how to make money online. What I write about making money online here is taken from other blogs that I read. As you can see here, this is my own compilation. But I can assure you that there are no lies or crap that are published.

I Trust Other Blogger User

You can laugh all you want but I trust some other Blogger user. I can see that they are serious in blogging and they have good content. I don't know what are their excuse for using Blogger as a platform because I see that their blogs have quality content and should have paid for their hosting to make money.

Sometimes I steal their idea to create my own blog (such evil thought). But that is how blogging is all about. Its about sharing and helping readers with their problem.

Read More

Shocking Truth About Making Money Online

When talking about on how to make money online, I'm sure that everyone who are interested in this topic will come across hundreds of products online especially ebooks. Sounds familiar to you? Well, read on.

These products are claimed to be "the best" product by the seller. When you fall for the ads, you will eventually buy the ebook.

I don't know if anyone who reads this blog has done some homework about trying to make money online so I assume that everyone did. Top bloggers usually have "free gifts" on their blog and usually it is also an ebook. I downloaded a few of this ebooks and the ebook are mostly basics of blogging.

Blogging is the core of making serious money online. With a blog, internet entrepreneurs can promote, reach their customers, interact and they can do so much just by using a blog. That is why so many people are promoting making money online by encouraging their readers to build a blog.

Are you ready for the shocking truth? Do you know that the free versions of ebooks are as good as the paid ones? As shocking as it sounds buts it's the truth. You can get it for free! How cool is that?! You can get the same content on paid ebooks from free ebooks and vice versa.

How can this be? These products are hyped (most of it). It is some kind of white lies that the promoter told you to get their products sells like hot cakes. For the owner of the product, now you will know why your product is refund by buyers.

Blogging is only about building and owning a blog. The next step is bringing traffic. That's it! There are no shortcuts to it or shortcuts to make money. Everyone who is familiar with a blog knows that a blog will take from six months to years to be known.

But it is not a bad thing. If you are a first timer, you can buy these kinds of ebooks. Just don't go overboard with your budget. A cheapskate in building a business is worse. Sometime you need to invest a bit in learning your way up.

Conclusion
Don't get me wrong. I love ebooks. It gives me the information that I need to build my business. What I want everybody to understand here is you need to buy only the things that you need. I can't force you not to buy because it is your choice.

But if you buy a ton of stuff, you will suffer a symptom called information overload. You won't be able to start anything because there is too much information in your head. Then, you will blame the products that you bought saying it doesn't work.

Learn one step at a time until you reach the top. Remember that there is no shortcut.

Read More

How To Make Money With A Blog

How do bloggers make money? That is most want-to-be bloggers always ask. It seems that these people don't understand or not confident that blogging can make money. Well, basically blogging alone is not going to make some money. Bloggers have to monetize their blog to make some income.

Blogging is very popular in these days. There are millions of blogs online from around the world. Even well-established websites are starting to build their blog. That is because search engine love blogs and blogs contain keywords.

Here is a few examples on how to make money with a blog:

Image: Source

#1 PPC Advertising
PPC or Pay-Per-Click ads are the common method used by bloggers and the most popular is Google Adsense. There are other PPC ads that bloggers can put up on their blog like Nuffnang and Yahoo ads.

Bloggers make money when visitors click on those ads put up on their blog. How cool is that? But bloggers can't force anyone to click on ads. It must be on their free will. PPC advertising can be used by new anyone including new bloggers.

#2 Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is when bloggers sell someone else products and gain commision from it. The products can be physical or digital.

Affiliate marketing also can be used by anyone but the sell will be according to blog's traffic and how the blog can influence its readers.

#3 Paid Reviews
This is where the bloggers writing skills will be measured by cash! The famous paid review is by ReviewMe. The payments will be measured by traffic and writing skills. The higher the traffic, the higher the payment.

New blogs can't use this service. Blogs must be have good traffic and some subscribers. And most important, free domain like mine here is hard to be accepted. Bloggers must have paid domain name and some traffic to their blog.

#4 Ad Space Renting
If a blog have high traffic and quite a number of loyal subscribers, eventually, a few organizations will want to rent a space on the blog to advertise. However, bloggers also can ask for organizations if they are interested in renting a space in their blog.

This monetization method doesn't work with free domain name. Bloggers have to buy a domain name first to qualify.

#5 Blog Fliping
After getting tired with a blog, bloggers can sell it. Its called 'blog flipping'. Unused blogs can be advertised at Flippa.com to sell the blog. Blog price is according to the popularity of the blog and how much does the blog earn.

I don't recommend this style of monetization to bloggers with no IT skills. This method is best done by website developer or website designer. Its like buying an old house, repair it and sell with a higher price.

Read More

SEO Friendly Website

Everyone who owns a website or a blog wants their website to be SEO friendly. A website is considered the best if it has a good ranking on Google and their goal is to be rank #1. Almost all website owners thought that no one on the internet will turn to page 2 on Google. That is why a SEO friendly website is the best way to do this.

For those who don't know what SEO, it is an acronym of Search Engine Optimization. It is important for us to gain to the first page of Google but I don't think #1 rank is really that necessary. SEO friendly website means that your website can be easily found by search engines if a person type something related to your website. These things will increase organic traffic to your website.

Website owners usually buy one or a few SEO tools or software to get their desired effect to their website ranking. They buy these tools to save their time to get higher page rank and become SEO friendly. That is why some tools or software are expensive.

As we all know, it takes time (a lot of it) to make our website to be known on the internet. It will take at least a few months to more than a year to do this.

The main question here is, how do you really make your website SEO friendly? How do you do it? To answer this question, I have two things to say. I have bad news and really good news for you.

The bad news

SEO tools and software are expensive. I believe many people don't trust cheap SEO tools. The future of a website depends on these tools to make it well-known. People like you and me does not have that much money to buy these tools.

Plus, these tools are paid monthly to get the best results. We got other bills to pay. Logically thinking, we can't really compete with individuals or organizations that have big bucks to spend for their website. To make a SEO friendly website can be that terrifying.

The good news

You don't have to pay for expensive tools to make your website SEO friendly. In fact, you don't have to pay anything to do that. The trick on how to get your website SEO friendly is at the keyword used in your website.

Image: Source
The key is to write SEO friendly content

Keyword is a very important element in a website. That is why blogs rank better than a plain website. Blogs contain words. Now you know why blogging gurus out there talk so much about keyword density.

Search for good keywords with Google Keyword Tool for high demand keywords. But remember to search keywords that have anything to do with your website and not some other words that are not related. Use these keywords in your articles.        

If you keep up with this strategy, you will have a very SEO friendly website and will be ranked on page 1 in a matter of months. Of course this effect will take place if you are a determine blogger and blogs frequently. Having a few articles is not enough to make your website SEO friendly.

Create unique content and frequent update will make it faster for your website to rank. This also can prevent your website to become a victim to Google Panda.

Conclusion

With the right technique, we can save a lot of money to make our website SEO friendly. Do some homework before you want to post an article. Look for good keywords that you can use in your article and keep the keyword density.

This doesn't mean that I am preventing you from buying any SEO tools and it doesn't mean that the SEO tools are fakes. You can buy it if you want to and if you have the money. It is according to any individual needs.

If you don't want to waste any money on some kind of tools to make your website SEO friendly, use the techniques above. The key is to find the best keywords to use.

Read More

Create Quality Content And Don't Lie

How many Google search results show you when you type "make money online"? Yes, billions of results. Which means they are millions of people who are trying to sell their products and services to you. And now you are asking yourself, is this product is for real? or is this a scam?

Sounds familiar to you? Well, read on.

I don't know if it's only me or anybody else but I always thought, did these people really make money online? In the basic learning of entrepreneurship, you have to learn from the best to become the best. If you want to be a chef, learn from a master chef, if you want to be a racer, learn from the champions and so on.

That is how entrepreneurs work. They work with the best. Did you ever come across with these sentences when googling around:

Image: An example of "Internet Millionaire"

#1 Earn $1000 A Day Doing Nothing!
#2 How I Made 6 Figure Income Monthly
#3 Sit Back and Relax While Watching Money Rolling In
#4 Earn Thousands While You Sleep
#5 How To Become A Millionaire Online ...and the list goes on..

Are you kidding me? What type of business is that? If it's not scamming you it's definitely teaching you to become a scammer. One other reason behind this is Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) and man, I really hate MLM.

This is certainly not about an online business. Even if it is, the person behind the website is not earning that so much money. There are about 85% of bloggers who didn't make any money online (read about it here). They didn't make any money but are trying to help you make money. How is that sounds to you?

Well, looking at the bright side, it is NOT impossible. Established internet marketer or internet entrepreneurs do make money while sleeping and lots of it. But for beginner, it is like a dream in a fantasy island.

Make money online is just an example. There are a lot of niche out there and they also did the same thing. Another example is the lose weight niche. I wonder what the person behind the website really looks like. I'm really dying to know, don't you?

Serious entrepreneurs make money with their product and they tell stories about their product in their blogs. That means, blog is only a platform for their business. But the 'other' people who copy the real entrepreneurs really don't make money. If they do, it is only fast cash.

Fast cash won't last forever. Today you scam a person, tomorrow you won't get any. Worst of all, you may land in jail for that. What people are really looking for is a passive income from the internet.

Quality Content From The Heart
Always remember that content is king. There is no doubt about it. That is why it is important for you to choose the right niche for your website. Don't just go and build a website with a niche that you don't really know about.

If you have money to spend, I guess its ok. You can find someone to write the content for you. By doing this, you can lose a lot of money just by providing the articles and you aren't certain about how much you will make.

Being an expert in your niche will save you a lot of time, money and energy. The best thing about this is you can answer questions from visitors by yourself because you already know about your niche. Be proud of what are you selling online.

Create your content with high quality. Write a few references if you have to. Gain trust from your readers. Nothing is more important than trust. How on earth are you going to sell anything if no one trusts you? You can also share your personal stories with your readers.

What to do:
#1 Write based on experience
#2 Only pay for articles that you don't really know
#3 Add reference for facts


No Lying
Be honest in your business. Even a brick and mortar business needs honesty. Honesty will be rewarded with trust. That is a good way to make attraction to your website.

Do not think that you can fool somebody to buy your product. This is the 21st century. Even a 12 year old knows what a scam is and what is not. Visitors who come to your blog are knowledgable people. You only make a fool of yourself if you are trying to lie.

You don't have to lie to sell your product. Every internet entrepreneurs starts from zero. Why should you be ashamed of it? If someone wants to buy, they will buy. You can't force someone to purchase something from you if they are not interested.

What to do:
#1 Don't put any figures at your website if it's too low (Facebook fan, money, readers etc)
#2 Don't lie for a product review
#3 You are your own content

Read More

How Much Does Blogging Costs?

This is a rare question that everyone seems to forget about. Even the person who teaches you how to blog doesn't talk about how much does blogging cost you. Or maybe it is a taboo question for any internet guru to explain to their disciples. But as everybody's concern, it is important to tell a newbie how much does blogging cost. This was one of my personal question when I was going to start a blog.

I bet that every newbie has this question in mind. They don't know what to pay, how much to pay and what are the alternatives.

There are a few free alternatives to paid ones. But, it is not as good as the paid versions. For example, there are a few free email autoresponders out there but some people complain that they never deliver! This is a big loss. A non-responding autoresponders costs you the customers.

These things below are the things that a blogger should have when they want to start blogging. It is including free versions.

Hosting
Web host is where you put your website (I try to make simple explanations). It acts like a platform to everything you have on your site. Imagine it as your office table. All your stationery are on top of it. That is how it works.

The best choice for hosting is the paid version because bloggers can take control of all the contents inside their website. Even better, it looks professional.

Paid version:
HostGator.com
I took their Baby Plan as example here because in my opinion, it is the best plan for an individual. Monthly cost is about $22.95 WITHOUT the domain name. I'm assuming that you want to register your domain name with another hosting company because it is quite expensive with HostGator. It is about $12.95 per year.

For a cheaper choice, you can register your domain name at NameCheap.com where it cost $10.69 per year.

The $22.95 value is including web hosting ($7.96 after 20% discount) and a website addon called Sitelock ($14.99 per year). This means the first payment that you have to make is $22.95 and the next month you only have to pay $7.96 for 12 months.

The cheapest rate at HostGator is the 36 months plan valued at $6.36 monthly. But you have to pay the lump sum at $228.96 for 36 months not including Sitelock.

BlueHost.com
With BlueHost, there are no alternatives with domain name registration. It is included in their package which is free for primary domain name. This means only ONE domain name is free.

There are NO monthly payment. BlueHost only take 12-36 months lump sum payment. For the 12 months package, you have to pay about $133.37 including Sitelock ($19.99), Site Backup Pro ($19.99) and Domain Whois Privacy ($9.99).

Free version:
Blogger.com
WordPress.com

Email Autoresponders
When you are trying to find quality traffic, it is good to have email autoresponders. It will automatically reply for any incoming emails from your website. This is a very helpful tool because emails are replied instantly without your presence.

Email autoresponders are used by internet marketers to build their email list. To make sales from your website, email list is the first thing that you might want to contact.

Paid version:
Aweber.com
I use Aweber as an example here because most people use it and it provides good services to their customers. In my own opinion, it is the best email autoresponders ever!

For the first month, they charge $1 for the trial version. And the coming month will be charge at $19.99. For some people they think this is expensive and not worth it to have an email autoresponders.

That is really a bad kind of thinking because your customers are inside your email list and you want to neglect the list? If you haven't heard before, there are saying "The Money is in The List".

Traffic Generators
When you own a website, you surely want to have as many traffic as it can for a day. There are a few ways on how you can do that whether it is paid or free traffic.

To generate traffic, you still can choose to go for free or paid. Both works great if applied the right way. Some people don't like to pay for traffic but it is your choice.

Before you choose, consider on how much time you have or how much is your budget. Paid traffic is the best because you will get fast quality traffic to your site. But don't ignore free traffic because there are also quality in them.

Paid version:
Safe-Swaps.com
Here is where you can buy traffic or exchange them with other people. The price varies and not fixed. Negotiate with other members for best price and from who to get quality traffic.

Pay-Per Click Advertising
PPC is a common way to get traffic. The price are also varies according to the keyword used. But I think this is the best way to get quality traffic even if you have to pay for it.

We saw ads everyday and we do not click on it unnecessarily. We only click on it when we are interested.
That means you don't force people to go to your site, only interested people will. So, its a win-win situation for a paid service.

You can use PPC service from Google Adsense, Nuffnang, Yahoo Publishers, Facebook and many more. There are a lot of varieties to choose from.

Image: Source

Free version:
Join online forums
Emails
Yahoo Answers
Social networking sites (e.g Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc.)
Youtube

Conclusion
Blogging cost is about $50 per month but it depends on how are we going to pay for it. You can choose the lump sum value or the cheaper value that is can be paid monthly.

This looks cheap for some people and very expensive to the others. It depends on your budget. The free versions are also great but for hosting, it is advisable to get the paid version.

The main thing is the web hosts. These should be paid! The others depends. Pay for what you really need first then you can go for the others. Don't pay for something you don't need or rarely use.

Read More

How To Write Good Article

Everyone who knows or want to use article marketing are aware that writing a good article is very important to promote or to market their blog and product. But the main question is, how do you write a good article? Do you write an article like you write an essay during school days? These questions will come out from your head if you realize that very few people visit and read your blog.

You will be asking yourself why is the article isn't interesting enough for people to read. Before going further on the topic, one thing you have to know is, article are really that damn important for your blog. Visitors will see how do you write your article and see if it is interesting enough to read.

How do we know if the article is not good? There, there my children, how can you not know the answer? There is no such thing as a bad article. Its the way you present the article that makes it looks bad.

Compare an online journal about volcanoes on an online database to an article about volcanoes in a magazine-type of website. Which one do you prefer to read?

Online journal could be very long and contain less or no image at all. While the magazine-type of website put colorful images with a bit distortion on the font. Well, I prefer the magazine-type.

There are two types of article. To write a good article, you must know what is the purpose of the article and where do you want to publish the article?

Online Journals
Source: Image

The two types of article are the textbook article and the freestyle article.

The Textbook Article
What does it mean by the textbook article? Yes, it is the article that you write according to the texbook rules. You can find a lot of articles like this at Ezine, Online Journals and news websites like CNN.

Textbook article are the top class article which means they are very, very good articles. Like what you learn in school, textbook article contain:

1. Introduction
2. Topic sentence
3. Description on the topic sentence
4. Appropriate examples
5. Well-structured paragraph
6. Conclusion/closing

The freestyle article
Freestyle article doesn't mean that it is bad. It is just as good as the textbook article. The articles are also very good. The only difference is that freestyle article don't have a certain format.

These type of articles can be seen in most informal websites that belongs to an individual. Many bloggers use freestyle when writing their content and most of them abuse the freestyle way. That is what makes the article looks bad.

I have a friend who owns a self hosted blog and he writes about 200 to 300 words per post. The most is 400 words mostly with no image, video or whatsoever. I pity the blog because it was not well-written. A bad thing and a waste for a self hosted blog.

Freestyle
Source: Image

Write good article
The most important thing to remember when trying to write is to maintain the article's credibility. No matter the article is for formal use or informal, keep it steady. What matter is the message sent through the article to the readers.

And bloggers must know where they want to post their article. That is the main problem of bloggers. They know how to write good articles but they don't know what is the main purpose on why did they even write the article. If you write for formal websites such as Ezine, you should write formally.

Ezine won't accept a freestyle article. They will reject your article if it is not in the right format and with good grammar. We are talking about English subject here.

Conclusion
Textbook article and freestyle article are both different but have the same purpose that is to send their messages to the reader. They are both good articles. The only different is the way the article is written. To avoid writing bad articles, you must know when to write formal and informal format.

Bloggers who write for their own blog can use whatever techniques they want. Do some revision on the keyword to attract organic traffic. This will solved your lack of traffic to your blog.

Read More

What is Keyword Density

Many new bloggers doesn't know or don't even care about keyword density in their article. This is because they don't understand the importance of keyword density. Without keyword density, it is very hard to keep up with search engines especially Google. Google change their algorithm almost at anytime they want. Their business is providing information so you can't blame them for that. Keyword density makes the article SEO friendly and easy to be crawled by the search engine.

Keyword density is the repetition of the title of the article. What is the title of the article? What are the words used? The keyword density will be based upon this. For example, if the article title is 'How to Cook Butter Prawn' then the article body must contain sentence that contain 'cook' and 'butter prawn. It is as simple as that.

Image: Source

It is not that hard to create an article which is keyword-rich and with the appropriate density as long as it is still according to the title. However, do not put sentence that are not in line with the title. This will make the article look bad and can ruin the whole article, the writer and the website itself.

 If you are not tight on budget, there are a lot of keyword density tools which can be downloaded online. However, it is best to do the keyword analysis yourself because it is not that difficult. There are also free keyword density tools such as Keyword Density Analyzer Tool, SEO Centro's Keyword Density Tool, SEO Chat's Keyword Density Tool and KeywordDensity.com.

All the tools work the same way. They analyze and count how many keywords in a certain website that are typed in their search tool. User of these tools can also analyze keyword in a certain webpage of their website which contain one article for review.

How To Find The Right Keyword For Your Blog
This is a question that every newbie want to ask. It is a good question actually because without the right keyword, it is hard to gain traffic to your website or blog. Do not blog just for fun. This sounds bad but it is the truth. If you start a blog for fun and nobody are coming to your blog, you will eventually stop blogging.

People create blogs to share their passion. Passion is not for fun. It is a life for some people.

There are few bloggers that blog for a certain group of people like co-workers, colleagues, classmates or club members. Usually, these kind of bloggers are paid or have their own personal gain. These bloggers don't care about traffic. The only thing they need to do is to update their blog regularly. 

For bloggers who need to make some profit, they need traffic. To get more traffic, find keyword that suits your niche and start blogging. People will eventually come to your blog when they search the search engine even if it takes time.

The simplest way to find the right keyword is to use a free tool called Google Keyword Tool. It is a tool inside the Google Adword. Google Adword is used to promote websites or products so keyword is important if you are trying to promote something.

Conclusion
To attract more traffic using search engines, keyword density is important in writing an article for blogs. These kind of traffic is called organic traffic and usually they are first timers in a certain website because they find the website through a search engine. Remember to search for keyword ideas before posting an article.

Read More