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New Blogger - Some Questions

Discussion in 'WordPress' started by Jester78, Sep 4, 2008.

  1. #1
    My idea is to start out small and learn as I go. When I say small I'd like to not spend anything (if possible) or very little.

    My idea was to start a blog at blogger.com on something I know and love. This topic I'm going to choose may not be the best choice as far as what makes money/gets visitors but at least I'll enjoy working on it. I have easily 100 of my own ideas already jotted down on this subject. Should I put all of them in the blog at once? Few every day? I know that in order to keep SE's interested in my blog I need to update is frequently, not a problem although I'm not sure what frequently means.

    I know no html at all and I have zero art ability. I don't know much about adsense but plan to play with it after the blog has some substance. I also know very little about SEO and will have to fit this into things.

    I see some people using their own domain to host their blogs. What is the advantage? Will I regret using blogger.com later? Is my email address public information if I use blogger.com?

    Any suggestions, comments, something I'm missing, or maybe something useful for me to do once this list has been taken care of.

    Not sure what to post in public, send me a PM. I'll take information any way I can.

    Thanks for any help,
     
    Jester78, Sep 4, 2008 IP
  2. keithjameslock

    keithjameslock Peon

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    #2
    Hi there...

    Some experts in the blogging biz will say that you can make money on any topic, ESPECIALLY a topic you are passionate about. A lot of people jump in and look for something hot, but then lose interest quickly.

    If you have the money ($7 for a domain (for a year) and maybe $7 or $8 for one month of hosting, I would go that route for sure. I do believe that you will eventually regret not doing that from the get go. You will own the content, have more free choices about what to do, etc. And, it is considered more professional to have your own domain. If you decide to transfer in the future from a blogger blog to your own domain you will lose all back links, etc. You can get away without hosting at first but at the very least I would say buy a domain.

    The great thing about most blog platforms is that you can get by without any HTML knowledge. Also, if you pick a theme that has a nice relating image on it you will not need to do any graphical work either. Graphical work can be outsourced on this forum for very very cheap anyways.

    One of the top bloggers in the blogosphere suggests that you maintain a consistent posting frequency. Regardless if it's a post a day or a post a week, as long as you can maintain it for the most part it will be better received by your readers. They may come to expect a post at a certain time on a certain day and be a very loyal happy reader if they get it.

    Also, be careful out here, there are lots of people that prey on people that call themselves "new".

    Best of luck. I'm here if you have more questions.

    Keith
     
    keithjameslock, Sep 4, 2008 IP
    Jenna Appleseed likes this.
  3. Jester78

    Jester78 Peon

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    #3
    I'm going to assume that the lack of HTML knowledge is not a problem with software. I did a search and came up with quite a few different flavors, any suggestions?

    I was thinking about the possible loss of back links and figured I'd just use some sort of redirect or site has moved message on the old blog. I'm sure there would be considerable loss in readers even if the address stayed almost the same and see what you mean.

    I'm not really in this so much for profit as it just seems like a fun hobby then again earning online is another hobby of mine (conflict much?).

    <giggle> I'm not too worried about the online vultures. I never invest in something I'm not an expert in and always use common sense above all else.

    Any reason to register a domain with one company over another? Should I just use godaddy?
    You mentioned free hosting at first? I assume that sites with low traffic are able to find free hosting, again any suggestions?
     
    Jester78, Sep 4, 2008 IP
  4. Dodger

    Dodger Peon

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    #4
    With Blogger, you can have it hosted by them and with your own domain. That is one of the later options they have provided. Suggest you go that route to start, and if you finally get your own hosting later on down the road then the backlinks will still be there.

    Another option is use Wordpress hosted blogs. They are free also, but I am not sure they have the ability to host them using your own domain name like Blogger does.

    If you host your own blog software, Wordpress would be the odds on favorite and I think a lot of people would agree with that. Also, if you started with Blogger before doing so, you can import the older posts into Wordpress without missing a beat or archive them on your hosting server.

    As far as your feed goes, this can be set up independant of where the blog is hosted regardless of domain. Use Feedburner to handle the feed and the Url for the feed will never change even if you change domains of the blog.
     
    Dodger, Sep 4, 2008 IP
  5. keithjameslock

    keithjameslock Peon

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    #5
    I think Dodger covered everything except the domain...

    I use GoDaddy for domains (and most of my hosting for that matter). It's as good as any I s'pose. You can use the code OYH3 for $3.00 off.

    Good luck!
     
    keithjameslock, Sep 4, 2008 IP
  6. splm

    splm Peon

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    #6
    you can hide your email id on blogger....if you dont want to spend money then better go for blogger and at later stage get domain name....it will look professional.....I do see many famous blogs with blogger.com
     
    splm, Sep 5, 2008 IP
  7. GuardianAngel

    GuardianAngel Active Member

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    #7
    If you're just a hobbyist, then you can use free service from blogspot as you will not also need to learn much of the technical stuff.

    I think you will not regret it at all. You can transfer your blog contents to WP paid service later on anyway.

    The important thing is you start a blog....

    Good luck!
     
    GuardianAngel, Sep 5, 2008 IP
  8. XXXWebGURUXXX

    XXXWebGURUXXX Banned

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    #8
    Yeh quite gud replies
     
    XXXWebGURUXXX, Sep 6, 2008 IP
  9. ceemage

    ceemage Well-Known Member

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    #9
    If you have "easily 100 of my own ideas already jotted down on this subject" I would suggest doing at least a post a day for as long as you can keep it up. As you build an audience, they will be a good source of ideas for posts as well - I assume you are going to enable commenting? It's entirely possibly that your 100 ideas could last several hundred posts...
     
    ceemage, Sep 6, 2008 IP