Who would benefit from having a Blog?

Anyone can start a blog.  All you need is the desire to get your message out.
It can be a hobby, a field of expertise, you can create a business blogsite, a consulting blog, an opinion blog talking about any subject like politics, celebrities, books, sports or whatever your interest is. The sky is the limit.

How much does it cost to set up a blog?

The cost to set up a blogsite can be from zero to around 550.00-2k.
It depends on what you want. If you want a free blog you can use WordPress.com or Blogger and they host your blog for you for free.
If you are going to have web designer set up and customize a blog theme for you it will cost more but there are many benefits to doing it that way.

Do you need to have a web site already in order to set up a blog?

You can set up a blog independent of a website or if you already have a website you can add a blog on your hosting account and link them together.

How can we tell a good blog from a bad blog?

A good blog offers solid content that is helpful to the readers. It has real information and real links and is not packed full of spammy ads.
A bad blog is full of ads, spam links and offers you no information for what may of landed you on that site in the first place.

Can you update a blog yourselves?

You can update blog websites yourself. This is one of the big advantages of learning how to run your own blog website, you can change the pages and add content and run the entire site yourself.

Can you put video and stills on a blog?

You can add videos, music clips, mp3’s, and tons of images and create your own slideshows using a WordPress blog website.

Can you advertise and sell products on a blog?

If you have a self hosted blog you can do whatever you want.
You complete freedom to set up a shop, sell products, sell ads, and display paid ads.
With a free blog website you cannot add paid ads and may be limited on what you can offer and sell.

How do you decide the look of your blog?

Choosing the look for your blog website can be lots of fun!
With your free blog, you have the choice of over 70 themes to select to customize the look of your blogsite.

With a self hosted blogsite the sky’s the limit on design, layout, logo and more.
There are thousands of free themes you can select and then there are paid themes developed by professionals which can be customized to create fabulous looks..

One of the fun things with a blog website is you can change the look of your site quite easily by going into the section callled “appearance” and then select “themes” and you can preview all the theme choices and with one click change the theme on your blog site. All the posts and pages you may of already written will still be there, just with a new look.

How do you target your audience?

Depending on the subject matter for your blog, that will vary.
The basics on helping your audience find you are:

1.  Write good content.

2.  Use keywords in your posts and pages that are related to your topics.

3.  Try to publish something at least once a week.

4.  Promote your blog using things like facebook and twitter and linkedin.

5.  Read other blogs on your subjects and participate by leaving comments

6.  Continue to educate yourself on blogging. (www.wordpresscentral.org)

How can you tell if anyone is looking at your blog?

All blogs offer statistic programs that track the details of your “traffic” or visitors. You can learn what search engine they came from, what page they came in on and all kinds of details about your visitors.
This helps you see what people are reading and what they are interested in so you can fine tune.

How can we earn passive income from a blog website?

If you have a free blog website you will be limited in this area.
With a self hosted blog site, you can do many things, here a just a few.

• Sell information products, such as ebooks or eguides, or tip sheets.
• Become an affiliate with places like Amazon and they give you codes you can place on your site and if anyone clicks your links and buys something you get paid a %.
• Sell other peoples products by joining their affiliate programs.
• Join clickbank, which offers thousands of ebooks and downloadable products you can sell and make between 10.00-50.00 per sale and all you do is display a link for the products.
• Create a cafepress or zazzle store and sell products through your online store. This is free, and they handle all the products and pay you a small sales commission. You can sell t-shirts, coffee mugs, aprons and much more with designs you create.

Please leave your questions in the comment section.

I will answer as soon as possible.

Thanks!