i7o Media

This is a guest post from Joel Carl. If you’re interested in writing an article for this blog, feel free to use the contact form. You will be linked to appropriately.

Before you even write your first word on a blog, it is important to carefully choose a blogging platform. I’m talking about platforms such as wordpress, blogger, typepad, blogsmith etc.

You may choose a free option now, but what happens in the future when your blog grows? What happens when it turns into a recognisable brand and you now need to migrate to a new platform and perhaps your own hosting?

There are tools available which can make this transition more manageable, but this is something that you should look to avoid. If you have grand plans for your blog and you can see yourself blogging long term, then it is smart to carve out the details now, get yourself set up with your own hosting and a suitable platform. You may have initial costs of domain registration and hosting, but the costs will be much higher if you choose to migrate at a later date, not to mention the frustration if you aren’t tech savvy.

Platform Features
The best thing about blogs is that most blogging software makes it ridiculously easy to create and publish content. If you have limited knowledge of HTML, look for a platform with a WYSIWYG editor – this will make it even easier!

Blogging Platforms
Wordpress(.org) – is the most popular blogging platform to date. Because of the immense popularity, wordpress has thousands and thousands of developers creating useful plugins and themes – many of which are free. Wordpress is free to download and once installed on your hosting, it is 100% modifiable. Infact, you can turn a wordpress blog into anything.

I have even created squeeze pages and sales letters from the wordpress platform, you wouldnt even recognise it – sure they aren’t blogs in the traditional sense, but whenever I make a small update – out go the pings, twitter updates, RSS etc. My competitors with boring old html pages, have no idea how I smash them in the google rankings. Wordpress truly is a great piece of software and it’s here to stay.

Wordpress(.com) – dont confuse this with wordpress.org! This is a blog hosted on the wordpress site. Suitable for those who dont have hosting. The domain will be h.ttp://yoursite.wordpress.com

This is fine if you are not 100% committed to your blog and you just want to have some fun. Since it is hosted on wordpress servers, you have less control over things such as plugins, customization and themes.

On top of that, if you eventually decide you want your own domain and hosting, you can not 301 redirect your pages to your new address because wordpress has control over the servers. This is the biggest problem I can see with free solutions. However, at the end of the day, free is free and it’s always hard to beat.  It all depends on your situation.

Blogger – a free blogging platform from Google. Bloggers are given a subdomain – h.ttp://yoursite.blogspot.com. Blogger is really not that great. You have even less control than wordpress.com, for example you don’t have full control over the meta tags unless you can modify the code. A good indicator is that only 3 out of the official top 100 bloggers use blogger.

Blogger has also become popular for spammy purposes so it’s reputation and ranking is dropping. Look elsewhere.

MovableType – a highly professional platform featuring numerous weblogs, making it especially user-friendly for those who have several blogs to manage. All the templates, tagging, user interface and file management are customizable.

The biggest advantage of movabletype is the Perl-Based functionality offering the same, if not more features than wordpress. MySQL, Postgres, SQLite and Berkeley DB and supported. Pages can be created to be static or dynamic – a great feature which I will explain more later.

MovableType is Popular amongst professional bloggers

Typepad – this is the hosted version of MovableType, no hosting required here. You have to pay for this though – around $5 a month for basic version which allows 1 blog. Packages go all the way up to $90 a month.

Here is the biggest problem – it once again involves 301 directs. If you start with a h.ttp://yoursite.typepad.com instead of your own domain, you wont be able to map your URL to your domain IF you eventually choose to get your own domain name. This functionality is possible but it is included in a more expensive package. If you start with your own domain name, you WILL be able to implement 301 permanant redirects to a new host and platform if you choose to relocate.

Also important to note – link value is forfeited if you ever make the switch.

Other popular platforms include Blogsmith, Gawker, Expression Engine and Drupal.

Most Important: Before you rush out and choose a blogging platform, ask yourself the following questions:

- What are your goals? Can you see yourself committing to this blog? Is it personal or for your company?

- What’s your budget? Can you afford to pay for domain names and hosting? Do you have funds to have a custom design made?

- How tech savvy are you? If something goes wrong with the tech-side of things, can you fix it? Or will you need to pay someone to fix that buggy blog software you chose?

Answer these questions and you should get some sort of idea on what blogging platform you should employ.

When I explain to people what it is I do online, the first question I always get is “How do you make money from a blog?” Not everyone is familiar with how advertising on the internet works, so their curiosity is expected.

What really shocks me though, is that there’s also a ton of bloggers who still don’t understand exactly how to make money from their own blog. They’re usually stuck using Adsense alone, wondering when pennies will turn to dollars. If you want to earn six figures (or more) from blogging, you need to diversify.

Here’s a number of ways to make money from your blog (both directly and indirectly):

1. Pay Per Click – Joining a ppc network such as Google Adsense is probably one of the easiest ways to start off as a beginner. With Adsense, you can get started right away, with very little traffic. Once you get the ad code on your website, it’s pretty much automatic. Related advertisements are placed on your website, and you get paid everytime someone clicks on those ads. The amount per click varies, depending on a lot of factors (save that for another article).

Starting off, you’re not going to make much money with Adsense, but it’s always good to start somewhere, and watch your earnings grow with time.

2. Pay Per Impression – After you’ve built up a decent amount of traffic, you can start applying to site representation companys such as Tribal Fusion. They help to sell your ad inventory, and you’re paid based on the amount of impressions advertisers get on your site.

3. Affiliate Marketing – This involves selling other people’s products or services for a commission. The advantage of this is that you don’t need to come up with a unique product to sell. Instead, someone else takes care of that, and you simply use your leverage in the niche to promote the product. There are plenty of affiliate networks to join (Commission Junction for example). If you run a authority blog, chances are you’ll get quite a few offers to partner up and become an affiliate.

Commissions can run as high as 75%. However, the trick is understanding your audience, and promoting products that they find interesting. This not only makes you more money, but also keeps your readers coming back.

4. Direct Banner Advertising – An advertiser usually pays you a flat rate to place a banner on your website for a certain period of time (usually 30 days or more). This is the type of advertising that most bloggers aim for, as it is usually the highest paying when it comes to advertisements on the blog.

However, in order to get a potential advertiser’s attention, you need to have a decent amount of traffic coming in. Depending on the niche your blog targets, you should be getting around 30,000 to 100,000 unique visitors a month, before you even attempt to wheel and deal directly.

5. Reviews – Reviews work extremely well with a highly targeted audience. For example, if your blog is about music, a service that allows users to download music would be smart to purchase a review on your site. You can offer reviews direct, or you can sign up with a network such as ReviewMe.

It’s best to publish honest reviews, even if it isn’t necessarily a good one for your advertiser. Building trust with your readers is more important than making a quick buck. Just be sure that the advertiser is aware of how you handle reviews, before accepting payment.

Reviews are also a great way to score free stuff. A lot of times, companies will email you asking if you’d like to review a product of theirs. Sometimes you can arrange for them to send you free stuff, and even send extras to give away to your readers.

6. Plugs – Plugs work a lot like reviews do. The main difference is that the advertiser writes the article (or snippet). Very few blogs are interested in selling plugs, as it allows the advertisers to publish a lot of exaggerated hype.

7. Text Links – Text links can be sold directly just as banners can be. Advertisers usually pay a flat rate to place a text link on the sidebar of your blog. Make sure that the advertisers are aware that you’re selling the ad space, and not Pagerank juice. Google penalizes websites that sell dofollow text links.

You can also sell in-text advertising. Just sign up for a network that offers this service, install the code on your blog, and then the system automatically takes words from your posts, and links them to related advertisements. For example, it might link the word “car” to an advertisement sponsored by cars.com.

8. Sell Your Own Products – Ebooks, t-shirts, stationery, coffee cups…the list goes on and on. Get creative – don’t just slap your logo on a t-shirt. Come up with a funny line, or place a stunning graphic on the shirt so that people will actually purchase and wear it (free advertising anyone?).

9. Publish A Book – A lot of popular bloggers are getting book deals these days, and for good reason. Popular bloggers are writing articles that people want to read. Whether it’s to inform, educate, or entertain, a popular blog is likely to become a popular book. There’s a lot of money to be made here.

You don’t have to be famous though. You can easily self publish your own book, and sell it through your blog. The profit margins aren’t as large, but you can still make a decent amount of money, assuming people are willing to purchase your book.

10. Memberships – Memberships are an excellent way to create a residual income. The challenge however, is creating a membership program that is valuable to the members. Valuable enough to keep them coming back for more, month after month.

You could offer something such as custom avatars on your site for a very small monthly fee, or you might create a massive training program that teaches something to your readers, for a very large monthly fee. The options are limitless, but you need to find out what your readers are willing to pay for.

11. Job Board – With a job board, you basically charge advertisers to post a job description in which they need someone to fulfill. If you’re a well known problogger who educates other bloggers, people might come to your job board to look for talented bloggers/writers.

If you find that your blog becomes sort of the central hub in your niche, it might be time to start a job board. Even if your blog hasn’t quite taken off yet, if you think that there’s a need for services related to what you write about, a job board could actually bring attention to your site. Just keep in mind, a job board is like a forum. If it’s obvious that nobody is participating in the community, then there isn’t any motivation for anyone else to begin participating.

If you’re using Wordpress, your best solution would most likely be the JobPress theme, which offers most, if not all of the features you will need to make money with job boards.

12. Consultations – Consultations can be a huge money maker. If you’re confident with what you have to offer, and you’ve proven to readers that you’re an authority in your niche, $100-500 an hour isn’t unheard of. Of course, you’re going to want to start off at a lower price point.

This will allow you to get a feel for the demand of your services. It will also allow you to practice and polish your presentation, while finding out exactly what your clients want from a consultation.

13. Donations – Very few bloggers succeed in making donations work, but there are a few that have. If you’re eager to try, all you need to do is place a Paypal donation widget on your blog, and hope that your visitors are feeling generous. Some bloggers even go as far as to ask for donations in their posts.

Be careful though – many see this as begging. Producing great content that is free, being in a niche that tends to attract wealthy visitors, or having close relationships with your readers will all help to increase your chances of getting donations.

One method that I personally feel would work best, is to ask for donations towards something that would benefit both you and your readers. For example, you could try using the ChipIn widget, in an attempt to raise funds for a new blog design. If you provide quality content for your readers, then they may be more than willing to contribute to a blog that they visit regularly.

14. Build Your Brand – How do you make money blogging? Brand yourself and/or your company. As you build your brand and gain leverage, your blog will gradually become a reference for others who are interested in what you write about. You will begin to notice more and more opportunities that come along, simply because of your reputation for being an expert in your niche.

Whether it’s getting paid to give public speeches, becoming a guest blogger on other websites, or doing a joint venture with another entrepreneur – building your brand with a blog will help to increase your income…sometimes exponentially.

Automattic is best known for their blogging platform (WordPress), and some might even use their forum software (bbPress). Now it seems that they’re taking it a step further with the release of BuddyPress (1.0). Creating a full-featured website has never been easier.

BuddyPress is basically…well, never mind. Here’s Matt’s explanation taken from the official WordPress blog:

“BuddyPress is essentially a set of plugins on top of WordPress that add private messaging, profiles, friends, groups, activity streams, and everything else you’ve come to expect from your favorite social network, like a Facebook-in-a-box.”

Don’t expect to become the next Facebook with BuddyPress – that just isn’t going to happen. However, if you already have a blog with a thriving community (especially in a small, but popular niche), then BuddyPress is something you’ll definitely want to look into.

I’ve been thinking a lot about implementing a social network into my new project, but I wasn’t sure if it was worth the hassle. BuddyPress might make that decision a lot easier.

Then again, if Facebook or Google monopolizes internet profiling (Facebook Connect/Google Friend Connect), there might not be a need for any sort of social networking on a single site. To be honest, if this happened, it would make life a bit easier as a publisher…imo.

Anyone planning to try BuddyPress? Would also like to hear what people think about bbPress, although I don’t think I’ve really heard of anyone using it.