Singing Pig

Hi Everyone,

My brother in law is a Sports Journalist who writes for the national newspapers and has also just been asked to write for about.com which is a new website being launched by the New York Times, it is somewhat similar to Wikipedia from what I can see. He's asked me to help him create his own blogging platform. He has already got himself a reputation online. I understand that as long as you generate traffic to your blogging website there is a possible opportunity to create an income from the affilate programs running within each page? Do you need to create your own website are can you use a premain one and still be able to use your own affiliate programs?

Can anyone who does this  and has the relavant experience get in touch with me please.

Thanks

Rhys

Hi Rhys

About.com is long established & pre-dates Wikipedia.

With regard to blogs, there are two possible options:

• Use a free blogging service like Blogger or Wordpress
• Host the blog on your own site, typically using Wordpress software or equivalent

So what's the difference?

Free services have the ability to drop your blog from their site. This can happen. In the case of Blogger, if there's a spam blog complaint or their software thinks your blog is too spammy. In the case of a Wordpress hosted blog, if it's too commercial.

On the other hand, a Wordpress (or similar) blog on your own hosting has no such restrictions.

Most hosts offer a one click install for Wordpress on your own domain (look for the Fantastico option in the control panel). So installation is easy.

Tweaking it isn't - that's a specialist subject, so read up on the matter.

Then use the Blogroll option and links inside posts to link off to affiliate programs or your own stuff.

Blogs need regular updating. If this happens and the right "ping" settings are set and your general promotion to the blog is good (think articles outside the blog as well as on it plus social bookmarking and maybe some controversy) then they can generate traffic and money.

Hope this helps

Trevor 

 

Hi Trevor,

Thanks for the info, really semms like you know what your talking about. In your personal opinion what do you think he should do? His primary concern is to have no restrictions on what he can write, and not have to comply with editors decisions and so forth + he wants to be recognised for what he does because a lot of the time he doesn't get his name on his own work. But I mean there's nuthing wrong making some money on the way. Do you only receive money from the affiate programs is there not a way to  do it another way? Would it be possible to call a big company and ask for sponsorship related to his field of work Sport? So if he used one of the programs you mentioned without his own domain getting any money from his post isn't possible? Can you charge the people who you posts as RSS feeds?

Rhys

 

Hi Rhys

There's a lot more freedom hosting your own blog. A domain is cheap (under $10), hosting starts at $1 a month but I'd be inclined to spend more than that - there have been lots of threads on hosting and everyone has their own thoughts but for $10 or less you should be able to get a fairly decent host for the site. Translated into UK prices, that's about £6 a month to host a site and own a domain.

The sky's the limit on where you can get money from but it's unlikely anyone will sponsor until there is traffic coming to the site - sponsoring is done to at least get brand awareness and if the only person seeing your sponsoring is the website owner, it's not likely to be cost effective.

I'm not aware of being able to charge for RSS feeds (but could be wrong - you'd need to investigate)

Get traffic first, then get money from it...

Trevor

 

Hi Trevor,

 Thanks for the information, I think i'm slowly grasping the idea of blogging. I've managed to find a very nice template I think he could use on http://ifelse.co.uk/simpla Where do I get access to affilates banners. Do I get to control who gets to advertise on the page so that I can keep it relavant to the topic. Are you allowed to use affiliate links within the text as links? What hosting do you use for your blogging?

Who are the main bloggers out there, and can you post a link to their site?

 Rhys Jones

Hi Rhys

Affiliate banners are either supplied by the affiliate program or you can make your own/have them designed for you. Be careful though - often less is more (a site that looks more like a Christmas tree than information is likely to drive visitors away).

If you're supplying the adverts then, yes, you control who advertises. If you delegate to Google Adsense, Adbrite, etc then they control who advertises. 

If it's your own blog, you can do near enough anything you like. Affiliate links as text links are fine - I use them regularly in the blogs I write as well as in ebooks, etc.

I use 1&1 and Hostgator for hosting. But near enough any host will do. All hosts have pros and cons - there are long threads elsewhere on the subject!

The "who are the main bloggers" question is a bit like "how long is a piece of string". A search for the word bloggers on Google's blog search returned over 2 million results. Find a relevant blog and you can link to it the same way you can link to near enough any site on the web.

Trevor 

I totally agree with you that website will look like Christmas tree if you let many banner or flash even on it.