This post forms part of a series answering 29 hot blogging debates.  Here we are looking at whether it is better to use a hosted blog service or to self-host it.  There is more getting set up information on our how to setup a website page, a must read if you are learning about this for the first time.

What do these terms mean?

A hosted blog is one that is run on a free service.  There are many providers out there but in all honestly if you only look at two such providers then you are unlikely to be making a choice you’ll regret:

• Blogger.com:  This is the site run by the Internet God Google.  Normally a Google product is worth a look and this one is no exception.
• WordPress.com:  Wordpress is surely the leading blogging software package on the Internet and this is the hosted version of that.  Signing up here will give you a Wordpress powered blog running on the Wordpress.com domain.

So if you chose this option, all of the software that powers your blog and all of the data written into your blog’s database will be stored on your providers servers.  They will maintain all of this and all you have to worry about is writing a post once in a while.   Sounds ideal?  Unfortunately there are a few problems with this.

A self hosted blog is one where you will be renting some server space and will then install and run the blogging software yourself.  Now this sounds like it could be very tricky, but it doesn’t have to be as hard as it initially sounds.

Continue reading to find out why this is the better option

Why You Might Regret using a Hosted Blogging Service

These free blogging sites offer a great service, don’t get me wrong.  If you are posting up the occasional personal blog or testing out a new idea then they can be a great way to get a site up quickly and for no cost.  Many people have proved it is perfectly possible to get sites up that generate a large income.  But there are several reasons why you might come to regret this as your site grows:

• You don’t have access to the raw data behind the blog.  Some services may have ways of extracting this, but if not, moving your blog to another platform will be very time consuming.  That said, changing platform is never going to be without challenges whether you self host or not.
• If you don’t own the domain the site is hosted on it makes it much harder to sellthe blog on to someone else late.  If website “flipping” is part of your future plans then being able to sell the domain will add to the value.
• A site hosted on a free blogging platform has to work harder to gain respect.  That’s not to say it’s impossible, but some people will perceive blogs on free sites as less authoritative.
• There are likely to be restrictions on what adverts or affiliate links you can place around the site.  Being a Google product, Blogger.com does have close Adsense integration, Wordpress.com can be much more restrictive.
• You don’t have the same flexibility when it comes to customising your blog, for example when installing themes and plugins.
• And if that doesn’t put you off, the following point is what really puts me off.  As was recently mentioned in the press, the operator might one day decide it doesn’t like your blog and will remove it.  You might get little or no notice that this is going to happen and little right to complain when it does.  Even if you have backups of your content you will still need to put in a lot of effort to re-establish your blog.  This is not something you want to happen.  You can mitigate this risk by reading the site’s terms and conditions very very carefully, but these may be hard to understand or open to interpretation.

But enough about why you might avoid the hosted option..

What are the Advantages of Self Hosting a Blog?

Self hosting a blog puts you in control.  You get to make all the decisions.  On the down side, with great power comes great responsibility (I’m sure I’ve heard that before somewhere?).  But here are some reasons why it makes a good choice:

• Many hosts will actually set everything up for you.  My host (eukhost.com) for example will do basic installs for me.  Sure, there are limits to what they have time to do but generally they are willing to help.  Many hosts have automated scripts that will deploy Wordpress at the click of a button, it really couldn’t be easier.  If you aren’t confident that you can install your CMS software yourself, check carefully with your host before signing up.  Pick one that is happy to help.
• You get full control of your site.  You can display any adverts, run any content, upload any plugins and make any changes you like.  Of course you are responsible for making sure you stick to your ISPs terms and conditions and comply with the law of the land – but other than that, you can do what you like!
• You get to chose your own domain name! Of course getting the right domain name can be a challenge in its own right, but it’s your chance to start building your own brand.
• You can run any software you like.  You can integrate different products such forum software or even a wiki.  I have a site that runs using vbulletin, Mediawiki and Wordpress to get the best of all worlds.
• You own your data.  You will have access to the underlting database that powers your CMS and therefore you can extract this and convert it for use with another system.  Who knows Wordpress may be overtaken by another product in the next couple of years…

On the down side, a self hosted solution will cost you more money, use a host that can start you off with a very cheap package so if your site never grows you haven’t lost anything.  Most hosts can move you up to bigger and better hosting options with little or no interruption.  And as your blog grows, hopefully so does the income it generates. By the time you have a million daily hit blog you won’t even notice the hosting fees!

Like many people in this world, I like to put the minimum amount of effort into things.  Don’t get me wrong, this is never at the expense of quality – I prefer to get the same top notch results but with the minimum effort.

On this page I will let you know how I run many WordPress blogs from just one install.  This means that upgrades, plugin installations, back ups etc are a one time event across all blogs.  This saves me a lot of maintenance time which allows me to get on with building my sites instead.

The Single Shared WordPress Installation Explained

There are a number of solutions to this out there, if you google around you might even find some plugins that are supposed to help manage this.  I went for a very simple approach that requires a couple of configuration changes but it’s nothing that is beyond the reach of experienced WordPress users.

I have a very straight forward approach.  I have one install of WordPress in the directory provided by my web host.

public_html/wordpress

• When ever you set up a new domain, or sub domain, simply point it at this directory.  Hopefully your host provides you with cpanel which will allow you to set this up yourself, if all else fails ask them to point the domain to the right place.
• Then simply set the WordPress configuration variables dynamically based on the current base URL of the site being viewed.   All we are doing is directing the WordPress code to look at a different database depending on what the current domain is.  So each of your domains will have its own set of 10 or so tables but this is no problem and unless you make a habit of updating tables directly you’ll never even notice.
• Each time a new domain is set up I enter a new record into a second configuration file that I have created, this maps each domain to a new table prefix.  When I navigate to the domain WordPress will automatically notice that the tables don’t exist yet and the installation routine will be triggered.  A couple of clicks later and I’m up and running.

Alternatively you can create a set of template tables which have your preferred settings already entered, for example permalink rules, plugin installation, admin user accounts etc.   This template then just needs to be run in with the correct table prefix each time you set up a new site.

Some Code Snippets

Note: I am not a PHP developer by trade, so there may well be a better way to do this!

So this what I have added to my wp-config file:

$domain = str_replace('www.','',$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']);
include ("domainmapping.php");
$xml = simplexml_load_string($domainxml);
$key = 0;
foreach ($xml->domain as $xml_domain)
{
$xml_database = strtolower($xml->database[$key]);
$xml_prefix = strtolower($xml->prefix[$key]);
if (strtolower($domain)==strtolower($xml_domain)){
define('DB_NAME', $xml_database);
$pre = $xml_prefix;
break;
}
$key++;
}

This reads in my mapping file that maps each domain to a database and a set of tables. You might not want to use multiple databases, you can store each set of tables in one db if you like. I separate different sets of sites into different dbs to make back ups easier.

The above piece of code will replace the DB_NAME define but the prefix is set further down in the config file.  So I just replaced this with the following which uses the $pre variable we set above from our mapping file.

$table_prefix  = $pre.'_';

The domainmapping.php file looks a bit like this:

So this maps WP running on the blogercise.com domain to the “bloggingsites” database and the set of tables prefixed “blgrcse”

Simples.

Theme Considerations

The problem with this technique was that with a shared theme directory all of the blogs inherited any custom changes that I wanted to make to a them, the solution to this was to make multiple copies of the theme and then select the appropriate one for each blog.

More recently I have moved to selecting themes that allow design options to be configured and stored in the database.  This means that each of my sites can share the one theme but things such as the headline title or page menus can be set up individually.

For example, check out:

• StudioPress
• DIY Themes

Get in Touch

If you have any problems getting this going then please get in touch.  Test this out carefully on your development environment before going live, I have had a few occasions where miss-configuration has brought all of my sites down at the same time!

This post is part of our ongoing series that aims to answer 29 blogging debates put forward on the ProBlogger.net website.  Here we are looking at how to chose the right domain name for your website.

Some of these discussions are already discussed as part of our famous 10 step guide to building your first successful blog site, check out the section on how to chose a domain name.  We continue the discussion here and address the specific points raised in the original ProBlogger post.

Long Domain Names vs Short Domain names

Actually, I’d argue that somewhere in the middle is preferable!  For a start all the three letter domains have long since been registered and in fact most words in the English language have also been snapped up.  So to get one of these you will need to:

• Get very lucky and spot a domain that hasn’t been renewed
• You need to open your very large wallet and fork out a large amount of cash to persuade someone to give you theirs
• Or you might be able to find a more obscure TLD (top level domain, for example .info)  where there are still some registrations to be made.

None of these options are particularly attractive and whilst search engines still use the TLD to judge the quality of the site (which doesn’t seem fair and I think this will change as inevitably the number of TLDs increases) I think it is better to get a slightly longer domain.

But wait, don’t go for something too long!  If your domain is nearing a full sentence then please think again!  I registered “Blogercise” just a couple of years ago so it goes to show what kind of domain is possible, even now.  If you start joining a couple of terms together you’ll be surprised by how many choices you’ll have.

Be prepared to try out lots of different ideas but sooner or later you’ll have to take the plunge!

Many website builders will advocate the purchase of “keyword rich” domains on the basis of chasing a specific search term.  This may be be something you wish to try but ultimately you want your site to rank for 100s if not 1000s of search terms.  A good site is more than it’s domain name and I’d prioritise picking something memorable and meaningful.

If you do go for this route then the process simply comes down to finding a highly searched for term that is not yet registered.  My advise here would be to try an automate your search by using term extraction software and a script that can test the availability of the domain – there are commercial solutions that will do this for you.  If you are lucky you’ll find something and make a few quid, if you aren’t you’ve just wasted a lot of time – personally I prefer to build sites that are more than just a name.

Domains with Hyphens vs non Hyphens

Avoid hyphens.  The only time I see the value of these if you are desperate for a particular term and adding the hyphen in means you can get it.  Generally I think hyphens just don’t look so good when your readers look at the URLs.  There aren’t many well known sites that contain them and this somehow seems to cheapen the poor old hyphen.   Your site will somehow look less worthy.

I must admit that I have never registered a domain name that contains a hyphen.

If you do have to go for one, don’t worry too much.  Your site will still rank in Google and it will still work.  Remember your site is more than its domain name!  If it isn’t, you might just be in trouble…

.com vs other extensions (like .net, .org)

The world has come to associate the term “.com” with a website.  So for no other reason owning the .com will give you a head start.  Other well known domain extensions will work and are acceptable but they are no substitute for the good old fashioned .com name.

In time it is inevitable that more TLDs will become available for us to use and when this happens I imagine the .com effect will become eroded.  There is no way that this won’t happen as restricting the available domains will simply stifle the Internet’s progess.   Of course those who have invested heavily in domain names will resist this at every opportunity but sooner or later something will give.

Personally I avoid .org domains as they are specifically reserved for organisations.  Sure, no one ever checks when you register but given the fuzziness around this can you really guarantee me that this rule might one day be enforced.  I agree it seems unlikely, but stranger things have happened!  I wouldn’t want to take the risk of a site I invested hours of time in being seized from me thanks to bureaucracy.

For now I would avoid the obscure domains that have low recognition.  There is a general perception that these are used by “low grade” sites.  I will immediately follow that statement up by saying that there are many awesome sites that do use such domains so if you are confident enough in your product then go for it.  However if you are trying to launch a new blog with very little resource then you might just find that a less well known TLD will be harder to get off the ground.

Local vs Global domain Extensions

If you are trying to build an international community that will attract readers from all around the world then a country specific domain will make this difficult.  On the plus side your site will rank well in your local search engine but it will perform less well across the rest of the world.

So again this is another vote for going for the .com version of your domain name!  The .com has universal appeal and will be recognised the world over.  It is possible to let the search engines know that your .com domain is aimed at a specific country to begin with.   For example you can log into Google’s webmaster tools and let them know that, for example, a site is aimed at UK individuals.

I would however use a country specific domain if the site has an obvious connection to your national identity.  If you are writing about your local city, a national sports team or a well known television program then associating your site with your nationality will only strengthen the appeal to those looking for information about your country from abroad.  Who knows more about what’s going on locally than someone who lives there?

Don’t get too Obsessed with the domain name

Domain names are important, don’t get me wrong, but they are not nearly as important as some people believe.  Sure, if you’ve only ever built sites around keywords then another approach may seem impossible.  But I can assure you that many sites with weird and wonderful domains rank number one in the search engines for 100s of searches that have no connection with their domain.  This is thanks to building good content that people want to link to.  At some point you need to make a decision so that you can get started on your site!

And actually, savvy users such as you and I will be able to spot keyword chasing sites a mile off in Google and will skip past them.  It is just a matter of time before Google realises this too and will rank based on how relevant the site’s content is and not how closely the sites name matches the term.  If you care about building a site in the long term then you’d do well to remember this.

Personally I am getting more and more fed up with rubbish sites that clearly exist just to make a few affiliate bucks, despite their poor content and quality they still seem to appear in the top 10 results simply because the owner thought to buy the domain name.  This just doesn’t seem right to me.

Google please fix.

How many blogs can you manage?

I have almost 100 domains registered and compared to some hobby affiliate marketers this is perhaps a small number.  I started my personal projects about 2 years ago and many of the domains I bought at this time were reserved for two years and now inevitably a steady stream of renewal invoices are coming my way!

At £6 a renewal and one hundred domains that equates to around £600 ($1200) to keep them all registered for another year.  Although my online earnings can easily cover this fee, this is still not an insignificant amount of cash for most of us.

How many of those Domains actually generate an income?

So here’s the problem.  Out of 100 domains I would estimate that only half of them have actually generated some income, of those about 20 have actually made a profit, 5 of which actually make enough to make them worth running.  And then the majority of my income comes from just a couple of sites.

So what am I doing wrong here?

Most of my domains have nothing much on them.  I use a shared WordPress Install across the majority of these sites, it takes me 5 mins to go from registration to installed CMS.  However the problem I have is that I don’t invest enough time into any of these sites to actually get anything going.

Every now and then I have another great new idea and hand over some more money to the domain registration company, I get the site up and running, perhaps write up a “welcome” page, an “about” page and get the site listed in Google and then I go onto the next hair brained scheme.  Meanwhile it is my established sites that I have spent time building up that actually make the money.

Do you recognise yourself in this?

I have reached an obvious conclusion, if you can’t actually deliver your new website idea then you have just wasted some time and money.  The goal of any project management technique should be to minimise waste. If you are working full time and you think you can deliver multiple websites then maybe running a dozen different ideas might be possible.  But for most of us these spontaneous attempts to get new blogs up and running end up as wasted time where little is delivered and nothing is gained.

Ask yourself:

• Do I have the time to maintain multiple blogs?  Readers will instantly spot a half finished site.  Ask yourself what you do when you come across an incomplete site full of “under construction” pages or “check back soon”.  Do you a) keep coming back hoping that the information will have been updated or b) find a different site?
• Can I write quality articles for each site?  Sure, you might be able to chuck up a few hundred words on any given subject.  But it is highly likely that without research you won’t actually know any more than your readers.  Your article will be just a few paragraphs of filler text that don’t mean anything.   You’ll get some SEO based traffic, but no one will want to come back twice.
• Can I engage with multiple audiences? Can you read, approve, and respond to multiple comments?  You need to send out a message that there is a real person behind the blog that is listening and writing for the readers.

Go for one blog, and do it well.

Pick a subject for your website carefully and then get building.  Our site building guide will help set you on the right path.  It is better to have one or possibly two projects on the go that are done well than a hundred unfinished projects.  This is especially true when you are still figuring out what works and what doesn’t.  In the beginning you just won’t have the experience to spot a site that isn’t going to work and will most likely keep giving up before you’ve ever done enough to give the site a chance to grow.

This post is part of our series settling 29 Blogger debates.

In this post we will discuss the importance of posting frequency and whether it is better to post more often or less often.

Building a Readership

Blogercise is all about building a long-term sustainable website that actually delivers something to your readers.  We are all about building sites that people will chose to come to because the site is good, not because you’ve tricked visitors onto your page.

So, from a reader’s point of view the most important thing is not actually whether you post once a week or twice a day, you actually want to concentrate on posting quality content regularly.  Let’s look at these two points separately.

Regular posting

Regular posting helps to build a relationship with your readers.  If they know that there is a post waiting for them each morning they are far more likely to check their RSS feed, or pop over to the site every day.  If they know there is a new post each Friday afternoon (a time when many office workers are spending a little more time than normal on the Internet!) then they will get into the habit of checking your site.

If you post very irregularly then they will not when to check your site.  Perhaps every now and then they will think to have  a look but eventually they will give up.  Similarly if you stop posting for months at a time then don’t be surprised if your readership drops away very very quickly.  I’ve learnt this the hard way!

If you can, post once a day, if not then pick one or two days per week and publish on those days.  You don’t have to write the posts on those days, in fact I’d advise you to build up a small backlog to ensure you always have a stock of posts ready to publish on your regular days.  Of course from time to time you might have such a scoop that you just can’t wait and common sense should always override any ad hoc rules you may have around running your site, but in general a regular pattern will help build up a readership.

In time you can change that pattern, although normally this will be to increase your posting frequency.

Quality Posting

I would advise not posting just for the sake of it.  Sure, some well know bloggers seem to get away with posting up their weekly eating habits but 99% of us just don’t care about that stuff.  If you don’t have a lot to say then start off with a weekly post until you get into your stride.

Google makes no secret of the fact that they want to rank good sites at the top of their search engines.  So sure, there are lots of SEO tricks and tactics that one can use to make a rubbish site punch above its weight in the rankings but as time goes on Google will get better and better at understanding semantics – ie Google will read your site more and more like a person does.  This will ultimately mean that it is the good sites that will rise to the surface and finally the ones that have played the game will sink into obscurity.

Of course we aren’t there yet and unfortunately getting to the top of Google’s results can sometimes be as simple as being the first to register a domain and less about having a good site with good content.  But I think Google will only get better at this and if they don’t then another search engine will and they’ll gain ground.  After all, we’ve all ended up on a site that is clearly engineered to make a fast buck and reached straight for the back button.  Don’t be one of these sites.

By positioning yourself now you will be setting yourself up for long term success and creating a site that can bring in an income for many years to come.

This post forms part of the blogger debates series, here we are going to discuss Comments vs No Comments.  Read on to discover why your blog needs to have comments enabled!

Should I allow visitors to comment on my blog?

If you have looked around this site you’ll notice that I have left comments on, however there aren’t actually many comments left on any of the posts!  There is a simple explanation for this!  This blog was created as an outlet against the frustrations I feel from exploitative make money schemes, you know the ones.  They charge large up front fees for hyped up deliverables that rarely materialise.  All the information you need is out there on the net and this site aims to consolidate it for beginners.

I am not looking to build a community, I am not looking to pump my readers for all the cash I can.  So on that basis I don’t have time to sort through the spammy comments that this site seems to attract.  However from time to time a genuine comment comes through and in those cases I am happy to share it.

So you don’t recommend comments on a blog?

On the contrary! Comments are a great way to get reader engagement.  Comments allow your readers to add to a post, feed back to you, talk to other readers.  They allow your readers to generate content for you, which will potentially help bring in long tail keyword search terms that you would never have written into your content yourself.

How to Manage Blog Comments

• Avoiding Spam: Unfortunately this will put off many bloggers from allowing comments.  Many of the posts you get will be from full time spammers just trying to associate their name with your site.  They will add nothing to the conversation and usually link out to a site that you don’t want to associate yourself with.  This is a big problem here on Blogercise as this site attracts a lot of highly motivated marketers who would love to have a link from a well respected free resource leading to their money making schemes.  Here are some tips to avoid spam:
  • Install a Captcha plugin.  This will help but might put off real users.
  • Approve all comments before posting.  This is what I do.  Takes some time to manage but you get used to spotting the spammers quickly.
  • Use the WP Akismet plugin
• Dealing with Abuse: Sadly a few of your readers will have it in for your blog.  I’m not talking about constructive criticism here, negative feedback should always be welcome on your site.  I’m talking about the haters who will just try to stir things up.  Generally you can block and ban these people but sometimes it pays to listen to them and respond calmly.  Never let yourself get drawn into a protracted argument as this will only take up lots of your time and gain you nothing.  Often these people are looking to waste your time so a short one-time response is often the best way to win the war.  The less attention you give them the quicker they go away.
• Respond to Comments: Allow the conversation to be two way, regulars will love the opportunity to pick your brains and listen to your response.  By engaging with readers they are far more likely to become regular readers and to come by the site more often.  Build up a relationship and you will eventually obtain a core readership which will stand by you for years to come.

Listen to your Readers

Allowing comments can transform your blog if you listen to what people are writing.

• Ask Questions: Use any and every opportunity to build a rapport with your readers.  Every time you make a post you have the chance to ask for feedback on the topic, ask about your reader’s own experiences, try to extend the debate.
• Pick up on Additional points: If you get some good response from the above then you can feed this back in to future posts, pick up on a really good point that was made and extend the discussion.
• Correct Mistakes: From time to time you will most likely balls up a blog post.  You’ll get some information wrong, get your facts muddled up, or just make a good old fashioned typo.  Comments allow your readers to pick up on these problems and help you fix them.  Remember to leave your ego at the door though, don’t get offended by such corrections.  Just thank the poster and correct the mistake whilst making a mental note to check your work more carefully next time!

The down side of blog comments

Yes, there is a slight con to this.  If your blog doesn’t get any comments then it can make your site look unloved.  Perhaps the answer to this is start with comments off although it’s not something I would do myself.  Other people try to add fake comments and conversations in the early days but again I wouldn’t do this myself.  It will look a bit odd and will be hard to maintain – your time is better spent developing rich content for your site.

Besides, this site gets plenty of visitors from various sources and I very rarely approve any of the submitted comments!

Allow people to comment, but put the time in to manage the comments and keep the quality high.

This post forms  part of my series looking at a list of blogger debates posted at the ProBlogger website.

Today I attempted to answer the question Should I use Full or Partial RSS Feeds?

What is the difference between a full and partial feed?

So the chances are you don’t know  the difference between a full and a partial feed, if you do then feel free to skip past this section, although you will miss out on some of this site’s best jokes.

• Full Feed: As the name suggests this contains the entire content of your post.  Every word, phrase, picture etc is sent out in your feed and delivered to your subscribers.
• Partial Feed: And yes, you have guessed it, the partial feed only contains a sub section of the posted article.  Normally this will be the first few hundred words, but enough to get your reader interested.

So what’s the debate here?

The big question revolves around getting your visitors to interact with your site and how you can make money from them.  If you give only a small sample of your feed then the idea is that you will hook the reader in and then get them onto your site.  In fact you really need to gear your snippet up to selling the post and converting that user to a click through .

By giving the user the full feed you are saving them hassle of having to visit your site, the reader can view your post, scan over it and digest the interesting bits.  Remember that most internet browsers will be in skim mode so again you are having to work hard to get their attention.

So should I have partial or full feeds then?

Go for full feeds.  Here at Blogercise we are interested in building  a long term site that will continue to  grow week after week, year after year.   And to do that you need to concentrate on user experience.  Which feed type has the better user experience?  Full feeds.

This is because as a reader I want to go to my RSS feed application and have a quick look through for interesting stories.  The first thing I look for is a topic that will catch my attention.  I talk about choosing a good title elsewhere on the site, but a good way to learn is simply pay attention to the titles that draw you in.  If you find yourself reading a story always have a look back and think ‘how did I come to be reading this?’ – you might be surprised about what this teaches you with respect to online marketing!

As a feed reader, I then want to read the post.  I don’t want to have to click through, wait for my browser to fire up and then secondly for the page to load up and then scroll down past ads to find the story.  Personally if this is required I will probably just unsubscribe there and then.  You’r content isn’t so interesting that I’m going to work for it.

By showing the full content in the feed I can get to what I want quickly and this is what the Internet is all about.  The content needs to be on topic, and relevant to what I was expecting to hold my interest.

Getting more from your readers

Ultimately, if you are blogging for money, you need to funnel your visitors towards your goal.  Full feeds need not be a blocker to this.

• Feed ads: Adverts in RSS feeds are quite common these days, of course you don’t want them to get in the way of your readers but if you get the balance right you can be pushing ads out to 1000s of loyal regualr readers every day.
• Affiliate Links: There is nothing stopping your affiliate links coming through into your RSS feeds.  If your goal is to get readers to click through these links then pushing them right out to your feed readers is a good plan.
• Link Link Link: People like links.  Throughout your post you can link back to your site, so when the time is right they will be coming back to your blog and hopefully interacting with multiple pages, ads and affiliate links.

Build for the future

Sure, getting thousands of visitors in every day via google is a great way to go and I would always recommend chasing search traffic for highly qualified terms that will get in the right kind of person.  However once they are on your site why not try to convert them to a long term loyal reader, get them to sign up to your RSS feed and then push your content out to them each day.  The more contact they have with you the more often they will come back to you and not a competitor when the need arises.

Photo Credit: IDS.Photos

As someone interested in building a blog and therefore most likely making money from blogging it is likely that you will be aware of Darren Rowse and the Professional Blogger site.  Darren’s site is worth a look but it often comes under criticism, some of this is arguably jealousy and entirely unjustified, other comments have been right on the money.

Darren recently put together a list of 29 ongoing debates that probloggers are constantly arguing about.  These topics are the source of 1000s of blog posts all over the Internet, yet some are quite straight forward to address and there are some obvious approaches that new bloggers should adopt.  I therefore intend to cover each of these topics in more detail over the coming months and I look forward to settling some of the debates once and for all!

But what do you know Mr. Blogercise?

Good question.  Of course I can’t claim to know the definitive answer as all of these topics have a little fuzziness to them.  In some cases the answer will be “it depends”.  But I can give you some help to decide which is the best course of action for you and give some suggestions that will offer a good place to start.

I have worked as an Internet professional for years, at the heart of one of the sector leading websites in the UK – forget 6 figure sums, we’re talking 8 figures (and that’s in pounds, not dollars)!  I have also successfully transferred this knowledge to personal projects which have provided an extra source of passive income.  I don’t claim to have bought a house and a Ferrari with the income, but then I’m not that kinda guy!  But the money could cover a delicious family holiday, the latests sparkly gadgets, or even a sensible saloon car!

Of course you should always apply your own knowledge and experience, but I hope this series will give you something to think about.  I won’t hold back on my thoughts and experience, and I have nothing to sell at the end of it.

29 Debates that need to be answered:

1. RSS Feeds - Full vs Partial Feeds
2. Comment Sections – Comments vs No Comments
3. Post Frequency – Post More vs Post Less
4. How Many Blogs? – Focus upon One Single Blog vs Having Many Smaller Blogs
5. Domain Names – long vs short, hyphens vs non hyphens, .com vs other extensions (like .net, .org), local vs global domain extensions
6. Hosting – hosted vs self hosted
7. Post Titles – descriptive vs keywords
8. Content – Link content vs Original content
9. Paid Reviews – Happy to Write Paid Reviews vs Not Doing Paid Reviews
10. Design – Professional Design vs Templates
11. Links to External Sources – Should Open in a New Page vs Should Open in the Same Page
12. Ownership – Use Social Media vs Build Your own properties
13. Post Length – Long in Depth Posts vs Short, Sharp Posts
14. Topic – Niche vs Broad Topics
15. Dating Posts – Dates on Posts vs Non Dated
16. Blogger Name – Anonymous blogging vs Using Your Name
17. Subscribers – RSS is Best vs Email is Best
18. SEO – Writing for Search Engines vs Writing for Humans
19. Personal Blogging – Sticking to Topic vs Injecting Personality and Personal details
20. Comment Moderation – Highly Regulated and Moderated vs Anything Goes
21. Social Media vs Search – focus upon social media rather than search engines as traffic sources
22. LinkBait – Anything goes (e.g.. Personal Attacks) vs Strong Boundaries Around What is and Isn’t Acceptable
23. Bloggers Participation in Comments – Respond to Every Single Comment vs Let Readers Talk to Each Other and Don’t Interact
24. Blog Platforms – WordPress vs ((Insert Other Platforms Here))
25. Monetisation – Blogs Should Be Monetised vs Blogs Should Never Be Monetised
26. Affiliate Disclosure – Disclose every affiliate link vs Site Wide Disclosure vs No Disclosure
27. When To Start Monetizing – From Day 1 vs Once You Have an Audience
28. Text Links – To Sell them vs Not Selling Them
29. Outsourcing – Outsourcing content (or other aspects of blogging) vs producing your own.

I have had some mixed feedback regarding this site.  Some positive (thanks!) and some not so positive (thanks too!).  I built this site as an outlet for some of my thoughts and experience and a response to the many poor high priced “get rich quick” schemes that I believe exploit beginners.

If you have read through some of the key guides then you will already be aware that:

• This site is not about getting rich quick
• I believe in creating good sites that serve a use
• Web building should be a fun hobby and something we can all enjoy
• This can be done professionally, but I have a day job and family
• It is possible to make money doing something you love whilst meeting your day to day responsibilities

But if you read on, you will see a screen shot of the last cheque I received from one of my many income streams, and I am sure you will agree $3000 a month from one of several partners is not something to be ashamed of!  Do I run this as a business?  No, I don’t claim to.  Do I run sites in my spare time to boost my income?  Yes!  To me this money is the difference between affording an extra holiday or replacing the  family car – something I’m sure you can relate to.

How Much Money Can I Really Make from my Online Website Building Hobby?

Well, this will depend on a number of things such as the effort you put in, how well you understand the business model, and not to mention how lucky you are!  But that said, the harder you work , the luckier you get!

I have some sites that make between nothing and a few pounds a day, these sites might have taken a day or two to setup and will contain some good solid content, hopefully targeting and answering a particular search question that people will continue to ask for many years to come.  This doesn’t sound like much but several sites like this over the year will produce a not unwelcome sum to enjoy!

And so here we are, this is something I never thought I’d be doing, but I wanted to illustrate two things:

• I am not talking out of my arse.  I really have built sites.  I really have made some decent money from them!  If you want to earn some extra cash in your spare time then it is now up to you.  Check out our beginner site building guide and act upon it, or keep reading and dreaming and shelling out money for a plan that promises you a fortune (except in the small print where it will undoubtedly point out that they can’t and won’t guarantee any level of earning!)
• The money earned from my web building philosophy is not toy money. I have a number of income streams that generate varying amounts of cash, most are UK based as I generally build sites targeted here.  But I also have some US based sites that generate some cash through Amazon.com Associates.  Amazon are the last partner that seems to send out cheques so that has enabled me to post up one from last month.

Amazon.com represents a smaller portion of my online hobby income, here is the last cheque they sent me:

Last Month's Cheque from Amazon.com

Sure, after tax and currency conversion it isn’t enough to retire on, but that one cheque alone will be funding a nice little holiday that I wouldn’t be having otherwise!

Web Building as a Hobby Not a Career

I do not run sites full time, I have not set up a mega business, I fit in my site building around my family life and long term career.  I guess I am fortunate in that my day job teaches me a lot of the skills that I need, by working at the centre of a large UK website I get to talk with experts in every field, chat with Google representatives and attend tradeshows. But other than the knowledge I gain, I do not leverage this position at all in my hobby website building.

Unlike some other make money online gurus I didn’t start out at the dawn of the Internet, I didn’t get a head start, I don’t have 1000s of follows on Twitter to help kick start a new venture.  I don’t brag about success, I don’t claim to be something I’m not.  I don’t have a team behind me, I don’t pay people to do anything on these personal projects.  It’s all done at home, from my desk, spending a couple of hours every other night or so.

What are you waiting for, start your Blogercise today!

Why was this site created?

There are thousands and thousands of “make money online” blogs out there and I have read many of them! But they all seem to have some familiar problems which I am sure you will recognise.

• Hard to find the right information – the blog site format can make it hard to dig out the posts you actually need
• Written by unatractive obnoxious characters – not sure about you, but I really don’t want to hear about how some rich jerk bought a Ferrari and got drunk on champagne whilst his website made £10k in his sleep
• Commercial – the actual useful information is hidden behind a subscription based website or in a chargeable eBook
• The most well known authors are, frankly, unqualified to help beginners – many of the Internet celebrities don’t appreciate that they are successful for no other reason than getting there first
• Confused facts – many of these sites appear poorly researched and lacking consistent quality advise
• Out of date – blogs that have been around for years will have adopted many old fashioned ideas and techniques, old post won’t have been updated and you won’t know what to believe

Another approach

Home Computing

The Blogercise site turns the traditional approach on its head. The top of every page on the site lists out the key steps that will mark the difference between success and failure, click through each one to read a succinct yet comprehensive guide to the topic. All the information you need in one place. Each article will be kept up to date with the latest developments from the webmaster world.

No hard sell, no unrealistic promises, just attainable targets that anyone can reach. And all for free.

Professional: This site is written by a successful IT professional working in London. He is a normal sensible chap who works to provide a stable future for his family. The site is constructed with a warm professional tone designed to help beginners get ahead. All content on the site is entirely free.

Experience: The author works at the center of one of the UK’s leading websites. A household name for almost a decade, this site is a leader in its field, employing over one hundred staff to produce a trusted consumer affairs resource. Leading the management information team ensures knowledge of the whole operation, from managing a multi million pound adwords budget right though to tracking every click that every user makes on the site.

Home working: The author has transferred this extensive experience into his own personal projects for the first time just last year. The first of these sites was built from scratch with no existing means to funnel traffic to it. It proved an instant success achieving the first million page views in just 3 months. Repeatable site development has shown that a wealth of industry knowledge can be utilised for home site builder success.

Empathic: By combining both the experience of home projects and multi million pound commercial websites the author understands how to move between the two worlds. You won’t be fooled into thinking building a successful site is easy. Some well known site authors fail to see the advantage they have as the current owners of high traffic sites. The more success you have the easier it gets to launch new projects. For the beginner it’s a whole other story.

Current: Thanks to working in a cutting edge technology environment the author is up to date with the latest development techniques, Internet tools, the best sites for information. His professional career even involves meeting with Google staff from time to time – they won’t advise on how to rank in their search engine, but they are always on hand to support adwords and adsense when required.

Resources: There are many great resources for information gathering around the net. Google themselves publish a great deal of tips that we can all use, it’s amazing how often this official source is overlooked. Sites such as Hitwise are a treasure trove of statistical delights. Here at Blogercise.com fact is the preferred currency. The site author has grown used to the concept of failing quickly in his professional career. Set up a test, see what works, adapt and move. The only way to get ahead is to learn how to develop your own path. Lead. Don’t follow.

The famous Blogercise 10 step guide

The ten step guide to creating a successful website can be found below. This guide is designed for beginners and more experienced webmasters alike. We’ll take you though the journey of creating your site from first conception through to final completion. It is very easy to get distracted when generating your first site, but it is critical that you stay focused and concentrate on completing your first project before attempting the next.

Don’t be in the 90% of readers who will end up with 20 parked domain names and a website as busy as a burger van at the annual Vegetarian society conference. It may take a few attempts to get right, but only by completing a project will you learn for the next. And you never know, a quiet completed site today may take off in six months time. An incomplete site will never make it.

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