The answer to how do I set up a blog is both simple and complicated. Simple, because it’s relatively easy to set up the mechanics of a blog, complicated because the number of options is virtually limitless. You can do anything you like with your blog and there are any number of tools to help you do it.
But let’s start with blogging basics. To set up a blog you can go to blogger or wordpress or a couple of others and simply set yourself up a free blog. These sites usually have plenty of instructions about blog set-up so away you go.
Which is fine if you want to do blogging for a hobby. A bit of entertainment. Why would you want to spend out on something that you’re just doing in your spare time? For that kind of blogging, free blog sites are perfectly adequate.
It’s not what professional bloggers do. Nor is it what I suggest you do if you want to make money from blogging. For that you’ll want your own domain name and some hosting. This is still remarkably inexpensive as you can get your own .com for less than $10 and reliable hosting for around $8 or $9 a month.
Why pay? Because if you don’t everything you do is ultimately under someone else’s control. Someone else decides what your blog looks like. Someone else decides what you can have on it, what money-making elements you can add. To some extent, even what you can and can’t say.
Which is no way to run a business. If you’re asking how do I set up a blog to make money online, you need to invest a few bucks. Then you have complete control.
It also looks much more professional. Buying something from a blog (or following a blog’s recommendation to buy from someone else) is a lot about trust. Who do you think is more trustworthy, someone who you know has a free blog at myfreeblog.blogspot.com or someone who clearly is a proper business at myownbusiness.com?
You might argue that in truth one is no more “genuine” than the other – and you’d be right. The problem is that much of the time trust isn’t about facts, it’s about perception. If someone perceives you as an amateur that’s what you are to them and little you say is going to make any difference.
Come across as a professional and people just accept it.
I’ll be writing a number of articles on getting started with blogging, including a lot of the actual “mechanics”, but for now my answer to how do I set up a blog is a simple one. Make sure everything you do is professional. It’s not difficult so long as you’re careful. If you come across as an amateur now it will take an awful lot of work to change that perception.
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