extreme webmaster evernerve

If you are thinking about launching a blog, and maybe earn some money from it, you should keep in mind the following:

1. Your own domain has way more authority than a blog on a shared, free blogging service.

What is more easier for your blog readers to remember, mydomain.com or mydomain.blogspot.com? Domain names tend to stick. Also, try getting a .com domain. It can be remembered more easily and once your blog becomes popular, someone might try to get the .com domain that matches your .net or .org one.

2. Search engines will always give more authority to a blog hosted on your own domain.

You may be quite skilled at SEO and writing quality content, but you will never gain the trust of search engines (most notably, Google) if your blog isn’t associated with a specific top-level domain.

Trust me and don’t make the mistake I made: Forget about having your blog hosted at blogspot.com, wordpress.com or livejournal.com. I have done it many times and it never ever paid off.

Do have your own domain for your blog. I’ve done this a number of times already: I bought a .com domain with good keywords inside it, wrote some quality content and outranked all the blogs on free, shared blogging websites in a matter of weeks, sometimes even days. Even when those other blogs had lots of interesting and genuine content.

3. It is not easy to get targeted AdSense ads on Blogger… much less on other blogging systems.

While Google is encouraging bloggers to earn money via their Blogger blog system, this can be difficult to pull off.

Adjusting your ads is not so easy, because any option than the standard ones is difficult to implement: Most notably, to have ads inside your posts. This requires far more tweaking than on any other blog system.

In the majority of cases, it will take some time for the ads to be related to your actual content. Let’s say that you started a blog on a highly profitable topic, like insurance or real estate, for example. The ads that will appear on your blog will be blog-related: they will be about blogging, about monetizing your blog and such.

On the other side, if you bought a domain that is related to insurance or real estate (let’s say, reallyaffordableinsurance.com), and your content reflects that, Google and AdSense robots will notice that immediately and your ads will reflect that too. Which in turn means more money in your pocket per each click.

As for other blogging websites, they may not permit you to slap AdSense on them at all. Having your own hosted domain is a must.

Again, listen to my advice because I have tried monetizing Blogger blogs, but it never paid off.

4. Link exchange

Would you exchange links with a blog whose URL sounds like someblog.blogspot.com or myownblog.wordpress.com?

That might hurt your rank in Google, because you will link to a blog whose PageRank is probably below 3. Also, blogs on hosted domains tend to be more specific and to have better content and link exchange value.

5. Domain name brand value

Whether you have planned to develop a strong brand related to your domain name or not, your domain will inevitably become associated with a specific subject matter if you post engaging content on a regular basis. And once that happens, advertisers will come to you by themselves. You won’t have to search for them, but rather, it is you who will choose and set the rules. And believe me, that feels really good.

6. Ease of use

With your own hosted website and domain, you have total control over every single aspect of your site. You can track visitors, slap any kinds of ads that you like, insert any script you like, choose the type of CMS and so on. On a shared blogging website, you have only one CMS and that’s it. And, while I’m at it, here is a piece of advice: choose WordPress for your blog. The scalability, adaptability and flexibility of WordPress is incredible. The choice of themes, the support… amazing. Blogger just sucks.

If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to my RSS feed or leave a comment. Share and bookmark: