The term Blog is a shorter way to say WEBLOG.
I have been a part-time blogger for nearly 3 years. My goal right from the beginning was to supplement my income. I also worked part-time as a technical writer, but the U.S. economy put me in a precarious position. I'm paying twice as much now as I did 4 years ago for a gallon of gasoline. Our household grocery bill is up 25-30% and utility bills... well you know what I mean.
According to many reliable sources, hundreds of billions of dollars change hands over the Internet every year. For the longest time, consumers were reluctant to use their credit cards online, but new, super-secure "Shopping Carts" have minimized the risk.
I wondered back in 2009 if I could create a home-based business that would position me to tap into the Internet Marketing business. But I didn't dwell on the thought too long. Instead... I dove headlong into the idea with no real plan or even a clue as to how to go about it.
My approach was a hit or miss, trial and error, shotgun approach to setting up some method of getting traffic from the people flocking to the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. People search for answers to problems, to learn how to fix something, where to find the best price on appliances and other household and personal needs.
Think about this... when you need something, do you reach for the Yellow Pages? Not many people do anymore. An online search can find you the answer to almost any question you come up with in less time than it takes to let your fingers do the walking. We probably have a telephone directory in our home, but I'd be hard-pressed to find it.
So there's the challenge: draw on Internet search traffic and offer to fill the needs of these folks. To establish a presence on the Internet-you need a website. Since I was cash-poor at the time, I sought out as many FREE services and software that I could find. I started off building free websites, but in all truth-they looked like crap. I knew nothing about website design-and I still don't.
Time moved along and after a year, and countless hours of struggle, I had not made my first dollar from the Internet.
I signed up for every free bonus book I could find. But none of them gave me a clear picture of what I had to do. I gathered bits and pieces of this complex puzzle, and about 2 years ago I learned that blogs might be a better choice over websites.
Today I have a bunch of blogs, some free and some hosted (fee-based hosting).
I got kind of carried away here. My title on this article mentions Fun and Profit. Many of my readers aren't looking to create any extra cash, so if you hope to do some blogging just for fun, I can help you with that too.
Since beginning my home-business, I have been having fun. To me, creating an online presence has filled me with excitement and enthusiasm. Call it a renewal in life. I am 75 years old so I probably should be thinking about spending more time in my rocking chair on the front porch. But it's the challenge that excites me. If your goal is to set up a means for you to create a family log so that everyone can be kept up to date, or maybe you want to create a site devoted to activities and reviews of past club or organization's activities, I can give you more information on the options open to you.
Yes, I am definitely a blogger in order to change my financial situation. And as each day passes, I see more visible proof that I'm headed in the right direction. 3 years ago I could have made far more, faster progress if I had spent a few dollars on useful tutorials that lead me by the hand in language I could comprehend with my minimal computer knowledge. Just the other day I found such a program and it blew my mind. I bought it, and there were all the answers I missed over the past 3 years. This is an incredible teaching manual, but even more incredible is the price. If I told you that this source can get you up and running for under $10, you'd think I'm nuts. Check it out at Nearly Free Blogging. This is serious content for serious bloggers: http://www.donpenven.com/nearly-free-blogging-training/
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