After considering all the options that are available to me re creating/hosting my new blog, I have made my decision based on the following:
1. Domain Name: to be announced when the blog is up & live (this coming week)
2. Niche Market: Money.
Whoa! That is not a niche market!!!! Yes, I know – this is one of those “Do as I say, not as I do” caveats. Indeed the Internet is flooded with blogs and sites on money, how to make it, how to manage it, how to invest it … and much much more. My chances of becoming the Search Engines’ Darling and be rewarded with top ranking are slim indeed. Having said that I am willing to take longer for this blog to become a money making site for me. The reasons I chose this very broad market are:
a. It is top of mind for just about everyone today.
b. The broad topic allows for many niches.
c. It is consistent with this blog, which is about making money blogging, so it builds on to an existing “product”
d. The niches lend themselves to my being able to promote some of my other existing businesses as options
e. Topic comfort – I write my own material so this will not be as time consuming as perhaps other narrower niches I was considering
3. Platform: Wordpress (paid version)
The reason I chose Wordpress is twofold:
a) Many more options available for development of blog especially as I intend to make this a signature blog. For this same reason I chose the paid version as it offers so many more features and functions that I will be growing into.
and,
b) Having taken a number of courses in Internet Marketing, I was able to capitalize on an offering by Nitro Marketing to set up my blog for free.
4. Host: Hostgator
While both Blue Host and HostGator are offer similar services and product I chose HostGator because it is the host service that Nitro recommends.
OK…. I fudged a bit here. I was going to do the Wordpress thing from scratch – although I was definitely going for the paid version. Techie type stuff is not my strong suite. It would not be the best use of my time. I had other options for a “set it & post it” wordpress blog (I have a few of those with another program I purchased), but decided to go with Nitro. My experiences with Nitro Marketing courses have been that the content is always strong on detail, complete, and delivers great support. I have not had a blog set up by this group before so in a way I will be testing a new product. Actually you can sign up for their free newsletter. They have started to host free webinars which I highly recommend. You will be advised of those webinars in the newsletters.
Lets recap to date:
1. Topic/Niche selection
2. Domain Name
3. Ten Posts written & ready to post in weekly or semi-weekly intervals
4. Platform (Blogger or Wordpress)
5. Host (needed only if paid Wordpress selected).
Happy Blogging!
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