how do u start blogging?

[Andy]

I've been interested in blogging for a while now but I'm not familiar with the start up process. I want to blog for profit and I was wondering how to do this. Do u have to pay to blog? and also can someone give small tips on how to be a successful blogger. Thanks for the answers in advance.

[Nathan]

I don't have much time to answer, but I'll talk about two routes you can go down.

1) Join a blogging platform (blogger, wordpress.com etc)
The benefits of this is that you don't have to pay anything, and your blog can be up and ready within a couple minutes. You won't have a dedicated URL though - for example, it will be 'newblog.weebly.com'. But the big problem is that you don't technically own it; so if you're looking at your blog as a long-term thing, you don't want to go this route because they can take your site down without warning. This is especially important to note when you're trying to make a profit - it would suck if you start making $100/day then your site just gets taken down, right?

2) Self hosted (Hostgator = hosting. Namecheap = domain name)
Hosting will cost you about $100 a year, and the domain name will set you back $10 a year, but the advantages are endless. It is YOUR property, and it will have a dedicated URL (e.g. 'newblog.com').

My advice - take the 2nd route! You'll thank me later. There are just too many horror stories of thousands of hours going down the drain due to a blogging platform deleting a site without warning.

More advice for success - Write on what you love, provide value to your readers, and have well thought out revenue streams.

Good luck.