Is it possible to start a personal blog with little or no money?

[caromelheart]

I have thought about starting a personal blog but don't know too much about it. Does anyone have information as to costs, start up, how to? Would you please give links? Also, is there a way to have a personal blog and make any profit off of it? Thanks all!

[Jo]

blogspot.com
Free.
blog your little brains out
Profit? LOL

[Zach N]

blogs don't get much attention, I would recommend vlogging through blogtv.com

[Sloba]

You can in few minutes start a blog for free from http://blogger.com, but if you are willing to use it in business purpose you will encounter some obstacles from these websites, or any other service where they host your blog.

For example, you cannot use advertisement on the blog and your domain name will look something like this http://www.yourname.blogspot.com

Alternately you can set a blog ( downloaded software from http://wordPress.org ) and that way you can have self hosted blog and have a full control of it. Software is free, but in this case you need to pay for hosting. That is what I advice you to do. On the beginning there's more work than on blogger.com or wordpress.com, but eventually you will have much advantages. And hosting you can find as little as 5$ month.

Earning money with blog is not easy, but if you have a good idea it's possible. The most important thing is to get traffic to your website. Once you have it, it's easy to monetize with advertising or selling products (you can partner with someone if you don't have your own). This traffic thing doesn't come overnight.

One more reason why is good to have WordPress software is because you can additionally optimize it for search engines with easy to install WordPress plugins (like "All in one SEO plugin" and similar).
If you are beginner use video tutorials to help you with this - http://www.web2whizzing.com/create-succe...rial/seo/. Actually its easy, but additional help is only a plus.

[Kee]

Yes. Pick a blogging service, figure out a purpose for the blog, and start adding content. Go with one of the developer-based services below unless you are trying to incorporate a blog into a larger web site (Wordpress or Typepad would work well in that case). See the 360 team post on "How to blog":
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-1qCkw2Eha...cq=1&p=303 .

Yes, you can make money from blogging - typically through advertising features like Adsense or just by adding ads to your blog location. However, you can't advertise if you start a blog on Yahoo! 360, as that's against community guidelines. See http://problogger.net for a wealth of information on how to make money blogging.

Popular, free blogging services:
Blogger/Blogspot (http://vox.com ).

Popular, free social-networking services with blogging capabilities:
MySpace (http://xanga.com ).

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YAHOO BLOGGING (also free):

1) I use Yahoo! 360 (http://profile.yahoo.com ).

Go to http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/360/ . Keep in mind that 360 is a beta service, so there are many bugs. If you have problems, check the Answers area or click on my avatar and scroll down to click on my "Starred Questions" tab.

See the 360 team post on "What makes a 360 page interesting?":
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-1qCkw2Eha...q=1&p=3513

Press release that explains "What is yahoo 360?":
http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release1222.html


2) Another blogging service is Yahoo! Shine, which is geared toward women. See http://shine.yahoo.com/page/about/ for details.

Go to http://shine.yahoo.com . Clicking any of the links on that page (to an article or section) will lead you to an area where you can compose a blog. See the right side of the page.
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The popularity of your blog depends on several factors, including the effort made to promote the blog:
1) Connect with other users (i.e. social networking)
Find active users and be active yourself. Visit other blogs and develop online relationships with others. On sites less dedicated to social networking features, commenting on other blogs and having people comment on your blog is very important.
2) Promote your space or blog
Wherever you can, you should put a link to your blog. Your profiles, your signature in personal e-mails, and etc. You should do this without spamming sites and people though. Send a link to your 360 space to all your contacts (friends and family) and encourage them to pass it on.
3) Make the blog easy to find
Create shorter or easy to remember blog address. Enable RSS for the blog, if possible (http://developer.yahoo.com/rss/ ).
4) Last but certainly not least: Consistently post interesting content