The first step is going to be hosting. You are going to need to rent a bit of space on a server somewhere that is connecting to the internet. This used to be a fairly expensive proposition, but now, there are plenty of really good hosting companies that will allow you to start cheaply, and grow as needed. I would suggest going with a hosting company that only does hosting, and find one that will allow you to pay monthly, unless the bill is very small, and paying for a year won’t put you out much. As I mentioned, there are hundreds of hosting companies, many do a great job. A decent place to start is WebHostingTalk, it is a forum that covers all sorts of hosting. Make sure you do a bit of research there before you sign up with anyone.

Personally, I love A Small Orange, they aren’t the cheapest, but their servers are rock solid, and they have great service. Initially, you will be good on their Tiny plan, it is $25 for an entire year. You should have a pretty good idea after 6 months if your site will work or not, if not, you can start over, and still have 6 months left of hosting. Moving up to the next category is very easy, so if your site grows like crazy, a quick email will solve your problems.

One suggestion is to stay away from companies that do mostly other things besides hosting, like GoDaddy or Yahoo. Stick with a company that only does hosting, you will have a better experience.

Once you have hosting all set up, head on over to Wordpress and download the latest version. So, why Wordpress? I have found it to be the easiest software to use, it is free, there are now offer 4,000 plug-ins available, over 10,000 themes and is in constant development. For me, I can make WordPress work for about any kind of site, and it is simple to add new information or change the layout.

Install WordPress on your hosting, and get your domain pointed over to your hosting (your host should have emailed you instructions on how to do that).

OK, now step back from the computer for a moment, and grab a piece of paper (graph paper, if you have it handy). List at the top all the things you want included on your page. List anything that will be mostly static (rarely updated) under pages. List other things under posts. Now, sketch out below what you think your page should look like. I sketched out my iPods site, I wanted links to pages that information about each kind of ipod up top, the first thing you see. Below that, I wanted to place news and tip/tricks, and then a sidebar that had ads and links in it. Pretty simple design. Now that you have an idea what you want it to look like, go find yourself a wordpress theme that somewhat matches your layout and colors you prefer. For iPods, I used TypeBased from Woothemes, it is one of their free thems. Great layout, a lot of color choices, and free. I strongly suggest you find a free theme you like, there are literally thousands out there, no use to pay for a theme at this point. Just do a Google Search for WordPress Theme, and start looking at examples until you find one. Again, most themes are free, so download a few that might be close and install them on your site to test them out. I often download 10 – 15 that I like, and they all usually suck once I get them up and running, if I am lucky I find one I love.

Now, this part may seem a bit daunting, but there are hundres of tutorials on how to set up WordPress, install themes and edit themes out there, just do a quick search, you will run across a few that work well for you. Get it set up how you want it. The great thing about WordPress templates is that they are easy to change down the road, and you don’t have to worry about losing any of your content, it will always be there.

However, we are not building a business or blog, we are building a content site. Return visitors are not nearly as important as getting good rankings in search engines. It is much more important for us to pick a domain name that has our keyword (and hopefully only our keyword) in the domain. The .com is not nearly as important.

In looking for domains, I would much rather have the .com if available, but most likely, if I am developing a site on Ford Mustangs, mustangs.com is long gone, having been registered for 14 years. Many domains are for sale, but any decent keyword .com domain is going to be way over our budget. You are much better off finding another extension. So, here are our rules in searching for a domain:

1. .com is preferred, but not a requirement
2. keyword must be in the domain
3. if domain includes only our keyword, fantastic!
4. The cheaper the domain, the better (for the most part).

There are a few sites I use to check on availability. Domainsite and Name.com are two great sites that search many TLDs. You can also try EuroDNS, they search several options not always available to US registrars. Head on over to those sites, and do a search for the keywords still in your list. Here are a few options I was able to find for my list:

• iPods – ipods.bz, 
• MacBooks – macbook.vc, macbook.tl, macbooks.in, macbooks.bz, macbooks.ws
• Maui – maui.tw, maui.vc

Not too bad, single word keywords as the only part of the domain, fairly cheap extensions. If at all possible, I try to find domains that have renewal fees of under $20 per year. Last thing I want to do is hand someone over $100 per year (or more) for my domain, when I would be just as happy with one that was $10 per year, just money out of my pocket. Now, I have been working on these three for some time, here is what I was able to register:

• iPods.ws 
• MacBook.info
• Maui.in

One other option you can look at is purchasing a domain. If you cannot find something that works for your site, head over to Sedo.com and do a search for your keyword. You never know what you might find.

Once you have found your domain, search around  for cheaper registrars or coupons that may be available. Go ahead and register your domain. On to the next step, setting up your blog.

• Pick something you are interested in
• Pick something others are interested in
• Pick something that can make you money

Simple, three easy steps. Now, how do you go about doing this?

Pick something you are interested in

Make sure the subject you choose interests you, and you are familiar enough with it to be able to carry on an educated conversation about it, before doing any research. No need to be a well respected expert, just something you are familiar with. You will be spending time researching and writing about this subject for some time to come, it better be of interest to you.

I started a site not too long ago on netbooks. They are super hot right now, the fastest growing niche in technology. I see them outselling traditional laptops by 2010. A huge market. Problem is, I know nothing about them, and honestly, don’t care to learn. I am a mac guy at heart, have been since 1984. Apple doesn’t produce a netbook (yet). Before going too far, I scraped the site, but kept the domain just in case things change. I really should learn to follow my own rules.

Ok, one step down, time to write a list. Take out a piece of paper, list 5 – 10 things that you are interested in. Write as many as you can. Rank them, based on your interest in the subject. Here is my list:

1. iPods
2. MacBooks
3. Major League Soccer
4. Maui
5. Antique Watches

Yep, strange list, I agree. OK, good, hopefully you have a list too. On to the next step.

Pick something others are interested in

This is important to understand, the more people who are interested in your subject, the greater chance there is of making some decent money. If the only thing you are interested in is antique lawn sprinklers, I am sure there are a few others out there with the same passion, but the opportunity to make some extra money is slim to none.

My preferred method of finding out if others might be interested in my subject is to do a keyword search. I want to find out how many people are searching Google and other sites for my subject. If the number is high, chances are I have a winner.

Keyword Search Tool

or

Google KeyWord Tool

In checking your subjects, look at similar results that may fall in the same category. So when I am looking at iPods, I can include iPod Touch, iPod Nano, etc. in my results. Here are the daily search totals for my list:

1. iPods – 45,000
2. MacBooks – 3,000
3. Major League Soccer – 200
4. Maui – 2,000
5. Antique Watches – 200

Ok, none are too bad. How does your list look? Obviously, the iPods stands out above the crowd. Very high daily search results. My guess is the competition is pretty tough too. MacBooks and Maui are not bad, high enough to interest me. Major League Soccer and Antique Watches are pretty low, but I will keep them on my list just in case. If something on your list has very low results, less than 50, try searching similar terms to see if that makes any difference. If the totals are really low, consider scratching those off of your list.

Pick something that can make you money

Ah, money. That is why we are here, isn’t it? We aren’t blogging for fun, we are blogging for dollars. A good way to get a feel on whether a subject will be profitable or not is to take a look at Google Adwords bids for your subjects.

Google Adwords Traffic Estimator

Enter your keywords, you can do them all at one time. Leave the bid amount (#2 and #3) blank, and select United States for #4c. Go ahead and click continue to get your results. The results will give you an idea of what people are paying, per click in adwords, to advertise their websites. Here are my results:

1. iPods – $.87 – $1.30
2. MacBooks – $1.61 – $2.01
3. Major League Soccer – $1.11 – $1.40
4. Maui – $1.56 – $2.02
5. Antique Watches – $0.49 – $0.61

OK, pretty good, but not great. Antique Watches has low traffic and low prices, off the list. Major League Soccer has pretty decent prices, but low traffic, so also off the list. So, here is my remaining list I will take with me to my next step.

1. iPods
2. MacBooks
3. Maui

I hope you have a nice, narrowed down list. On to choosing a domain name for your blog.

When I was growing up, to earn a little extra income, people sold Avon and Amway or helped out a local or family business for a few hours a week. Today, our opportunities to enhance our full time income are immense. Costs of starting your own website have dropped substantially, and ways to monetize content is easier than ever. Political statisticians say that the real unemployment rate should be around 5%, as there is 5% of the population that is just unemployable. As in our case, when I say Everyone, 100% of the world’s population shouldn’t come to mind. But if you are capable of finding us, then you fall under the Everyone umbrella. Let’s say everyone under 50 should have a blog, how about that?

If you want to start out for fun, there are no costs involved at all (and also next to no earnings potential either). I must know 100+ people with their own free blogs, but I never read them, and neither do you. No one really cares what my 1 year old nephew did this morning. And if I don’t care, why should you? This is not what I am talking about when I say Everyone should have a blog. We aren’t talking about blogging for fun, or to keep the family up to date on what is going on, we are talking about blogging for dollars. No use spending your precious time if there isn’t going to be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or at least a pot of $20 bills waiting for you somewhere.

Here is what we are trying to build: Content sites with sustained earnings.

Content can be built slowly over time, updated as needed, and readers don’t expect updates every day from you.

Over the next few days, we will be covering the following subjects, steps if you will:

1. Discovering your Blog’s subject
2. Picking a domain name for your Blog
3. Setting up your blog
4. Setting and tracking goals
5. Making Money from your Blog

I will also be starting a project, following all these steps with you, and tracking my progress over the next month to see how things go.