How I Got Here

When I launched Money Under 30 in mid-2006, this blog was purely a hobby. I was trying to get a handle on my finances and I always enjoyed writing and fiddling with Websites. Around that same time, I left a marketing job in publishing to work for an online marketing firm where I learned a truckload about blogging and search engine optimization. Just four months later, however, the publishing company recruited me back as a textbook sales representative.

Living alone, over a hundred miles away from my wife (we weren’t married yet), and traveling frequently, I had plenty of time to continue building Money Under 30. As the site grew, so did the income I earned from advertising partners. For the first few months, the income was nothing more than a curiosity. Soon, it grew to a small monthly amount that was perfect for making extra debt payments. About a year ago, however, I began earning more from my blogging business than I did at work.

Now, as many bloggers (especially financial bloggers) will tell you, earning more from your blog than from a job isn’t enough to justify going full-time. Blogging income is volatile and unpredictable. Advertisers and traffic come and go, and they can take the blogger’s paycheck with them. I’ve seen this first-hand. During last winter’s credit crisis, many advertisers suddenly pulled out of the blog market and my income dipped considerably.

Considering all the risks of leaving the workplace and becoming a blogger, I realized a few things. Before becoming a full-time blogger, I needed:

• A solid emergency fund to protect myself against slow months or lost income.
• Comfortably more monthly income than expenses. (Again, as a cushion).
• Health insurance!

I took care of the emergency fund and living below my means a while ago (they’re key financial moves for anybody), but health insurance was the kicker. Going without health insurance was not an option. Although I’m healthy and rarely visit the doctor or get prescriptions, I knew it would just take one illness or accident to bankrupt me.

In late 2008, my girlfriend and I became engaged and we made the decision to live in Maine (where her career is based) rather than Massachusetts, where I was working. This wasn’t easy. We’re both from Massachusetts, but I went to college and she attended law school in Maine. We liked Maine. The state’s slogan is “the way life should be”, and we agreed. There are fewer people and cars. There’s the breathtaking coastline, tranquil lakes, and lush mountain forests. Maine seems to have it all; except jobs. Finding a job in Maine in my area of experience—publishing and marketing—was, and still is, a near-impossible task.

But of course, I had blogging. I just needed health insurance until we got married and I could go on hers. So, in January, I packed up my Massachusetts career and took a job working for a great locally-owned coffee shop that gave employees great health insurance. I had hoped it would be a great trial run for blogging “full-time”. Problem was, working on your feet for almost 40 hours a week doesn’t leave you much energy for working another 30 or 40 on a blog. I had health insurance, but I was still a very part-time blogger.

Fast forward eight months, and (as some readers may have realized) we were married two weeks ago. I left the coffee shop around the same time. Now, after a week on an Aruban honeymoon and a week unpacking wedding gifts and settling into our home as husband and wife, we’re both back to work. For me, for the first time, it means working as a full-time blogger.

The time is right to give this a try and follow others in this space like the bloggers behind Personal Finance Advice, Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar, and more. (Are you a full-time personal finance blogger? Let me know and I’ll add you here…I’m not sure who else is full-time and curious to connect with others who have taken the leap!)

Where I’m Going

I have big aspirations. I started this blog because I am passionate about educating twentysometings about financial issues so that others can avoid many of the mistakes I made in my early twenties. Despite all the great financial blogs, books, and other media out there, last year’s credit crisis proves that we, as a society, are still financially ignorant. I believe that much of this has to do with an almost total lack of financial literacy education in our schools and even colleges. Forget learning calculus; we need to learn how to balance a checkbook and read a credit card statement!

In the next year, I plan to make Money Under 30 a comprehensive educational site that will provide readers of all ages with the necessary tools to master personal finance basics. In addition, I hope to continue doing print, radio, and television interviews and other speaking engagements to talk about the importance of personal financial literacy amongst younger generations.

Longer term, I will also be working on a new non-profit Website that provides the most basic, easy-to-understand personal finance lessons possible. Ultimately, I hope to develop a company that can take these vital messages into schools, colleges, and even corporations to spread financial literacy across the world.

That said, I’m still treating blogging full-time as an experiment. I feel blessed to have this opportunity to take this chance, but I realize that it’s just that—a chance. It may not work out. I’m prepared to reevaluate my career and find work that is both satisfying and in-demand here in Maine, where my wife and I have chosen to live. Though you might be surprised to hear this from a personal finance blogger—it’s not all about money. Becoming a full-time blogger, giving up a salary, and taking on risk may not be the best move for my finances. But I’m optimistic that this decision is the best one overall, and I can’t wait to see what it will bring.

One Last Note

Now that I’m full-time, I will have a lot more time to write content for Money Under 30. Where I probably spent 10 hours a week on this site in the past, I’ll be spending 50 or so a week on it now. What’s missing? What do you want to read more about? Do you have financial questions you want addressed on the site? Please leave a comment or send me a note or a tweet!

Related posts:

1. What's a Graduate to Do? Advice for College Graduates Seeking Jobs in a Bad Economy
2. COBRA: Continuing Health Insurance After You Leave a Job
3. My Blogging Success Story

What is “Rich”?

These days, I think far too many people mistake being “rich” with being financially secure. Certainly, to somebody who is broke, somebody with a $1,000 in their pocket will seem rich. And, as other bloggers and financial magazines sometimes document, ordinary Americans become millionaires everyday. These ordinary millionaires don’t earn seven figures (or even six figures) a year, they don’t inherit their money, nor are they business owners—they just play by the right personal finance rules. They’re millionaires, but are they “rich”? I don’t think so.

In fact, I’ll bet if you ask people who reach a net worth of over $1 million, many will tell you that they aren’t going to stop until they reach a net worth of $4 or $5 million. Even then, they won’t be “rich”. Financially secure? Sure. Upper-middle class? Yes. But “rich”? No.

Rich is having tens of millions, or billions. Like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or Sir Richard Branson. Rich is having your own island and a private jet. Rich is giving away more in charity every year than most people will ever have in the bank.

And the fact is, you can’t get that rich on a salary.

What Can You Do on a Salary?

Just because you work for a paycheck doesn’t mean you can’t take control of your financial future. In fact, if every salaried employee’s financial destiny were predetermined, there would be scant use for financial advice!

Working for a paycheck, you can control how that paycheck grows by:

• Proving value to your employer,
• negotiating your compensation,
• investing in yourself (via training and education), and
• managing your career track.

You can also maximize how much of your paycheck you keep by:

• Living well below your means,
• Getting out of and avoiding debt, and
• Saving and investing regularly.

At the end of the day, however, you can only squeeze so much out of your chosen career field. Will it be enough to make you comfortable? Probably. Will it be enough to make you content? Hopefully. Will it ever make you “rich”? Unlikely.

Why Does it Matter?

Most of us don’t care if we ever get that rich. Most of us, myself included, will be just fine being comfortable and building a modest level of financial security. Still, it pays to steal a few tactics from the playbooks of the truly rich. A few of those tactics include:

• Taking calculated risks,
• Working for yourself,
• Seeking opportunities, and
• Understanding the value of time.

Incorporating some of these tactics of entrepreneurs and business leaders can only help us maximize our paychecks, but also may lead us to new earning opportunities outside work that will supplement our incomes and either increase our overall wealth or propel us to financial goals faster (such as early retirement).

In the coming weeks I’ll be writing more about how to pursue entrepreneurial activities on a part-time basis and how to supplement full-time entrepreneurship with a “day job” as well as the importance of risk in building wealth. In the meantime, do you agree that it’s impossible to grow rich on a salary? Please share your thoughts in a comment!

Related posts:

1. For Love or Money: How Much Should Salary Matter in Career Decisions?
2. The 10 Habits of Self-Made Millionaires
3. How the Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme Scammed the Super Rich

If you earn any income from a business or self-employment, you need to try Outright today.

Outright, formerly GoBootstrap.com, is an awesomely simply online accounting tool for entrepreneurs and small businesses. According to its founders, Outright’s goal is:

[T]o keep [accounting] as simple as possible, while helping entrepreneurs track all of their income and expenses to get their taxes done accurately.

I think they’ve succeeded.

In 2008, I earned a significant amount of income on my own for the first time in my life. As a result, my 2008 tax return is a nightmare. Although I paid some estimated taxes, I didn’t pay enough, and I’ll owe Uncle Sam a chuck of change—and possibly penalties and interest—come April. Plus, I have the pleasure of digging back through a year’s worth of credit card statements to see what might be deductible as business expenses.

I resolved that things would be different in 2009, and Outright will help me stick to that resolution.

Within five minutes of creating an account last week, I inputted all of my income and expenses so far for 2008. And already, Outright has calculated how much I should pay the IRS in estimated 2009 taxes come 2009.

As Outright is in Beta, so far it’s free. And so far, I’m a big fan. If you earn money from a small business or freelance work, you owe it to yourself to give Outright a try today.

Related posts:

1. Quarterly Estimated Tax Payments: Who Needs to Pay Them, When, and Why
2. Part-Time Entrepreneurs: Is Your Loss Deductible? Check the IRS Hobby Loss Rule
3. $400 or $800 Making Work Pay Tax Credit

Start small. Established entrepreneurs can attract millions of dollars in venture capital with a good business plan and a few handshakes. Chances are, you cannot. Focus on easy business ideas that you can implement by yourself or with the help of a few friends—and with money you already have.

Focus on something you enjoy. In life, we end up doing a lot of things we don’t enjoy—we take classes and work jobs outside of our areas of interest because we need to graduate or put food on our tables. Your own business, on the other hand, should be doing something you like. Finding a business you enjoy won’t only make you happier in the long run, it’ll also increase your businesses’ chances of success.

Network. Find other students at your school who are running their own businesses or who are interested in starting. Go to dinner or throw a party to pick their brains and find out how you can help each other.

Be realistic. Some business ideas seem better in theory than they are in reality. Almost every college has an entrepreneur who thinks he or she is going to revolutionize the purchasing of college textbooks by setting up a book exchange; in reality, it’s very difficult to pull off. On the other hand, while business ideas like selling baked goods or providing a babysitting or tutoring service for local families won’t win any ingenuity awards, they can be set up and profitably run pretty easily.

Do your homework. The internet is chock-full of resources that can help college entrepreneurs succeed. Check out the Collegiate Entrepreneur’s Association and Entrepreneur Magazine for starters.

Do you have experience running a college-based business? What was it and how did it work out?

Related posts:

1. 10 Businesses You Can Start With Almost No Money
2. Kiva Business Card for Professionals: Get an Advanta Card Without a Business
3. Inc., LLC, or Sole Proprietorship? A Quick Guide to Business Structures for Young Entrepreneurs

The three most common kinds of business structures are incorporations, limited liability companies (LLC), and sole proprietorships. Each has distinct pros and cons.

Incorporations

New businesses can choose to incorporate as either a C corporation or an S corporation. What’s the key difference? C corporations face double taxation, meaning the business is first taxed on its profits, and the shareholders are taxed again on their distributions. S corporations are not subject to double taxation, but cannot offer incentive stock option plans.

Advantages of incorporations:

• Corporations can go public, making them attractive to venture capitalists.
• S corporations avoid double taxation.

Disadvantages of incorporations:

• C corporations face double taxation.
• S corporations can only have a maximum of 35 shareholders.
• Both types of corporations require lots of paperwork. They must file articles of incorporation, hold directors’ and shareholders’ meetings, keep corporate minutes, and hold shareholder votes on major corporate decisions.

LLCs

The LLC is a business structure that has only been around for about 25 years, but is steadily becoming the most popular way to structure a business.

Advantages of LLCs:

• As with corporations, owners are protected from personal liability for business debts.
• LLCs do not face double taxation.
• Earnings and losses “pass through” to owners, meaning they are reflected on owners’ personal income tax returns.
• LLCs have fewer paperwork requirements.

Disadvantages of LLCs:

• Taxation of LLCs varies by state, which is especially a concern if you will do business in several states.
• An LLC can’t go public, which may turn some investors away.
• Lawyers may charge more to form an LLC than a corporation.
• Some states require two or more partners to form an LLC.

Sole proprietorships

A sole proprietorship exists when one person is in business for him or herself.

Advantages of sole proprietorships:

• There is no paperwork to file and no legal formalities in making business changes.
• Taxes are simple, what the business earns or loses, the owner earns or loses.

Disadvantages of sole proprietorships:

• Owner is personally liable for any business debts.
• There is no way to apportion shares of the business, making it difficult to raise capital.

When should you incorporate or form an LLC?

In general, there is no rush to incorporate or form an LLC—even if your business is already operational and making money—unless your business reaches one of these junctures:

• You borrow money for the business.
• You take on one or more business partners.
• You hire employees.

For start-ups, business structures are mostly about liability. Whenever your business reaches a point where you think it could possibly be sued, it’s probably time to incorporate or form an LLC.

What does it take to incorporate or form an LLC?

Incorporating or forming an LLC is a matter of filing the right papers with your state government and paying applicable fees, which range from around $200 to $1,000. The more complex your business, (the more partners you have, or the more money that is invested), the more work will be involved in forming your business entity. That’s when you’ll want to get a lawyer involved.

Otherwise, you can navigate yourself through the process with materials from NoLo, or form your business entity online using a service like LegalZoom. A good gut-check though: If you’re not serious enough to hire a lawyer, you probably don’t need to form a business entity yet.

Related posts:

1. Part-Time Entrepreneurs: Is Your Loss Deductible? Check the IRS Hobby Loss Rule
2. The Young Tightwad’s Guide to Holiday Tipping
3. Kiva Business Card for Professionals: Get an Advanta Card Without a Business

1. Better balance transfers

The number one reason to get a business credit card? Many feature longer 0% balance transfer offers than consumer credit cards. At the time of this article, Advanta—a leading credit card issuer for small businesses—offered a 0% balance transfer for 15 months on the no annual fee Advanta Platinum Card.

2. Better 0% introductory offers

Want to make a big, new purchase and pay it off over time—for free? Most consumer cards only feature intro APRs for six or 12 months, but some business cards offer 0% APRs for as long as 15 months.

3. Useful rewards

Credit cards marketed to consumers with excellent credit American Express Blue Cash offer decent rewards, but some business cards top them. Search business card offers for rewards programs tailored to what you’ll use the card for most (e.g. travel, gas, or office supplies).

5. Higher credit limits

The terms on business credit cards are so good because card issuers know that businesses spend more—and are better credit risks—than consumers. Therefore, the credit limits on business credit cards are typically higher than consumer cards—often between $10,000 and $35,000. The Advanta World MasterCard has no pre-set limit at all. Why would you want a higher credit limit? Obviously not to rack it up, but to improve your credit. A higher-limit card on your credit report reduces your debt utilization ratio (the percentage of available credit used) and, in turn, improves your creditworthiness and FICO score.

How to apply for a business credit card

You can apply for a business credit card as an individual by selecting “sole proprietor” as your business type and using your social security number. You don’t need a legal business, and you don’t need a business tax ID number. You do, however, need very good credit.

Compare business credit cards at our partner site, Arrive Financial.

Do you use a business credit card for personal purchases? Let us know why!

Related posts:

1. Kiva Business Card for Professionals: Get an Advanta Card Without a Business
2. The Advanta Kiva BusinessCard: A Credit Card for the Socially-Conscious Entrepreneur
3. For the Lowest Credit Card Interest Rates, Look to Small Banks

Photo by shoothead

In this third part of my blogging for profit series, I take a look at how to drive traffic to your new blog.

After all, blogs make money from advertisers, affiliates, or by leads generated for your business or services, and it’s impossible to get those clicks, sales, and leads if nobody visits your site!

Just as the prerequisite to earning money from you blog is traffic, the prerequisite to traffic is great content.

Writing Blog Content

Let me ask you a question: You wouldn’t visit a store with no merchandise, right? Well, people aren’t going to visit a blog without great content, either. Content – typically articles – are what drives blog success, whether that success is measured by daily page views, RSS subscribers, advertising revenue, or referrals to another business.

As a new blogger, hopefully you enjoy writing (if not, blogging is going to get tedious quickly). That’s because to get your blog noticed, to attract subscribers, and to begin to get a decent number of search engine referrals, you will need to post between five and twenty-five articles a month. Any less, and new visitors will lose interest in checking back on your blog and it will take a while for your site to have numerous pages rank in search engine queries.

That said, your blog posts don’t all have to be 1,000+ words. In fact, many blogs have success posting many very brief articles each day. Your content does, however, need to be unique, valuable, and well-written.

With so many blogs out there, being unique is not always easy. Chances are, if you can think of it, somebody has written about it. The key to being unique is to try to put a spin on you article’s topic. Maybe it’s your passionate opinion, a personal anecdote, or an interview with an expert.

Sometimes, even being unique isn’t enough to capture readers’ attention. In the increasingly competitive online space, you need to provide value. What is value, as it applies to Web content?

I like to think of the value of a blog post as being measured by what the reader can take away from the article. Value is created when you answer a reader’s question, teach readers something, provide actionable ideas with which readers can use to improve their lives.

For this reason, there are certain kinds of articles that lend themselves well to creating value, like how to articles or articles that provide aggregate tool sand resources for solving particular problems. For more on creating really valuable content, I recommend Chris Garrett’s free eBook on Creating Killer Flagship Content.

Finally, your content has to be well-written. You don’t have to write like you’re shooting for a Pulitzer, but you do have to get your point across clearly, and with as few mistakes as possible. If you need help in this area, pick up a copy of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, surf Web writing blogs like CopyBlogger and Men with Pens, and practice, practice, practice.

Getting Traffic

Now that you have a respectable collection of high-quality content on your blog (let’s say 20-30 posts), it’s time to hunting for traffic! Hunting? Yes, hunting.

You can’t just throw a blog up on the Web and expect Google to come by, see how amazing it is, and send millions of visitors your way. In fact, Google may not send you a single visitor for anywhere between one and six months. Don’t be discouraged, though, there are plenty of ways to start getting your site noticed – and if you continue to provide top-shelf content – your traffic will grow exponentially.

Let’s take a look at the five big potential traffic sources for your blog. To be successfully, you will want to incorporate as many as possible.

• Direct Visitors
• Referrals from Other Websites
• Subscribers
• Referrals from Search Engines
• Paid Advertising

Referrals from Other Websites

When you click a link from one website to another (as long as you’re not starting on a search engine), this is a referral to the new website. And this is where you want to start getting your traffic. But be prepared, because getting links from other websites takes some effort.

To start, there are two things that every new blogger should do. First, send an introduction email to a dozen or so other bloggers on your topic that you respect. Don’t ask for a link, but just say “Hi, I’ve been reading your blog and think it’s got some great content, and I actually just started my own site on the same topic, at www.yourblog.com. I hope that perhaps our paths will cross down the road!”

If the blogger checks out your site and likes what he or she sees, there is a good chance they might link to you from their site. Also, it doesn’t hurt if you have already linked to them from yours.

Secondly, get into a habit of leaving comments on other blogs. When you comment, you have the chance to provide one link to your site. You will get a few curious clicks from folks reading the comments you leave on other blogs, but the main benefit is the blog owners will get to know you and be more inclined to read (and hopefully link to) your blog.

One note about comment etiquette: Avoid leaving fluff comments like “nice post.” Write something of value or nothing at all. Second, use your first name or blog title – never a keyword – as your name, and provide your homepage URL, not a link to a specific article.

Self-promotion (emailing others) and commenting are the two best ways to get links to your site, but you shouldn’t stop there. Social media sites give you the opportunity to submit your site and let others vote on it. Competition on these sites is fierce, but if your page is a hit you could get thousands of visitors overnight.

Also, you may be able to find a blog aggregator on your topic that republishes headlines and brief snippets of hundreds of different blogs articles every day. Submit your site to get noticed by readers and other bloggers. An example, for personal finance blogs, is PFBlogs.org.

Another strategy is to write articles on your topic for other sites. There are hundreds of article sites, such as Ezine Articles and Associated Content, that will publish your content and let you include a link back to your site. (The trade off is they get the free content, you get the link). You can also volunteer to write guest posts on other blogs, who will usually let you link back. If you try this, however, be sure that the articles you submit to other sites are totally unique of anything on your blog, as republishing duplicate content will impair your ability to rank well in the search engines.

Finally, there are hundreds of Web directories out there that will include your link (often for a fee). If you find free directories – especially if they are especially on your topic – you might give them a shot. Even still, your time can probably be better spent writing new content or commenting on other sites.

The amount of traffic you receive from referrals will usually be a small trickle, punctuated – if you’re lucky – by an occasional deluge from a social media site. Still, working to get lots of inbound links to your site is a critical first step because it gets your blog noticed, and will be critical in getting noticed and ranked by Google.

Direct Visitors (Including Subscribers)

A direct visitor is somebody who comes directly to your blog by typing in your URL into their browser, or by clicking a bookmark. In order to get direct visitors, however, they need to know about your site. So start telling your family and friends about your blog, and invite them to read it, leave comments and feedback, and to subscribe.

You can also drum up direct visitors by printing up business cards with your website and handing them out or by running offline marketing campaigns, such as t-shirts, signs, or bumper stickers. Until your blog really establishes its name and brand, direct visitors will be a small percentage of your traffic, but they can be an important primer as you’re getting started.

Subscribers

As you start to get some readers from inbound links and direct visitors, you want them to come back! To help them remember to return, get them to subscribe to your blog via RSS (allowing them to read your articles from their RSS reader or homepage) or e-mail.

The best tool out there for this is Feedburner. For free, Feedburner lets you add subscription buttons to your blog and automatically tracks and delivers your subscription content.

For the best results, advertise your subscription options prominently and in multiple places. (I recommend at the top of your sidebar and just below each post).

Search Engines

Someday, search engines may provide the bulk of your blog’s traffic, but it takes time to get there. Search engines won’t find your blog for a few weeks, and even if they find your site, they may not include it in results for a while until the search algorithms trust that your site is legit, so don’t freak out if you can’t find your site on Google in the first week.

Though there are millions of little search engine optimization (SEO) tips out there, which many Webmasters pay big bucks for, I am a firm believe that there is no real substitute for great content and great links from other sites. If you focus on those two things, the search engine traffic will come.

That said, there are a few SEO basics you’ll want to pay attention to.

Your article titles and URLs should accurately describe your article. Don’t stress about finding the perfect keywords for every article, but if your article is about a Nikon D60 Camera, put “Nikon D60 Camera” in both your title and your URL.

Avoid duplicate content. Basically, don’t steal content, write your own. Stealing is illegal, and it will ensure Google will not like your site.

Link internally. Just as links from other websites help your search engine rankings, links on your site to other pages on your own site will help to. Especially as you start writing, provide links to related articles on your blog in every article.

Follow these basics, and your site will do just fine in the search engines. You can worry about advanced tactics later when you begin going after specific traffic that you think will convert into affiliate sales or subscribers. And remember, the more content you have, the more stuff the search engines have to find. So keep writing!

Paid Advertising

The final traffic source for you to consider is paid advertising, usually from a pay-per-click network like Google Adwords.

Adwords allows you to write a small text advertisement and have it display when people search Google for words you choose. When somebody clicks on your ad and arrives at your blog, you pay Google for that visitor.

Many Adwords users are online merchants selling products or businesses collecting leads for their services. For these users, Adwords can be an incredibly profitable marketing channel because users can track exactly how much it will cost to get 1,000 visitors to their site and exactly how much they will earn from the percentage of those 1,000 visitors that become customers.

For blogs, Adwords is a bit trickier. You aren’t buying clicks to sell a product and make a profit, you would buy clicks to get traffic in the hopes those visitors will become subscribers or return visitors, increasing your potential to earn money from affiliates and advertisers down the road.

If you have money to invest in your blog, spending between $50 and $200 a month on an Adwords campaign to get visitors to your site is just one more way to introduce your site to the world.

Follow these pointers for writing quality content and brining traffic to your blog, and you will soon be on the road to making money blogging, which is exactly what I will cover in the next and final post in this series.

If you’re serious about blogging, I highly recommend Darren Rowse’s new book ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. Darren, through his site ProBlogger, has been such an inspiration to me along my blogging journey, and his new book is an awesome resource for newbie bloggers and established bloggers alike.

Related posts:

1. Blogging for Profit Part Two: Starting Your Blog
2. Blogging for Profit Part One: Your Blog Topic
3. My Blogging Success Story

Photo by shoothead

Now that you have chosen your blog topic based upon your interests and expertise, competition, and income potential, it’s time to launch your site.

Before doing so, I recommend having a minimal amount of content written and ready to post. There’s little value to having a website up without so much as a couple of articles and a description of what the blog is about, so before your blog’s launch, I recommend writing:

• A handful (maybe 2-5) articles on your topic
• An “about me” page describing you and your blog’s goals
• A links page that includes links to other blogs on your topic

Writing Your Pre-Launch Content

As you progress as a blogger you will focus on content that accomplishes a number of goals. Some articles will provide immense value so that readers will want to subscribe to your blog or share it with friends, some articles will be keyword rich to attract search visitors, and others will provide opportunities for you to earn money from relevant advertisers.

When starting out though, your articles should accomplish two things: They should be high quality so that the first readers to see them will want to come back for more, and they should include keywords on subjects you think may be able to draw visitors from Google. While it may be tempting to write very broad articles on your chosen topic, consider writing specific articles on a particular product or narrow subject, as these topics have less competition for top search engine rankings.

Writing Your About Me Page

Your about me page can be as long – and as personal – as you like, but consider the goals you have for your blog when you write it. Do you want your blog to benefit your career? If so, include career accomplishments in your resume. Do you want your blog to attract clients for consulting or other work? Describe your experience and services that you might be able to offer them.

If you wish to remain anonymous, focus your “about” page on the blog and its goals. What is the site’s mission? What value will it deliver to readers? What kinds of readers can it deliver to advertisers?

Whatever you do, spend some time on your “about” page to make it interesting. Capture readers’ attention with a question, a quote, or a funny story. Especially as you work to build up the content on your blog, your “about” page will be a factor in whether readers ever return to your site.

Linking to Other Blogs

Linking out to other sites – especially blogs – that you enjoy and are relevant to your topic is critical. First, it may get your site noticed by those other bloggers, but it also tells the search engines that you are referencing other sources relevant to your topic. Eventually, you’ll want to have more links pointing to you than going out, but linking to other relevant sites should never be seen as a bad thing.

Launching Your Blog

Now that you have some content written, it’s time to go live! Here’s where you need to decide whether you want to host a free site or pay about $20 up front, and probably an extra $6 – $10 a month, to have a self-hosted blog.

If you have serious ambitions for making money from your site, I strongly recommend paying for a self-hosted site. In the long run, this will give you more control and credibility.

Free Hosting

Setting up a free blog is easy. Just visit either Blogger or Wordpress and sign up for an account. In about ten minutes, your blog will be live! There are other sites out there, such as TypePad and LiveJournal, which have some free blogging capabilities, but charge for enhanced features.

Paid Hosting

With a few dollars and a little extra work, you can enjoy the unlimited creative control of having your own professionally-hosted website. Before buying your hosting, you’ll need to get a domain name, which costs between $6 and $10 for a one-year registration. I recommend GoDaddy.com.

Choosing a good domain is tricky because so many are already taken. While it may be tempting to grab a keyword-rich domain that exactly describes what your blog is about, you might have better luck finding a shorter, easier-to-remember domain that may have nothing to do with your topic. That’s OK, because eventually that name can become your brand.

Once you have your domain name, you can choose to buy hosting from GoDaddy also. (This is what I do, and I have no complaints, though many other bloggers prefer alternative hosts). I use Economy Linux Hosting from GoDaddy, which is $4.08 per month when you pay for a year up front.

Other recommended hosting options, starting at about $7 per month, include:

• Dream Host
• Blue Host
• AN Hosting
• Laughing Squid

If you buy your domain from GoDaddy and hosting elsewhere, you’ll need to transfer your domain to your new host. Check your host’s tech support or FAQ pages to find good instructions on how to do this.

Finally, it’s time to get your blog onto your host. To do this, I wholeheartedly recommend you use Wordpress, a free open-source blog management system which will manage all of the code for your blog, so all you have to do is write and post your articles.

You’ll need to download the Wordpress software and follow the installation instructions for uploading the software to your host. If you follow the instructions, this is usually an easy, ten minute process. If you run into any bumps, however, Wordpress provides a support forum to help you out.

Finding a Theme for Your Blog

The theme of your blog is its visual layout and design. Just as Wordpress handles all the technical stuff for you, your theme handles all the visual stuff for you. Wordpress comes pre-loaded with a couple of simple themes, but to give your blog a unique look and feel, you’ll want to “shop around” for a theme that fits your taste and topic, most of which are free. Search for Wordpress themes and you will find more than you know what to do with.

Once you have choosen your theme, download the files and copy them to the /wp-content/themes/ folder on your host. You then just select the theme in the Wordpress dashboard and your blog is instantly “redecorated” with the new theme.

Loading Your Content and Writing New Posts

The final step is to take the content you have already written for your blog and go live! In your Wordpress dashboard, you’ll simply click on “write post” and past your articles, using the text editor to format your articles, add links, etc. Once you hit publish, your content is live! Congrats!

In Monday’s continuation of this series, we’ll look at how to get your blog noticed and how to get traffic coming to your site.

Related posts:

1. Blogging for Profit Part One: Your Blog Topic
2. Blogging for Profit, Part Three: Traffic
3. My Blogging Success Story

Photo by shoothead.

No, Money Under 30 is not a “make money online” blog, but it is a financial blog – with an emphasis on helping twentysomethings overcome the increasing gap between low earnings and high debts and expenses. One way I have been successful doing just that is by turning blogging into a profitable hobby.

In this series of four posts, I’ll show you how to launch and a blog that has the potential to make you anywhere from a few hundred to over one thousand dollars per month. And who knows, depending on your skill, motivation, and a little bit of luck, you never know where you can go from there. Ready to get started? Let’s look at strategically choosing your blog’s topic.

I admit, when I started Money Under 30, I didn’t have a plan, much less a well-thought out strategy.

What I did have was financial writing experience, the need to get my own finances into shape (still a work in progress), and a hunch that under-30 finances would be an appealing and potentially profitable niche.

As I launch other blogs today, I’m a bit more careful, and I lay out strategic blog plan. Interestingly enough, I start my blog plan by asking the very same questions that led me to start this site.

• What experiences do I have that could be valuable to readers?
• Or, what interests do I have that will keep me motivated to keep blogging?
• What niches are under-served in the blogosphere, and the Web in general?
• Can you make money from your niche?

Let’s look at each of these points in a bit of detail.

What experiences do I have that could be valuable to readers?

At the core of any successful blog is valuable content. In order to create content that delivers value to readers, a blogger has to have either direct experience in a subject area, or the ability to research and write clearly on particular subject. Some bloggers have a high level of credibility in the blog’s subject area. For example:

• A doctor blogging about health care
• A mechanic blogging about auto repair
• An HR manager blogging about the hiring process

If this is you, blogging about what you know may not only turn into a profitable hobby; blogging can be a boon to your career, netting you new contacts, public recognition, even allowing you to promote yourself as a consultant.

If you’re not an expert in a particular field — or don’t feel like blogging about it — not to worry: you can be just as successful blogging about something that deeply interests you.

What interests do I have that will keep me motivated to keep blogging?

For bloggers who are not experts in their subject areas, finding a topic that is personally interesting is critical to your success, because it will give you the motivation you need to persevere when your creativity is running low or the traffic just isn’t coming.

If you choose a blog topic based on your interests rather than your professional experience, you’ll also need to possess the same attributes that enable good reporters to write articles and books on virtually any topic:

• Curiosity
• An ability to research thoroughly
• Clear, engaging writing style

Working as a reporter and editor gave me this edge when I started writing about personal finance, but tens of thousands of successful blogs have proven you don’t need to be a professional writer to find success on the Web.

If the choice for your blog’s subject isn’t clear, make a list of about five or six things you really enjoy. For example: Cooking, cars, kayaking, movies, fashion, and running. As you answer the next two questions, you’ll be able to whittle away and focus this list until, hopefully, you have a topic.

What niches are under-served in the blogosphere, and the Web in general?

You could write a killer blog on a topic you know or love, but since our goal is to build a blog that actually earns money, our work isn’t done yet. There are millions of blogs out there, and thousands more pop up every day. It’s unlikely you can think of a broad topic that doesn’t have at least a dozen blogs already — and possibly oodles more. That means it’s time to do our homework to both eliminate topics that are over saturated, and then narrow topics to find an unserved or under-served niche. For each of your proposed topics, you’ll want to find out:

• How many blogs are there on this topic?
• Who are the top one or two blogs on the subject?
• How established are the top blogs on the subject?

While it may not be possible to determine exactly how many blogs exist on your topic, you can get an idea by doing a search at Technorati. For example, a recent search revealed there are 7,001 blogs about “cooking”. In actuality, there are probably many more, as Technorati doesn’t index every blog.

Next, it’s a good idea to do some searching and try to feel out the top blogs in your categories of interest. You can do this by simply searching for “[Your Topic] Blog” on Google. Chances are, the most credible blogs will appear in the first couple of pages of search results. If not, you may see links to top blogs from many other blogs on the subject.

Finally, take a close look at the blogs you have identified as being tops on your topics. When were they launched? How many posts do they have? How many backlinks do they have? (To check, head to Google or Yahoo! and search for link:www.blogdomainname.com). The results you see only represent a fraction of the actual inbound links to the blog, but they give you an idea. Using Google, a blog with more than 1,000 backlinks is well-established. More than 5,000, and they are a huge site.

If your topic of interest has several top blogs with lots of backlinks, don’t fret, it may still be workable; just realize that you’re facing some stiffer competition as you get started. If, however, one of your topics reveals only one or two blogs that have substantial content and backlinks, you may have found the perfect topic!

But, there’s one more test.

Can you make money from your niche?

Some topics make money, others don’t. For example, blogs about products, like computers, cars, or coffee, are excellent money makers, while blogs about politics and religion struggle with bringing in advertising dollars.

It doesn’t matter whether you sell your own advertising space, use Google AdSense, or use affiliate offers (all of which I will discuss in part four), blogs about topics that encompass relevant products and services will attract more advertiser dollars every time. Take a look at your remaining list of topics (assuming you ruled a couple out for being too broad or too competetive), and ask yourself which topic has the most related products or services? Assuming everything else is equal, there’s your topic!

Now that you have your blog topic, tomorrow check back for Blogging for Profit Part Two: Starting Your Blog. I’ll provide all the resources you need to get your blog off the ground and on the Web for less than $20, or even free!

Finally, I was inspired to write this post after reading Darren Rowse’s new book ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. Darren, through his site ProBlogger, has been such an inspiration to me along my blogging journey, and his new book is an awesome resource for newbie bloggers and established bloggers alike.

Related posts:

1. Blogging for Profit Part Two: Starting Your Blog
2. Blogging for Profit, Part Three: Traffic
3. One Year of Personal Finance Blogging Mistakes

Astute readers of this blog will know that I advocate increasing your income more often than reducing your spending. It’s time to put my money where my mouth is with ten real business ideas (not cheesy work-at-home ideas) that require little or no money to start up.

I’m not saying these ideas will make you rich, but with a little hard work you might end up with a nice second income.

Concierge Service – If you live in an affluent area, you would be amazed at what some people are will to pay to not have to do themselves.

From grocery shopping to dry cleaning runs to booking travel and doctor’s appointments, you can become a personal assistant to the super-busy, and superrich.

Mobile (Interior) Auto Detailing – How many people do you know who have decent cars but drive around with buckets of junk in the backseat and French fries stuck to the floor mats? Gross. With a vacuum cleaner you may already own and a few cheap bottles of automotive cleaning products, you can offer to come to anyone’s home or work and make their car’s interior like new. Professional shops can charge up to $100 or more for this service.

Dog Walker or Petsitting Service – If you love animals, there are plenty of people who will pay you to watch after their critters for a few hours. Depending on your schedule, this could be a part-time gig or very full time, and you could probably start working without spending a dime.

Fact-Checking and Research Service – Did you know that nearly every major magazine and many websites obsessively check and re-check every fact and source in their story? Best of all, very few employ in-house researchers to do this critical task. Yes, it’s tedious, but it only requires a laptop and a telephone!

Bookkeeping – Bookkeeping and accounting is perhaps one of the most in-demand services that small businesses will farm out to part-time freelancers. And you don’t need to be a CPA to keep a company’s books – most of this work is routine data entry and paying bills. No experience? You can find evening or online training pretty easily.

Association Manager – Everyday people form new professional networks, community associations, or even groups of hobbyists with similar interests. The only problem is groups take a lot of administrative work to maintain. There are websites to be built and updated, newsletters to be written, dues to be collected, meetings and events to be scheduled, and mailing lists to maintain. Think you’re up to the task? By creating templates and protocols you could easily begin managing several groups and raking in

Property Management – The “grown up” version of shoveling snow and mowing lawns, small to medium sized landlords everywhere need trustworthy people to watch after their real estate. The responsibilities can vary, from simply taking calls from tenants and arranging for maintenance to be done to actually fixing things and landscaping yourself. If you want to go full-service, you can even offer to show apartments, screen tenants, and collect the rent.

Sports or Activity Clinics – Were you a slugger on your college baseball team? Are you a great golfer? An artist or a musician? Start evening, Saturday, or summer clinics for local youth to learn your skill. Parents are always looking for enrichment activities for their children and are more than happy to pay you for a day – or several – without their kids.

Clutter Consultant – Have a knack for organization? Another great business opportunity in more affluent areas, you can work as a clutter consultant to help people rid themselves of crap and regain living space. FYI, this would pair nicely with a junk removal service!

Start a Blog – Okay, you knew I’d have to include this one! If you’ve got something you love to write about, you can probably make money blogging about it! Just beware, blogging is by no means an easy business. It may take months – or years – before you make your first dollar, but it also has great rewards.

With any business, you’ll need to get the word out and get some customers! Next week I will look at ways to market your new business for little or no money.

Have you started a part-time business you think others could also do? Do you have a business idea that you don’t have time for? Please share!

Next Friday check out the entrepreneurship topic to read: “10 Ways to Market Your Business for Little or No Money”. Need a reminder? Please subscribe to my RSS Feed.

Related posts:

1. How to Start a Business from Your Dorm Room
2. How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck and Start Getting Ahead
3. Start with $5; Get $12,000