Blogging for Profit and web hosting...

[AmyWiki]

Okay, I am befuddled and overwhelmed with good ideas at the moment and need some help sorting. First, background. I am a 32 year old mom of 2. My husband is in real estate - residential - as well as investment properties on the side. We live a typical, lifestyle - 2 cars, dog, cat...etc! Now, Pat (husband) read 4HWW a couple weeks ago and passed it on to me. As I began to read it, I scoffed - I work in a client driven profession (I am a Speech Therapist) - I cannot see all of my 18 students in 4 hours and do enough. Now, as I read on, my mind opened to some very different potentials for income and outsourcing.

Earlier this year, I partnered with another SLP (Speech Language Pathologist) to start a private therapy service. We use space from a church for a 10% donation and we have a good group of steady clients. I also work for a local school district. What I have found is that many parents need advice as do many other SLP's who are intruiged by the way we do things. I have "donated" way to much time to the giving of information and advice, but I love it. We have presented 4 times on a variety of topics and had amazing feedback.

So, thanks for reading the blah-blah-blah...here are my questions:

1. Is is possible to make money blogging? I have looked at some free blog sites (wordpress.com) but is that the way to start?

2. Is there a way to create a website that can also generate income? Where is the best place to purchase a domain name?

Thanks -

Amy

[HWilley]

Amy,

You can make A LOT of money blogging but it takes a very long time and a lot of work. My guess is the top .001% of bloggers make enough money to do it full-time from ONLY blogging.

You can carve out a niche in your field and blog on related topics to help drive the search engine eyes to your blog. From there, you could sell different products/presentations. I have some close friends who have two young ones they adopted from Russia. Now in kindergarden the mother is heart-broken because they have to get extra help from the speech teacher. It comforted her to know that my sister and I both went to speech class in elementary school and turned out ok. (My sister even got her masters in speech pathology and audiology!) But she is feverishly looking for things she can do to help the two little ones. So perhaps adding a "parent's guide" would be something beneficial?

As for a specific blogging program I like Wordpress but I'm also most familiar with it. I sell hosting as a side-gig and my packages come with 3 different choices for hosting -- most vendors will do the same thing.

As for domain names I always use GoDaddy.com. They are one of the least expensive and they're a trusted name -- they'll be around for a long time.

Good luck!

[webgal]

You have to be specific. You have to be persistent. Too many just slap up a blog, talk about their latest recipe or car part and think the money will roll in. Marketing, good content both have to work in tandem. Everyone talks about the same thing because. So following millions won't make you millions.

I just started one but the purpose is to promote a product and a strategy of establishing a web presence that few take the time to do. So given the fact that 98% don't cater to a target market, you'd do well if you actually did.

You can take a look at mine. It's brand new and so far I get just under 100 visits a day. It's a slow build.

http://webpreppro.com/blog/