By JB on Aug 22, 2008 in General, Getting Started | comments(1)
We all plan to be successful, at least I hope we do. I would argue that most people don’t set out to intentionally fail. Sometimes it certainly appears that way, but I think if we are honest with ourselves, they have other reasons, and how they are measuring success may be different from ours. But that’s not what I’m getting at. The question I should be asking is, do you have a plan to be successful?
We sit down and plan so much of our lives. . . what we are doing today, what we are buying at the grocery store, how much money we are putting away in savings. . . the list could go on. Growing up you may have had something that you wanted to do with your life, or a career that you were interested in and you did whatever it took to be successful. Some things take more preparation than others; for example being a doctor requires more school than being programmer. It may be that there are certain things that you are just naturally better at. I have a friend who can take anything apart, figure out what’s broken, and put it back together again. I always end up with parts left over when I try that.
The thing that surpises me though is that there are so many cases of people who look at blogging or starting an online business as an easy way to wealth, and yet don’t seem to put a similar amount of planning in to make it happen. More times than not, their blog or business fails in the first few months, and they end up shutting it down or selling it for a few hundred dollars. There are always going to be exceptions, but in general I believe to be successful, you need to figure out what success looks like to you and create a strategy to get there. Here are a few steps to get you started: Continued
By JB on Jul 29, 2008 in General | comments(0)
This entry will be fairly high level but is intended to address some of the high level items which must be taken care of in order to get your blog off the ground. We’ll assume for the moment that you are planning to use WordPress as your blogging software of choice, and that you will be installing and hosting your blog yourself (rather than using the wordpress hosted service). We’ll also assume that you have a domain name either in hand or in mind, but I’ll make a note to address choosing a good domain name in a future post.
Some of the first things we’ll need to consider are:
- Web Hosting
- Installing WordPress
- Choosing a Theme
- Installing Plugins
I’ll address each of these items over the next few days:
Web Hosting:
In general, most wordpress blogs will not be very resource intensive and can therefore be hosted on any shared hosting plan. If you do not have any experience with web hosts, take some time to do a little research and ask friends and colleagues who they use. There are a number of hosts which are fantastic, and there are also a number which are horrible. If we assume that your blog is tremendously successful as we all hope they are, then the last thing you want is to have downtime or data loss because you were trying to save a few dollars. In many cases, you can host your site for about the same cost as a couple cups of coffee at Starbucks and be perfectly ok.
Continued
By JB on Jul 28, 2008 in General | comments(0)
So if you’ve happened upon this site, you are probably thinking “Why do I need another MMO blog?” It’s a fair question… it’s the same thing I struggled with when I was trying to determine whether I would even create this blog. The short answer is that you don’t. There is a wealth of information available on the web which can give you the knowledge and tools to make money with your blog. There are hundreds or even thousands of different ways to do it also.
The trouble I had was determining which ones to believe. I tend to be very sceptical when it comes to evaluating the information that I see on the web… sometimes I’m probably too sceptical and it causes me to not realize the maximum benefit for my efforts. I see posts online detailing new programs, ebooks, techniques and such and I immediately begin to think “What does that person have to gain from telling me about that product?” In most cases, it’s an affiliate link that will earn them a little money. Now, don’t get me wrong . . . I can appreciate someone elses hard work and I try to make sure I click on affiliate links when I plan to use a product as a way of recognizing the person who introduced me to the product, but in many cases, the links are placed before the evaluation of the product is complete. Let me give you an example.
Continued