HOW TO START A BLOG?

Find a decent blogging provider that appeals to you. The most popular providers include LiveJournal, Blogger, WordPress.com, Xanga, Tumblr and Webs. These sites are pre-made with templates and push-button publishing that don't require much technical know-how.

Once you sign up, you'll have a gallery of ready-made templates to choose from. With these, you can pick a color scheme and layout for your blog.

Most sites come with a set of predefined layouts and schemes that you can choose from. Select one and personalize it. Then add your name, interests, images, etc.

If you want to, get a more unique template, there are some sites up that have many of these that might make it look better. For example, PimpMyProfile.com or Pyzam.com.

Add blogging freebies like buttons, images, blog chalks, imoods, tagboards (for example, myshoutbox.com), guest maps, guestbooks, comment boxes for readers' input, etc

Explore other blog sites that offer more features for a small fee, such as Typepad.com.

Decide whether you want your blog to be private or public: do you want any Internet visitor to be able to read your blog, or do you just want your friends and family to be able to read it? Most blog sites offer the ability to password-protect your published posts so only those who you approve of can view what you've written.

After you've set up your blog, write a few posts to test it out, and make any adjustments to the layout or style that you see fit. Like if you just got a new template, you'd check your blog to see if you like it, right? At first, it will seem tough to figure out what to write, but once you get into a routine of daily blogging, you will find it addictive. Write about your day, your thoughts, events, ideas, fears, pleasures, the news, current affairs, art, or anything you are interested in!

Visit other blogs to build a blogging circle. When you leave comments, add your blogging address so they can visit you too. (Note: This will not work if your blog is private)

Publish your blog by sending the URL to your friends or publish the URL on your website. Add the URL to posts you make on other blogs.

Example

If you update your blog frequently, more people will return on a regular basis to read it. Establishing a reader base will motivate you to write more and in turn more people will read your posts.

Example

Get into a routine of blogging. Make it part of your day. Soon, you will notice things during your day and think, "Hey, I'll blog this."

Example

Personalize your blog. A pretty blog always catches the eye. Visit blogger.com for ideas; they have a list of their 10 most recently updated blogs.

Example

You could Google for "blog California" or "blog Shakespeareans" (or anything else), depending on location, interests, etc. For instance, if you have a blog on lawns, you may want visit allaboutlawns.com's forum and other similar type blogs. Circles of interest are the essence of blogging, and it can start to develop you as an authority in the "blog-o-sphere" on lawns or whatever area of interest you choose.

Keep the posts interesting. Try to avoid focusing on things that most readers won't find worthwhile (such as "I went to the mall today and saw Kelly.") Write about things you noticed, thoughts you had, and feelings or ideas. Blog about a recent trip to Spain. Write about the chemical explosion during class.

Spell check your writing before posting.

Some sites allow you to make money off your blog by using an Amazon Associates ID or by placing Google AdSense advertisements. If popular enough, your blog could start to pay your bills.

Don't feel bogged down if no one visits your site for the first few months. As with communities this large, it will take some time for your blog to get noticed.

Find blog aggregators. They will place a link to your site on their webpage and/or have a feed running from your blog so that every time you post something, it will show up on the blog aggregator homepage. Also, this can help increase readership.

If you want a broad (international) readership, do not use too many abbreviations or slang terms that might not be easily understood by people who are not from your country/area.

Get interesting news from Yahoo Oddly Enough..., other Yahoo! stories, Crayon.net and other websites that you frequently read.

Blog on a specific subject. You can't please everyone, so target a specific audience and go with it.

See also How to Write a Famous Blog.

Pictures are also a great idea.

Always be yourself, this is your blog, but if you're playing a part, that's okay too.

Though we have a template designer on blogger, it does not satisfy all our needs. So, I recommend you customize your blog the way you want it - just because it is your blog. You may visit various blogs like Everything About Blogging, Blogger Plugins to customize it the way you want it to be!

HOW TO EARN MONEY ON THE WEB?

Offer your professional expertise in an online marketplace. These days, you can do more than just sell your old books via Amazon and your old Coach handbags via eBay—now you can sell your professional capabilities in a marketplace. No longer are you limited to looking for a permanent or contract job on Web 1.0 style job sites like Monster or CareerBuilder. The new breed of freelancing and project-oriented sites let companies needing help describe their projects. Then freelancers and small businesses offer bids or ideas or proposals from which those buyers can choose.

Sell photos on stock photography sites. If people regularly oooo and aaaaah over your Flickr pics, maybe you’re destined for photographic greatness or maybe just for a few extra dollars. It’s easier than ever to get your photos out in front of the public, which of course means a tremendous amount of competition, but also means it might be an convenient way for you to build up a secondary income stream. Where can you upload and market your photos? Try Fotolia, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, and Big Stock Photo.

Blog for pay. Despite the explosion of blogs, it’s hard to find good writers who can turn around a solidly-written post on an interesting topic quickly. GigaOM is always looking for bloggers with great content ideas and solid writing skills. How do you get noticed? Comment and link to blogging network sites. Write blog posts that are polished and not overly personal (although showing some personality is a plus).

Start your own blog network. If you like the business side of things–selling advertising, hiring and managing employees, attracting investors–and have the stomach to go up against the likes of Weblogs, Inc., GigaOmniMedia, b5media, maybe you should make an entire business out of blogs. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll get a lot of time to write yourself though.

Provide service and support for open source software. Just because the software is free doesn’t mean you can’t make money on it–just ask Red Hat, a well-known distributor of Linux that sports a market cap of more than four billion dollars. As a solo web worker, you might not want to jump in and compete with big companies offering Linux support, but how about offering support for web content management systems like WordPress or Drupal? After getting comfortable with your own installation, you can pretty easily jump into helping other people set them up and configure them.

Do some Online life coaching. Who has time to go meet a personal coach at an office? And don’t the new generation of web workers need to be met by their coaches in the same way that they work: via email, IM, and VoIP? You could, of course, go through some life coaching certification program, but on the web, reputation is more important than credentials. I bet Tony Robbins isn’t certified as a life coach–and no one can argue with his success. For an example of someone building up their profile and business online as a coach, check out Pamela Slim of Ganas Consulting and the Escape from Cubicle Nation blog.

Virtually assist other web workers. Freelancers and small businesses desperately need help running their businesses, but they’re not about to hire a secretary to come sit in the family room and answer phone calls. As a virtual assistant, you might do anything from making travel reservations to handling expense reimbursements to paying bills to arranging for a dog sitter. And you do it all from your own home office, interacting with your clients online and by phone. You can make $20 and up an hour doing this sort of work, depending on your expertise.

Build services atop Amazon Web Services. Elastic computing on AWS is so cool… and so incredibly primitive right now. Did you know that you can’t even count on your virtual hard drive on EC2 to store your data permanently? That’s why people are making money right now by offering services on top of AWS. Make it easier for people to use Amazon’s scalability web infrastructure like Enomaly has with elasticlive, a scalable web hosting platform built on AWS.

Write reviews for pay or perks. If you blog for any length of time on a particular topic–parenting, mobile phones, or PCs, for example–you will likely be approached to do book or product reviews. You can get free stuff this way, but are you selling your soul? Is there any such thing as a free laptop? These are decisions you’ll have to make for yourself, because no one agrees upon what ethical rules apply to bloggers. Even less do people agree on services like PayPerPost that pay you to write reviews on your blog. Check out disclosure rules closely and see whether such a gig would meet your own personal standards or not.

Become a virtual gold farmer. A half million Chinese now earn income by acquiring and selling World of Warcraft gold to gamers in other countries. If you’re not a young person living in China, this probably isn’t a viable option for you. But what’s intriguing about it is the opportunity to make real money working in a virtual economy. People are making real-world money in Second Life too.