The only income you can ever be sure of is that from your own websites. Article sites can change ownership and change remuneration policies without notice. You need to have a backup plan, just in case.
Having your own website is a good back up plan. You can link to it from your article signature and from within your articles. The site grows and matures as you add content regularly, so in ten years time when you might need it, it is producing a reasonable income. Your own website is your nest egg against the unpredictable future.
How to Set Up Your First Website
Once you have written a few articles you will have a better idea of the niche your website will occupy, so you will have a better idea of a good domain name.
Hosting
A website needs a web hosting service. This is a company that will put your website content onto its computers and allows everyone online to access it.
You can host a website for free, but it will never have any credibility. Check out Blogger.com if you are sure this is the way you want to go. All my websites are hosted on paid for hosts. I have my own domain names. If this was a free host its name would be something like WritingPayingArticles.Blogger.com. I want TOTAL control over my nest egg. It is not much of a nest egg if Blogger.com can delete your site, just like that.
There are a few things you should look for in a web host:
- Unlimited domain names
- 24/7 support with helpful staff
- Quick replies to any email queries
This site is hosted on BlueHost.com and I can wholeheartedly recommend their service as suitable for your first website. Thinkhost is another excellent service I use. If you order from Thinkhost.com, quote oak_4be8d204 to get $30 off.
Both Thinkhost and Bluehost include your first domain name with their package. Choose a name related to the subject of your website. This name was chosen carefully so that when people search for Writing Articles it will come high in the results listing, after a few months.
Installing WordPress
WordPress makes running a website EASY. All the CSS, HTML, FTP stuff is all handled by the software. All you do is just type in English in a simple interface.
Installing WordPress is very simple with any web host, but if you do not want to do it I will do it for you, free, if you have bought your hosting from BlueHost through my link above. See Blog Builder Buddy for details.
Starting Your First Blog
Configuring and Setting up WordPress is easy enough. Check out this article for a step by step walk through.
Once you have your blog set up you can link to it from your articles and from article signatures. You need to promote it constantly and post to it regularly, ideally every day.
You Say Too is a blog promtion site that pays you a good proportion of the Adsense clicks on your RSS Feed…
