Welcome to Terry Lile dot com the home of Blogs by Terry. My name is Terry though some call me Techless Terry for I am a non-technical blogger. Over the next few days visitors will see that I am building this new site. From here on out I will start adding information about the themes, plugins and other tools that I have found reasonably easy or lets say the least aggravating for a non-technical person such as me to use in the building of my personal sites. Most of the tools I use are free and others are usually available at a modest cost. I will also share with you the names of others that I have found helpful in the building and development of my blogging business. I look forward to sharing and hope that you will do the same.
Techless Terry
About a year ago I mentioned to a friend that I was looking for a way to make some extra money working from home. My friend suggested that I start an on line business using a blog. At the time I already had a website AskUncleTerry.com that was costing me money to operate for I am a not a very technical person and I was paying others to do much of the work. My first question to my friend was “What the hell is blogging?” My second question was, “How do I start a blog?” I was soon to learn that a blog while very similar to a website was something that I could easily manage myself. I have since started building my own blogs and recently switched Ask Uncle Terry over to a blog format.
So what the hell is blogging and what is a blog? In simplest terms a blog is like an online notebook where you can write your thoughts, opinions, ideas or anything else that you wish to share with others. Others can visit your blog and read what you have to say. Most blogs are set up so that the readers can post comments though this is not a necessity. Some blogs are set up just for the enjoyment of entertainment while others are set up for the purpose of making money.
Even non-technical people such as me can put information on a blog with ease, push a publish button and share it with the world. We can place products and advertising on our blog should be choose and then promote our blog so that we can potentially make money off of it.
A blog need not cost you any money for if you choose you can have one without paying any hosting or domain fees. Most of these are set up at Wordpress.com or Blogger.com. You will have terms and conditions to abide by as to what you can and cannot do at these free blogs. For the most part though you can do just about anything that is legal and moral.
Now personally I like total control over what I do. I choose to own my own domain name whick I purchase for a small annual fee and pay a small fee for hosting. My blogs are set up on wordpress but through a hosting company. I purchase a domain name; have it forwarded to a hosting company. Previously I had to upload Wordpress to the hosting company. I am now using a hosting company where with a single click of a button Wordpress is placed on my site for me. This has saved me a considerable amount of aggravation and time. At Wordpress you can use one of hundreds of wonderful free Themes or use a premium theme. I have used both and am presently using the Revolution Theme series by Brian Gardner for most of my blogs.
Each day I learn more and more about blogs and making money with blogs. Yes, making money is my preference while many others just blog for entertainment. While I would not call myself a blog expert yet, this old fart is absorbing and putting to use a lot of great information. I am a workaholic that enjoys spending time at the computer. You need not be a techie to start a blog. If you found me you are techie enough.
Here at Terry Lile dot com I will share what I learn, the free and paid products and services I personally use to build my blogs and the favorite experts on blogging that I enjoy visiting. I hope that as we go along you will also share your favorite products, services and experts with me. Together we can continue learning how each of us can make more money blogging.
Video Blogs in Plain English gives a great explanation of blogging. Check it out!
Hopefully you now know what the hell blogging is. Here at Terry Lile dot com I will continue to share with you my own experiences as a non-techie blog builder and in my terms do my best to answer the question “How do I start a blog for fun and profit?” Happy blogging and please come back!
Techless Terry
My very first website was Ask Uncle Terry a sexual advice site that was in some ways started as a diversion from the sorrow that I was experiencing from the loss of my wife, the woman that I had spent 42 wonderful years with. It was a real change from my life in the floor covering industry. In many ways it was a project that was totally new to me for my wife was the only woman that I had ever been with.
How do I start a blog became a nagging question. When I later was to start my first blog I knew that I wanted an online business. I needed to supplement my income now that I was semi-retired. I am not a technical person and knew nothing about an on line business and certainly nothing about blogging. Thanks to good advice I started out using a Wordpress platform though with my blogs I was just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what would stick. Unfortunately lots of the spaghetti was sticking but I was not making any money.
Later I started visiting other blogs and reading articles by those that had become successful in blogging. Clues here and there I started absorbing the information, putting it to work and started to change my blogs to make some money. I am still in the transition stage but am seeing results. While I am far from an expert I am happy to share with you the information I have found and often with frustration as I dug deeper into that question how do I start a blog?
What Interest You?
First decide what topics interest you. I have found that it helps to choose a topic of interest as this makes it much easier to write about. With blogging you either write a lot of original material, post the writings of others or both. I do both though I prefer to write my own so that something identical is not at another site.
What Type of Blog Would You Prefer
As I learned from one of my favorite experts Jason at John Cow, there are 5 basic Internet business structures that most small business websites and blogs fall within. (By the way, if you haven’t already done so you should get his free book How to Build a Business Not Just a Blog). Anyway, these 5 types of site are community. e-commerce, content, portfolio and hybrid.
Are There Products To Advertise Or Sell?
I then ask myself if there are products to advertise or sell for this topic. Naturally this is only important if you are building a blogging business as I am. If you are doing it just for fun this step is not needed. Since I want to make money I will be doing research on my product, the competition and the potential income that I can expect. We will talk more about this in a later article.
Once I have decided what type of blog to be built I will purchase a domain name and select a host for the blog. In the next article How Do I Setup A Blog we will talk more about this.
These are my original steps and there are many more that follow. If you follow along I will be happy to each day share more and more with you as to what I am doing. I hope you will visit regularly as we continue our series
As we continue with How Do I Start A Blog I would appreciate having you add your own thoughts. This will help all of us non-technical people and perhaps some technical people alike that want to build a blog of their own.
Techless Terry
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