I have been thinking long and hard about where I would recommend a complate newbie to this to start and came to the conclusion that a blog would be the ideal starting point. The main reasons for this are:

1. Blogs are really easy to use.
2. You can set one up for in five minutes for free on Blogger.com or Wordpress.com
3. There is loads of support sites for newbie bloggers.

I bet the question that is on your mind is this “What will it be about?”. And as this is your first blog the answer is simple - something that you find interesting. However, you need to balance this with something that is profitable. You need to choose your niche. I’ll write about researching niches later in more detail, but for now just think about who spends a lot on advertising in a topic area that interests you. Perhaps, your blog will be around one of these broad topic areas finance, property, DIY, technology, travel.

Now before you start to monetise your blog you need to write some content and begin to hone one of the most important skills required to succeed online - writing. I am planning a post about writing for the web, so check back here shortly. You should also start to market your blog and I recommend that you check out my section on search engine marketing.

The plan is this, once your blog is indexed i.e. in the search engine results we will sell blog posts, yes people will actually pay you to write about their products and services and once you start getting traffic to the site we can start to think about selling advertising or even products and services.

I am going to practice what I preach and I will report my progress on this blog, so I had better choose a niche.

BTW The web is full of get rich quick schemes. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is! You can become self-employed online, but it isn’t going to happen overnight without any effort.

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