They are very practical and cautious when it comes to giving out money for the Music Industry despite the incredible amount of money that is generated every year from it. Unless you have a lot of collateral to back such a loan, wait until you can show regular income from your initial endeavors first. Thinking big is fine, but starting out small and wisely is the best policy in putting together your own studio. The terms “Starving Artists” and “Starving Producers” come from the usual way of supplying your musical interests by means of a Day Job until you can wisely transition from one to the other. Almost everyone does it and there is no shame in admitting it. Only the most obnoxious of Industry Professional will criticize you for it.

The next subject to ponder is what you will use your home studio for. Is it for your own solo material, a Band, or are you planning to take on clients? Each situation can vary greatly depending upon the quality and workload you are seeking from your studio. As an example, I have worked, Managed, Recorded and Produced in 7 Recording Studios ranging from simple but effective equipment in a basement, all the way up to a current multi-million dollar Recording Facility here in Connecticut. Please note that as you move up in the degree of Studio you work in, your abilities, ears, and skills also need to improve dramatically! But the good thing is that if you start out small and determined to succeed, and keep an open mind to learning from others, you can eventually develop into whatever level you wish to as long as you can handle it. Recording Schools are invaluable for learning the Recording Industry, but they are not inexpensive, so you may wish to invest in books and videos about recording first. They can be purchased from many local Musical Instrument stores and national chains, including mail order.

Another option is to try to develop a relationship with someone experienced that can act as a Mentor, it can be invaluable to you and that person can help to further advance your career with their knowledge and influential assistance. The rule of thumb is that everyone in the business knows somebody else in the business at higher levels of power and success. But as with any Professional in any field of business, be respectful, honest, humble, tactful, and become an “invited guest” as opposed to a character that they will regret knowing! So after figuring out what level of experience you are at now and what you wish to use your studio for, it is time to start making a shopping list. If you are a beginner or even an experienced veteran, the best choices would be either a good home computer with lots of memory since there are many great programs that you can purchase along with the proper interface equipment, or purchase an all-in-one Recorder/Mixer/CD Burner unit. My suggestion is that when it comes to efficiency and cost effectiveness, the all-in-one units are outstanding and can create some wonderful results if you take your time to study and learn the functions, and then practice with them. The better ones are advisable and can range from approximately $800 to around $4000 to purchase. These units usually include extremely useful options and functions such as built in effects and editing programs, processors, mixers, and CD burners that can be very expensive if purchased separately. Since technology has improved so much over the years, these types of units can sound as if you recorded in a full blown recording studio. While they won’t replace a Professional Recording Studio with all of the bells and whistles, not to mention seriously sound-proofed recording rooms, you can purchase and own the all-in-one units for much less than the cost of recording a full CD of songs in a major studio.

To give you an example of this, while I often work in a big studio, I have my own Roland all-in-one unit and record my own clients I Manage, Song write, and Produce music for on it. This way, I don’t have to worry about paying for recording time costs or high utility bills that go hand in hand with a big studio. I can take as much time as I wish or that my clients need without watching the clock and can still get the results I want without the added pressures. Since I do know what I am doing and have a lot of experience recording and Producing, I recorded my Country Artist “Miss Marie” Wuhrer’s first CD “Bad Reputation” on it and it received airplay in approximately 75% of the US and many Record Label inquiries to boot!!! So the all-in-one units can be quite cost effective while returning professional quality results, and they are also very portable if need be. Portability can be a major plus! The next issue on the list is to get some very good recording microphones and perhaps a few stage microphones for good measure. Consider a minimum of a vocal and an instrument microphone. The recording ones are Condenser microphones and they require phantom power to operate them, which is simply a low voltage power source from 9 to 18 volts. This can come from putting batteries in the microphone or is usually included in the all-in-one units as standard equipment power supplies. The stage microphones are called Dynamic microphones and just require connection to a preamp or mixer channel input. Never run phantom power on dynamic microphones or you could easily and quickly damage them or the power source itself. Remember, if you plug the microphone into the unit and it doesn’t work in any of the channels as is, then you probably have a condenser microphone and must press the “phantom power” button to turn on the phantom power unit so the microphone will operate. Most decent condenser microphones have a Led light that comes on to show when it is in operation.

Condenser microphones are extremely sensitive and can pick up stray noises in the room so be careful when they are on during recording as to not have a very noisy environment you are working in. While it is crucial to “clean” your recorded tracks one-by-one of any stray sounds such as breathing noises BEFORE you mix them into the final result, there are times when you can’t remove excessive noise and must accept it or do the track over. Keep it quiet around you and you will save yourself a lot of time and trouble. All microphones have sensitivity specs, and to avoid a lengthy explanation here and distortion when you are recording, look for a microphone that has a 40 decibel or higher rating for sensitivity. This way, if you have a loud singer you won’t overdrive the microphone easily and get distortion in the vocal tracks. Next, you have to determine where you are going to record, especially if it is in your home. Most studios are in the basement areas and require deadening of the room to make it quiet for recording. When using an all-in-one unit, you can do most of your recording directly into the mixer/recorder without worrying about the noise you or others are making, it is all very quiet. This is especially true when using a drum machine instead of an actual Drummer and live drums! Except for vocals and live drums, you can record a full song in a bedroom while your family members or roommates are in other rooms and they won’t even hear you doing it! If you do designate a specific area, your recording room should not get too hot or too cold, and dampness is not good for any electronic equipment so be careful. When going for the cheap but effective recording studio, you can put up heavy rugs on the walls or use other deadening material to quiet down the room accordingly. Whether you are making a formal recording studio or a simple one, always remember to use Non-flammable materials to deaden the room to avoid a potential disaster.

To continue with our list, I recommend getting good headphones for yourself and some spares for others to use, as well as a headphone amplifier that will run multiple sets of headphones. For the best results, you should use the same brand and model closed back headphones which are essential for recording with live microphones. Semi-open or open-backed headphones allow the sounds coming through to be picked up and fed back into the microphone and recorder. The more isolation the headphones offer the better. Last in the chain would be a pair of powered studio monitors for playback and mixing. The best ones have the Bass ports in the front so they can be used in any location if necessary. The ones with Bass ports in the rear require a reflex action off of a wall for sound quality and this may not be practical for a home studio. As with all of the equipment I mentioned, there are many good brands and models out there and the costs vary greatly. Be ringer, Samson, and Event make some great units for home studios, and the bigger the Bass speaker i.e.: 6 or 8 inches, the better the quality of the sound you’ll get in final mixing and playback. I don’t recommend getting subwoofers until you really know what you are doing and can get a great mix on regular speakers. If you cannot mix on regular speakers, then adding subwoofers won’t help the final product and usually makes it sound horrible. And if while you are mixing your final product the dogs in your neighborhood are howling and running for cover, then Turn down the volume and back off on the Bass and high treble frequencies. If you blow out your hearing, it is gone forever. For optional equipment in your arsenal, a fairly inexpensive boom box is a great tool to have after making a mix. When I finish a mix of a song, I usually make both a CD and a cassette copy of it and play it on a good stereo, a cheap boom box, and a car radio just to see if it sounds good and fairly consistent for quality. If it sounds good on all of them, then I know that I have a good mix for the final product. I also have a separate stand alone CD burner that I can use to make copies while I am using the all-in-one unit for other songs and projects, rather than tying up the unit’s built in CD Burner for making multiple copies other than a Master copy. They cost from $200 to $500 or more, but I find it invaluable for my needs.

Other than some patch cords, spare microphone cables, telescoping microphone stands, music stands, a good comfortable rolling chair, decorating your recording room to taste, and some blank CDs to put product on, you should be able to get some very good results with your projects at a reasonable cost with these recommendations. As your skills improve, you can always upgrade your equipment and studio to fit your needs and dreams. Think toward the future career you are seeking and not just for showing off! I’ve seen some very basic equipment outdo some much more expensive setups. The main goal is to concentrate on getting good results.

Besides, as you begin to make your fortune, you can hire professional studio designers and builders to create your dream Palace. And please don’t forget to cover yourself legally if you are a Studio for hire. Write down ALL recording dates and notes about what transpired during them rather than relying on memory or hear-say, keep track of expenses compared to profits, and write down on the receipt you give the client that the final product is what he or she asked for and accepted as complete and both you and the client need to initial it. This is extremely important for every situation, but especially when a client wants to keep bad musicianship or singing on a project that you would never have kept yourself even if you were tone deaf! Once that client takes the product from you and lets friends and family criticize it accordingly, You will be blamed for letting it get out of your door like that and not the client for wanting it that way and refusing your subtle hints to change it during the recording session such as uncontrollable laughter or vomiting. If that client later chooses to sue you to get his or her money back and it goes before a Judge or Jury with NO Music Industry experience or taste, your note on the signed, dated and initialed may be all that saves you from getting ripped off and having to pay back what you legitimately earned. Good luck to all of you and God Bless. Wayne I. Johnson-Wildcard Music Productions and Artist/Model Management-Waterbury, Connecticut

Step 1: Go to WordPress.com and sign-up for a blog

Some people like to use Blogger because it’s owned by Google but I believe that WordPress is a far superior blogging system. WordPress and Blogger are free so you don’t have to worry about paying for hosting fees and domain registration.

Step 2: Choose The Subject Of Your Blog

If you want your blog to be successful it has to be grounded by a solid subject, it can’t just ramble all over the place unless your creating a blog strictly for entertainment purposes. If you choose a category such as Weight Loss for example, your blog should focus only on that. 

You can start as many blogs as you want so if you come up with a new subject/idea you can just start a new blog to cater to it.

Step 3: Choose A Blog Template Or Design Your Own

WordPress offers a lot of templates to choose from. If your just starting out using a template to design your blog around is the best choice. The content of your blog is generally more important then the design, so I wouldn’t worry to much about design.

After you’ve followed all of those steps you’ll have a blog ready to go. If you want to use your blog to make money, you can sell your own products, promote affiliate products or sell ad space(use adwords) to make money from your blog.

To learn how to make money from blogs visit – http://www.seegarsproducts.com/bloggingonsteroids

The demand is for web professionals who can translate an offline business into an online presence so if you have never created a website before, this isn’t the business for you.

You need to be familiar with website programming languages such as HTML, CSS, javascript, and DHTML. Even PHP, ASP, and even flash would be helpful as well. You also must be familiar with search engine optimization, how the Internet runs in general, and a good eye for graphic design is a definite plus.

Getting Started

A powerful PC with a high speed internet connection is part of the essential equipment you need. Its also good to have web design software that someone can get for $300-500. You could try to start without a good computer, but this will slow you down. Honestly to run the software you that will be the best you will need at least 512k of RAM to not bring your computer to a creeping halt.

Buying a computer and the right software means you can offer clients better options when designing their website so you can concentrate on the service you provide, not frustrations with the equipment you use.

Target Market

Anybody can be a customer but the best thing is to find your niche. If you have an area of special interest this is where you want to concentrate your efforts. For example, if you are a music person then you may want to concentrate on building website for local bands or musicians. There are always plenty of people who share similar interests, but do not have the time, knowledge, or desire to build their own website. It is important that you focus on your niche market but also leave wiggle room to work on websites outside your niche.

The Bottom Line

Website designers make very good money although their rates depend upon their reputation and ability to make professional presentations to clients. It is entirely possible to net $40,000 or more in your first full year of operation but you must be sure that your bids reflect the true amount of time it will take you to design a site or else you can really lose profits.

You may have to underbid on the first few projects, but then you can inch your rates up to better reflect both your skills and professionalism. It is quite feasible to command $25/hr. right out of the gates but again, you may have to go under this figure for the first few clients. Just be sure that you stipulate in your bid that you can use the client’s site as a sample in your portfolio in exchange for discounting their rate. As your target audience is made up entirely of anyone who wants websites, then you will naturally want to create an awesome, eye catching, website of your own as a way of showcasing your talents.

Also, you will want to generate plenty of great content to boost search engine rankings so you may need to hire a web content writer to help you here if this is not your cup of tea.

Summary and Recommendation

Whatever you do, please make sure your site that is clean, eye catching, one you would like if you were a customer. Now this does not mean going overboard, but it should look very professional, easy to use and navigate.

Build your own personal website first and make sure to build a portfolio of your work and you will have plenty of customers. For web designers, the sky is the limit so don’t hesitate to start today if you have the skills!

In previous parts of this series, I showed how using Google Adsense and other affiliate programs will generate profits from your blog. However, there are even more options to monetize your blog. Here are a few to consider.

The first option to consider is Chitika. What is Chitika you ask? Chitika is a very innovative contextual advertising program because it can serve very detailed advertisements to your blog that fit perfectly with your blog theme.

For example, on your technological gadget blog, Chitika will show advertisements for tech gadgets such as iPods. They show them in different tabs: one for another for another for and or on www.atoz-about-rss.com. This way, it is more of an informational section for your visitor rather than a blatant advertisement, and naturally the click-through will be higher. You can apply at chitika.com

If your blog/website has been around for a while and has a decent amount of traffic, you can also be an affiliate for Amazon.com. Amazon offers a wide range of products but its predominant niche is in physical books. And, like Adsense, you can select Ad blocks that display products that fit your blog perfectly. Whatever your niche is about, you can probably find a book about it on Amazon.com.

Keep in mind though; they do NOT pay big bucks. You can refer visitors to them and earn up to 10% commission. Its not a lot of money but, if you can manage to refer big volumes of visitors, Amazon is for you. You need to read their Terms of Service.

This program really shines when it comes to the ways you can refer visitors:

You can use their predefined templates to pull up recent items that match a certain criteria you set.

You can target your ad to show a specific item on sale.

You can just simply weave your referral links into your blog posts.

Every dime helps so join their Associate program if you are into selling hard and soft cover books.

Last, but definitely not least, you can sell advertising space on your blog if your blog is truly popular. Just take a look at blogs like: xiaxue.blogspot.com. That blog receives over 10,000 page views every day and naturally merchants make deals with the blog owner to post their advertisements there. If you manage to pull in huge amounts of traffic like that blog, you can definitely get people to buy ad space on your blog for prices from $150/month upwards, depending on your blog popularity.

To gauge how many page views and visitors you get everyday, just use the free tool I use. Get it at statcounter.com. Their setup guide is very detailed so I cannot go into it here.

If your blog has not acquired a large amount of visitors yet, you can still sell ad space on your blog on a per click or per impression basis. Visit adbrite.com and for a complete list of these sites, visit performancing.com.

This is just one in a 6 part series that should help you drive readers to your blog and maximize earnings and profits from your blog! Yes, it is possible to quit your day job through blogging or you can visit www.blog-and-ping.com. All that stands between you and freedom is working smarter, and sometimes harder, towards your goal. It is a balance. Eventually, after you have worked harder, you will be able to work smarter.

I edit 15 blogs. It took 6 months of learning and working harder before I was able to work smarter and begin making extra income.

I did not jump on every offer and I rejected those marketers who claimed I could make overnight riches with no work on my part. In fact, I have spent less than $100.00 so far!

Malcolm Buttel, web designer with Devon’s Oxygen Creative <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www.oxygencreative.co.uk”> graphic design</a> and web design agency, says: “Research shows that people use the web for fact finding. They’re either opportunistic or are making plans. Tourist A will have a free weekend and is thinking about visiting Devon, while Tourist B will be making detailed plans about visiting Devon and is using the web as their starting point.”

Here’s a rough guide to getting spotted on the web.

Web directories. You don’t actually need a website to be found on the web. Web directories are there to give surfers access to businesses of all types. You may need to pay to be listed on some, while others will be free. So should you pay? If you visit a search engine and key in your business service or product, among the first few pages of results you’ll find a number of directories. These directories often pay or negotiate really high listings on search engines, and are easily found by web surfers. The best ones to be listed on are the ones that come highest in the results, so you may think it worth paying to be on them. 
Overseas directories. If you speak a foreign language, key in your search in that language. It will pull up some interesting results, especially directories that promote UK tourism in overseas countries.
Link to your website. When you place a listing on a directory, you’ll find that the information you can write about yourself may only include a name, phone number or email address. But many directories will allow you to add a link to your own website. That’s great, because you’ll be able to showcase exactly what it is you offer.
Create your own website. You need three things to get your own website up and running.
a) a URL – sometimes called a domain name. This is an address where someone can find your site, which will look something like this: http://www.mydomainname.co.uk. You could register your business name, family name, or something that says what you do as a domain name.
b) web space – often called web hosting. Internet Service Providers (who may provide you with your email or web access) can often give you web space for free, or you can pay to have your domain hosted.
c) web software. This will include the software you create your web pages in (or that someone else uses to build your website) and some software called FTP (file transfer protocol) that’s used to transfer your web pages from your PC onto your web space.
Reciprocal links. Some directories will link to your website for free, but only if you link back to them. It’s a good idea to design the home page of your website with an area for reciprocal links, so that you can group them all together, away from your own important messages. Links like this are good for your search engine rankings too.
Clear information. Ensure your website is quick and easy to navigate. Fact finders are an impatient lot. Make sure that key things are visible, such as where surfers can find your prices, availability, facilities, special offers and so on.
Bookmarks. A bookmark is a facility on a web browser where someone can remember your website address. You should have an area on your site which says “bookmark this site, and come back later”. People will click it, and you’ll then be a permanent reminder on their PC.
Search engines. As mentioned before, directories will already have a good ranking on search engines. If you want your website to be found by itself, you’ll have to submit to search engines too. Some will expect you to pay for this, while others are free. It’s how your website is written and designed that can affect your website ranking. We’ll discuss this in detail in the next edition.

Malcolm Buttel from Oxygen Creative’s final thoughts: “In short, the <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/article_exit_link’);” href=”http://www.oxygencreative.co.uk”> graphic design</a> is important to make you look attractive. But that’s only the start of the web development story!”

Free web hosting services are extremely limited. If you get a free hosting service you will found ads on the top and the bottom of your web-site and depending on what your web-site is all about, it may not fit at all but for people starting out on the internet it may be the best option if you don?t have a lot of traffic or just a small site.

Generally the type of web domain name that you receive when you get a free web hosting is a subdomain with the name that you choose or a name in a directory.

As stated before, if you are a novice and just want to learn, this is the type of hosting account that you would probably want to get but there are some drawbacks to free web hosting if you are looking for more options on the account.

First, many free web hosting accounts do not support database management or what you would call in simple terms, putting data structures on the free web host side of their server. Databases are usually used for online data retrieval routines. Many of these free web hosting sites do not support a common package called mySQL which allows you to program queries into your web sites.

They also don?t support multiple e-mail accounts. Most free web hosting service only gives you one email account and it?s usually a web based internet account. The host does not include modules for Flash Programming, PHP and Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (DHMTL).

Free web space provider also has low bandwidth on the internet because of so many people using the free service instead of the paid service. Basically, you also get a free web email account with free hosting services.

Bandwidth is also very important for sites as bandwidth determines how much traffic your site can handle.

Then there is hosting that you pay for that you have more control over when you load and host your web site. You get POP3 mail id and can create as many emails as you want to which depends on the type of account that you pay for.

Every company has special packages for each and every need. From personal to business servers, even servers for special kinds of operating systems (UNIX, Windows, Linux and Apple) the choices vary depending on what you want to do.

The chances are you will not get any server side script support in free hosting, only html pages will be supported. If you need to run php pages, or asp or .net pages you will have to pay the charges.

The prices depend on how much space you need on the server to load your applications so you have to take into consideration what you want to put on the server through your web-site.

In summary, free web hosting is for starter who want an easy hosting option without many hosting features.

If you want to use professional hosting with reliable service and quality support, good uptime, then you should always go for paid hosting provider.

The main benefit of writing a blog is that, people do not require any kind of HTML tactics. There are set scripts, which people can install on their server easily with equipped templates. In addition, there is a service Blogger, wherein for a single click by any user, bloggers get commission.

In certain cases, bloggers get their entire job done through blog marketing. Most of the scripts have a special tool to inform topmost blog search engine about the new posts. Thus, blog search engines automatically produce link to the bloggers post. It is possible for bloggers to gain views by simply using this mode of blog marketing.

Significance of Blogging:

There are several methods to monetize blogs, and create multiple streams of income. One easy way to gain from blog marketing is installing AdSense ads. When a visitor clicks on this ad, bloggers receive a commission of $1.00 or more. Many visitors after finding anything appealing in a blog stay longer and click the links and ads placed in these blogs.

While deciding to start blogging, bloggers need to consider their hobbies and the things they would wish to post in their blogs. An easy way to make use of blog marketing is by writing about something that appeals and attracts more number of visitors to those blogs.

Bloggers need to understand that most visitors log on to the Internet just for getting reliable information. Hence, they mostly search through keywords that give benefits to them in respect of service. It is a general fact that most people search ways to make online income. Hence, bloggers need to grasp all the attention of viewers by posting relevant contents that fulfill all needs and wants of visitors.

However, it is of great use to write about online marketing, personality development, real estate investment, finance, or web design to grasp attention of viewers. In addition, tips on topics, such as how to invest in real estate, how to be healthy, recent trends in online marketing, dieting tips, and reviews on movies and celebrities work efficiently in driving more interest to a blog.

Overview:

Blogs are increasingly becoming a useful tool to communicate with online viewers. This is the only medium that allows bloggers to have a two-way communication. It is unlike a business conversation with customers, since here, customers can also talk about their reviews and thoughts regarding the business.

Blog marketing is the latest innovative marketing strategy on the Internet. It offers an authentic source of hot earnings, provided bloggers give strong set-up and the right impulse. Certainly, it is a profitable source of income and remains consistent in future.

Blogging is one of the fast growing cultures at Internet and at the same time it is easy to start, however you need to know some of the tips so that you can generate money online. The following common tips will help you in starting your blogging business.

Pick and start writing on your favorite niche and optimize it:

You should pick up a topic of your blog and before you start writing, you should find the targeted keywords for the blogs. Make these keywords the different categories of your blogs. Now a day the concept of search engine optimization (SEO) is important to achieve higher search engine ranking of your blog. Start writing SEO articles or blogs so that you achieve higher and quicker ranking for your blog. Optimization of your blog is important for traffic, which will ultimately translate into online earning.

Content must be valuable:

It is important for you to regularly update your blog with valuable contents. If you can’t provide good content to your blog, no one will visit your blog. You should use the language in such a way so that it appeals to the large audience and you should also stick to your area only.

Choose a suitable URL and opt for reliable hosting:

Selection of suitable URL that matches with the blog content is must. Blog URL can be optimized for a niche in similar fashion as website. There are many cheap and reliable web-hosting companies and you can select a suitable company for your blogging business.

Generate traffic for your blog:

This is the most important task for you to succeed in you blogging business and you need to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. Some of these tasks include putting comments on other similar blogs, submit your blog to the best blog directories, link your blog URL to your email, write articles about your blog and submit these articles to article directories and link back the article to your blog and do other SEO techniques to improve the ranking of your blog.

Start earning money from multiple streams:

Once you get regular visitors to your blog, you start conversation with advertisers for putting the ads on your blogs. Start earning affiliate commissions from your blog and sell advertising spaces on your blog so that you get regular income from your blog.

You can include pictures, hyperlinks to your websites, MP3s and videos. Much depends on the type of blog you have and who is the provider, but WordPress allows more than Blogger or Blogspot, especially if you have downloaded it to your own website. However, it is also more complicated and you might prefer to start off easy and then work your way up as you become more familiar with what you are doing. Many cPanel web hosts offer WordPress facilities.

The basic components of a blog are:

Title: You can use the title to label your posting.
Category: You can add a category to keep blogs on similar topics together.
Body: This is the main content of the blog.
Trackback: This allows other sites to link back to your blog.
Permalink: This is the URL that goes with every blog that you write.
Comments: This allows readers to make comments on your blog – some good, and some bad.

By means of just one or two templates you can easily create new pages. It’s a bit like having a website and copying your home page as a template for all the rest of the pages, only the blog template is blank with spaces for the title, category and all the other aspects of your blog. The blogging websites that you sign up with offer a number of templates and you can choose one and literally start blogging immediately.

Blogging can be more that just your own personal thing, and you can join groups that blog about specific topics, such as football, movies, music, blogging, etc, etc. You can all share your expertise and knowledge and some are literally operating as forums. You can also use your blog to advertise a product, and to drive traffic to your website, while others have no website and use their blog as their sole communications window on the internet.

I could go on all day about what you can do and, sometimes, cannot do with a blog, but the best way is to get started and then find what you are capable of. The best way is to log onto the blog provider of your choice and sign up for a blog. Most newcomers to blogging find it easiest to start blogging from a provider’s website, and then graduating to installing blogging software on their own website

This is a bit trickier, but it allows you use all the plugins that allow total personalization of your blog so that it is completely unlike that of anybody else. You cannot use plugins when you run your blog from the provider’s site, whether it is WordPress or any other blog. You cannot beat having your own blog software and being able to design any page that you want.

However, although this sounds great to be able to do, on the whole you are likely best to start blogging from the blog hosting site, and then graduate to your own website once you are comfortable with blogging. You will have enough to take in and learn when you upload to your own web space without having to worry about how blogging works.

Blogging is fantastic fun, and it can also be very profitable. However, there are specific techniques involved in making money using blogs, and it is very easy to get your fingers burnt if you are unaware of the pitfalls and the right way to do it. Nevertheless, blogging can be very rewarding, both personally and financially, so best of luck, and get blogging now. Don’t leave it a minute longer because you might have a lot to learn yet.

Once you have learned how to start a blog, then you can think of running your own from your own website.