Building a Virtual Content Empire to Display Ads On

So now you’re ready to build your content-rich empire and start raking in the bucks, right?   Sure you are!  You don’t have to be a great writer, you just have to know where to get good writing.  And heck, it really doesn’t even have to be great.  Just good.

Here are the steps you’ll want to take:

1.    Pick a domain name – this requires some thought, since even though it’s not as critical as it used to be to have a catchy domain name, it still matters to some users.  Once you’ve picked one, check with http://www.web.com, or http://www.whois.net to see if it’s available.  If your favorite choice isn’t available in .com format, consider being flexible and having it in .net, .biz, .org, or some other form.

2.    Reserve the domain name.  Web.com and many, many others offer that service.

3.    Get web hosting.  You’ll want to shop around on this one, since prices and services and terms & conditions vary greatly. 

4.    Set up your new domain, including your e-mail addresses.

5.    Design your site, and start building pages.

6.    Get some content.  If you don’t want to write it yourself, check out:

§  http://www.ezinearticles.com

§  http://www.goarticles.com

§  http://www.freshcontent.net/

§  http://www.elance.com to hire a freelance writer who will write articles for you.  Browse project postings first to see what other people usually ask for these articles—they are very popular.

§  ArticleSiteBuilder.com builds your article sites automatically!

7.    For good RSS feeds, check out:

§  http://www.rsscontentbuilder.com/

§  http://www.feedster.com/

8.    Sign up with Google AdSense

9.    Update content at least weekly

10. Go to mailbox, get checks.

11.1    Blogging

“Blog” is internet shorthand for “web log.”  They’re like online diaries.  Unlike a real diary, however, the entire world gets to read them.

You should seriously look into keeping a blog, or inviting others to blog on your site.  Blogging is one of the hottest new forms of contents, and many readers find it positively addictive.  In fact, it’s grown so fast that many traditional news sources such as newspapers and TV stations are seeing an increase in declining readers and viewers (it was already declining due to the internet, but it got worse) because users are finding out they can go online and read a reporter’s personal blog, which often gives juicy details that are not reported in formal news stories.

So people seek out blogs to get the real scoop.  What does that mean for you?  It means you should capitalize on it.  What does  blog look like?  It looks like this. 

This is Wil Wheaton’s blog (remember “Ensign Wesley Crusher” from Star Trek—Next Generation?):

And here’s a blog from a Canadian professor, Michael Lessig:

And here’s a blog that makes fun of other blogs, by calling itself “The Dullest Blog in the World” (satire, clearly):

An easy way to start getting experience with writing a blog, before you get yours up and running, is to go to http://www.blogger.com and set up a practice blog.

11.2    Blog and Ping—not just funny names

 

Some of the very biggest buzz words on the internet right now are Blogging and Pinging.  Many internet gurus claim these are the essentials for attracting visitors to your site and consequentially making those bucks through AdSense.

The best kind of blog lets readers put in their 2 cents worth.  People love to be able to voice their opinions, and tend to get frustrated when they can’t.  Thus, the best blog is an online discussion web site that allows both you the web owner and your readers to voice their opinions on a specific subject.

 So where do you begin?  Well, for one thing, your blog needs to be specific to succeed, unless you’re a celebrity.  People will go to Paris Hilton’s site to read just about any fool thing she writes off the top of her head, but don’t think you can do that.  I know it’s not fair, but that’s how it is.

If you’re not famous, you need to focus on a niche topic.   For instance rather than run a Blog on dogs why not specialize in black labs or some other breed?   I guarantee you, if you put a cute picture of a black lab with a red bandana around her neck up, you’ll have all the other black lab owners dropping by to tell stories about their own dogs.

Pinging, is how you tell the entire Blog community as a whole that your Blog site is up and running.  Most Blog software has a feature that does this for you when a new post or comment has been made.

To put Blog software on your own server and running it independently on your site, I have found Wordpress to be excellent software and this can be downloaded at http://www.wordpress.org