It’s August 1st – a new month – and I want a new beginning.
I began this blog just over a month ago as a place to think through my decision to go back to work, my need to support myself, and my desire to work from home. What I’ve ended up with here — is a blog about blogging.
Common sense tells me that a blog about blogging is not where I need to be spending the majority of my time if I want to make money working online. Why? Well, the field is saturated. Blogs about blogging are a dime a dozen. It’s the whole “find an undeveloped niche” thing. This is not an undeveloped topic. I feel that it is time for me to move along and begin developing my next project.
I’ll still check in here every few days with updates and new blog posts about what I’ve been doing, but truthfully, most of my work here is done. This was a beginner blog on which I could learn, and I have. The blog is set up and functioning well. There are still a few changes I would make, and probably I still will at a later date as I learn more along the way.
One small regret I have with regards to leaving now is that I don’t feel I truly “completed” this blog.
Setting up a money making blog has five components.
- Keyword analysis and finding a niche.
- Building the site and structure, developing the right look.
- Creating and optimizing content.
- Link building and promotion.
- Measuring performance.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last month on the first three components, and a small amount of time on the last one, but absolutely zero time on link building and promoting. I debated whether or not to devote some time to it. I chose not to do so, at least for now.
About My Next Blog
My next project – I’ll refer to it using the acronym FD – is an animal/pet related site. The only reason I don’t mention it directly here is that I’d like to see how the site performs on its own merits rather than clicks coming from this site just to check it out. At the end of my one year challenge I’ll announce the site name.
There are several things I plan to do different with my new site. For starters, I plan to set it up to appear more like a static website than a blog. The way I plan to do this is by setting WordPress up to omit the date and author name on new posts. I’m aiming for the new site to be an seen as an authority site. By leaving off dates it will be less obvious that the site is brand new. I’ll also rename some areas on the screen, such as “Recent Blog Posts”.
Later this year, once the new site is up and running smoothly, I’ve got plans for an eBook. That will be a new experience which I’ll share here.
I also think I might like to add a forum to the new site. This is something I’m still thinking through. Since I don’t want a forum at which I have no visitors I may want to hold off on this until the website is established and getting a fair amount of traffic. I also need to think more about how much of my time I might expect a forum to take and if I have that time to give.
It will be interesting to see how long it takes me to set up the new blog. The Third Road has taken me a little over one month to get it to the point it is at now. Obviously, being new to all of it, I had a huge learning curve. I’ve taken good notes. It’s my plan to develop a template for new blog site development – a checklist of steps to set up a new blog. I’ve already posted what I have, but I plan to fine tune it and make it better.
