How I Became a Professional Blogger by Frank Viola

This post is just the tip of the iceberg on this subject. For much more, check out THE BUZZ SEMINAR where Frank and his partners drill down deep on the principles of blogging and authoring books and how to earn an income from your writing passion.

Most of you are aware that I don’t profit from my book sales. As I’ve explained elsewhere, the money earned from my books is given to the poor and used for ministry expenses. Part of my personal income comes from this blog. And today I can say that I’m a “professional” blogger in that most of my personal income is derived from the blog.

Since my main blog is free to read and subscribing is free as well, how do I generate income from the blog?

The answer: from advertising and affiliates.

Anyway, here are the steps I took to become a professional blogger:

1. Get a reliable, inexpensive hosting service. I recommend BlueHost for this. Most professional bloggers I know use it. You can’t go wrong with them. If you already have a blog, I recommend switching over to their hosting service.

2. Use WordPress for your blogging platform. If you click on this link, I show you how to start a WordPress blog in less than 10 minutes using BlueHost. This covers both #1 and #2.

3. Get a beautiful blog theme. I’ve used two kinds of themes. The Standard Theme and Studio Press. Studio Press is better in my view and less expensive. Click here to check it out. When you’re on the page, click the blue “Shop for Themes” button to see all the awesome themes they carry.

4. Post once every weekday for a year. I did this all throughout 2012 and it made a huge difference in my traffic.

5. Make most of your posts between 500 and 800 words. You can exceed this sometimes . . . perhaps once a week. But make 500 – 800 words your norm.

The rest of the list will be presented at The Buzz Seminar.