Later, you finally think that everyone has a blog, becoming a blogger seems very cool for you, so now you have decided to also have a blog on your own. And then, you might have signed up for your own free account. You might pick up either a Blogger account, or a WordPress account, or any other free blog providers for a practicing start.

Perhaps, you have posted some random thoughts inside your blog, you might be blogging about your own life, your hobbies, etc. But later, as you learned about blogging, visited some blogs here and there, you finally noticed similar things about those cool blogs / websites: they have displayed advertisements in their pages.

Finally you understood that you could have made profit from blogging by displaying ads inside your own blog. And later, you decided that you wanted that one too, in your current blog or in your new one.

Now, you might have picked up one of these two most favorite blog providers: Blogger or WordPress. You want to display your own advertisement. But how to do that?

Adding advertisement into your Blogger account won’t be a problem, Blogger has some features that allow you to put any advertisement or widget script codes in a special block. Just copy paste of the codes provided by the advertisers (either Google Adsense, Chitika, Obeus, Text Link Ads, Adbrite, or the others) into the special block, then by few clicks and drags to modify the layout of your blog, it’s done.

Blogger even has the feature to add Google Adsense directly from the layout setting page, you can even sign up for your Google Adsense account from the sign up wizard, if you haven’t had your own Adsense account. You would only have to wait the approval from the Google team, if you wanted to become their publisher. Once you have been approved, some layout setting wizard within your Blogger dashboard will help you very much. And there you go, with your Blogger account displaying your own paying advertisement.

However, for those who use wordpress.com as their current blog basis, wordpress.com doesn’t allow the free members to put any advertisement in their blogs, so if you have blogged using WordPress.com free account, and you still want to use WordPress as your blogging engine, then you have to download the engine from wordpress.org and to host it somewhere else that allows you to put your own advertisement. You might have also found any hosting company that supported fantastico installer for WordPress engine, so you would no longer need to upload the WordPress engine on your own to the server.

Okay, so you want to start make money by displaying the advertisements. And for some of you who have been using Blogger accounts, you might have realized that you couldn’t really grab the total control over your templates, your contents, the archiving and the most thing is … your backup-restore control in case unwanted thing would happen to your content or account. You might have been interested in other blog engine like WordPress, but you still have to host it somewhere else that allows any advertisement inside your page.

And these things finally come into your mind: you need another host for your own blog to display ads, and for a start, should it be a free hosting or a paid one?

Well, there are some things to reconsider if you want to start from any free hosting account:

• Read the free hosting terms of service: Do they place ads on the members’ sites?
  

  If they don’t, then where does their earning come from? They still need something to cover the costs for running those free services for you, right? If they do place ads on the members’ sites, you have to find out whether your own affiliate program advertisers will allow you to place their advertisements into such kind of account. Just think about it, if you are an advertiser, will you allow your publisher to display your competitor’s advertisement inside the same website too?

• Read the testimonial of the members.

  Do some research on your own, whether by searching the information from the forums, other websites, search engines, find out how the members have experienced so far with the free hosting company. Are they satisfied? Or are they complaining?

• Read the free hosting company’s FAQ and offers.
  

  How good the features they are offering? How big the space they are offering? How about the database? How about the bandwidth limit?
  Never put your hope too much to any free hosting company that offers you unlimited blah-blah account, for example unlimited bandwidth, because this sounds too good to be true. Even when any paid hosting company dares to offer you this too-good-to-be-true offering, the case of your site being down will mostly happen. You would only get disappointed later.

• How long has the company been running?
  

  This is another thing for you to consider about using any free hosting services. Is the hosting company reliable? Or will they just disappear once they no longer can cover the costs? Many hosting companies back then had offered us free hosting account, but later they suddenly disappeared without notice, or started sending us notice that they would no longer run free services for us and that we would have to upgrade our account into premium one (which means that we would have to pay from that moment on, of course), in order to continue using their services.

So these are some basic things you should think about when you have finally decided to have your own money making blog. I would suggest you to start from a paid hosting account. There are a lot of hosting company that offer you affordable hosting packages for a start. You can later upgrade as your website / blog grows bigger and when you have also found that the company is reliable for you.

And one thing we all might have known about paid hosting company: since we have paid them for using their services, they won’t place advertisement on our pages. And know this, the advertisers will be glad that their ads won’t have competitors in our websites.

So, you are the one who decides.

• It’s not a priority at this moment.
• We don’t have a budget for that.
• A lot of our customers don’t use the Internet.
• Our website is just for reference, we don’t sell anything online.
• Our goods / services are not IT-related.

The statements above show the lack of understanding of the online potential and the power of Internet. But change is continuing and there is no longer any excuse of not having your online business potential. Here are top ten reasons to have a website I have summarized:

1. To establish your presence on a world wide Internet
   To say that million people all over the world that have household access to the Internet is just an understatement, but the fact that Internet has a large community access will make the first reason for your business to have a website. Be a part of the Internet community and enjoys its benefits!

2. To enhance your business more potentially than a manual system can do
   Think of your business website as an online brochure which will save more printing time and cost, that makes it different from the traditional print brochure. Your existing and potential customers can access it anytime and anywhere, they can even purchase directly only by doing some clicks through your online shop website, and make the payment directly to your company account. For individuals with a busy career or lifestyle, this provides a perfect solution!

3. To save on advertising costs and time, but vast target can still be reached
   Having a well-designed business website advertise the business itself is very effective, it reaches wider than manual advertisement does. You have international wide range advertisement. It is far more economical and time-saving than placing ads on billboards, TV, radio, newspaper, direct mail, telemarketing, etc. moreover when you are expanding your business to go international. The only major cost involved is the website development cost, and it is one-time. Updating and maintenance costs are minimal comparing to other recurring advertising costs. And you can even do it on your own, if you also have the skill of developing a website.

4. To help saving the environment
   We are having environment crisis nowadays. Think about how many nature resources have been sacrificed from the Earth, in order to get papers for our advertisement prints. Wouldn’t you like to be a little bit more environmental friendly to our Earth? With your business website, you may not need to print as many brochures, flyers, etc. as you had before. The amount of paper may be equivalent to a few trees, but it does count! As your business grows, just imagine how many “few trees” would be spared?

5. To make changes quickly and dynamically
   Again, think of your business website as an online brochure, without any delaying of time it takes to pass it to any printing agent. Not to mention the distinction from the print brochure in that changes can be made and mistakes can be corrected almost instantaneously, at little or no cost at all. With your website, your existing and potential customers can get the latest updates on your new arrivals, specials, prices, etc. on a monthly, weekly, or even a daily basis. You can also update your website anytime, anywhere!

6. To enhance your customer service
   A business website would be of great assistance for individuals who are leading a busy lifestyle; with a few mouse clicks, they can get access to information regarding your store hours, your products, pricing, etc. Furthermore, people who are regular e-mail users would appreciate it if they can send e-mail asking questions via your website, not to mention that you can also respond their questions instantly. Your customers will really appreciate it!

7. To protect your local market also to expand your global market
   Under the impact of globalization, there is a great chance that your existing and potential local customers go online and purchase goods / services (that your business specializes in) from other businesses or even from your competitors that are targeting your current market. By having a website, your local market can be protected, and you have an expansion to a global market at the same time!

8. To reach a specialized market, to make the community find you
   If your business is specialized (ie. it concentrates on a distinct area, for example, property, magazine, foods, furnitures, mountain bikes, custom woodworking, dance / music lessons, law, real estate, etc.), then having a business website is a great way to exhibit your professionalism in your area of expertise. Not to mention the power of Internet search engines and directories like Yahoo!, Google, Baidu, etc., you only have to put your business online at the correct market targeting directory, and the community will find you when they seek through any search engines or directory!

9. To stay competitive
   Do you know that now at least a billion of people have online access nowadays? (from World Internet Statistics) Your competitors may have already been in these billion. Whether they are, whether they are not, do not delay in establishing your online business presence. If your competitors have not had a website, you have already had a better grip of the business competition by having one of your own!

10. To sell online, expanding your market size and level
    For many small to medium-sized businesses, being able to sell their products / services through their business website might not be a necessity. Some others might be satisfied with their current local markets. However, with the rapidly-increasing number of Internet users conducting business online, businesses may have to eventually consider this avenue! This is also a chance of expanding your own market size and level, considering the range of Internet users visiting your online store.

There are more reasons, but these top ten reasons should make you consider the needs of having your own online potential. Get a grip on the Internet now, get your online business potential!

1. Would your business benefit from being open 24 hours a day?
2. Are your competitors already on the Net or planning to go live soon?
3. Do you want to make money in a new and exciting way and establish your business as a forerunner in the biggest ever market place?
4. Do you send a lot of mail, faxes or make numerous phone calls?
5. Do you need to provide support for your products or services?
6. Do you currently utilize free phone telephone numbers or reply paid cards in direct mail?
7. Do you have any requirements for market research?
8. Do you need to send or receive large amounts of data such as graphics files to advertising agencies?
9. Can you afford the time necessary to set-up an Internet site and keep it dynamic?
10. Can you cope with the technical nature on the Internet?

(from “Starting and Running a Business on the Internet” by Alex Kiam and Tim Ireland)

If you can answer “yes” to any of these questions then your business should be online. Start kicking on the web, don’t lose your web potential. Make something out of your online experience, get your own online business alive now!