Starting Your First Blog

I recently received an e-mail from a local Mendham, NJ mom who has become a regular Roxiticus Desperate Housewives reader. She was writing to let me know about a huge blunder I had made in a recent post, which I quickly corrected, and hope I haven't offended anyone in the meantime. She also wanted to participate in Roxy's Blogosphere Buddies New Year's Resolution Support Group, but wondered if a personal blog was a requirement. I'll be posting more details soon... in fact, I may start a whole new blog with multiple contributors to share our New Year's Resolutions in my Roxy's Best Of... WordPress MU (multi-user) Community.

However, the question got me thinking about how I would go about it if I were to start my very first blog today. Would I use Google's free Blogger/Blogspot service? Blogger has certainly been a great place for me to start, and remains the most user-friendly blogging service I've found. There's a link at the top of Roxiticus Desperate Housewives to "Create Blog" and it's easy to get started right away. While I now enjoy the freedom that my own URL and self-hosting offers Roxy's Best Of..., WordPress is not the easiest system to work with and I've relied heavily on my awesome web designer, Lisa Sabin-Wilson (be sure to tell her Roxy sent ya), and her classic blogging book, WordPress for Dummies. Lisa's new, updated version is coming out in early 2009... go ahead and pre-order it through my link.

In addition to Blogger or WordPress self-hosted options, I've recently discovered Today.com, a free blogging service that pays bloggers to write about their topic(s) of choice. Unlike sponsored post services that make some bloggers feel like cheap hookers, Today.com doesn't ask you to write about advertisers. Instead, Today.com seems to have the objective of driving traffic to their site so that they can sell advertising. They pay $1.00 per hundred word post (one per day) for your first 30 days, then pay for the traffic you drive to your Today.com site. Therefore, Today.com doesn't care what you write about, as long as it is interesting enough to get readers to visit and keep coming back for more. For example, I started a Today.com blog (http://desperatehousewives.today.com/) about "what women want," where I'm trying out a more personal writing style, a softer side of Roxy. My blogalific blogosphere buddy LadyJava started a new blog called Gossip Galore, and Jason Buckley added Bass Nation to his daily blogging responsibilities.

So if you think you might like to give Today.com a try, please click on my icon below and join. It's free to join, and I'll get five bucks for the referral. I'll be forever in your debt and we'll all hope to have some fun blogging and make a few bucks along the way.