Blogging Opinions Please

[Loresinger]

I have asked Fisher about this since I know he does well with it.

I want to start a blog about our family's lessons with cancer (advocacy, care giving, recovery, options). Tentative title: Brain Cancer Chronicles (but I'm open to catchier titles - looking for things that will hook Google).

! would like this to make a little income from ads or clicks if possible. I know that EBlogger ties directly into Google, which may improve the chances of success.

This would be a blog for our whole family. Paul can write about struggles and learning to deal with personal change (as well as facing that "moment"). I can write about legal lessons, document trails, getting financial help, the rest of the family can be more global about how cancer impacts everyone in your life - not just the survivor.

I know there are many blogs out there but information is so critical and a lot of people don't know their rights.

What do you think?

[FZR1KG]

Call it. "Hole in one".

Hell, give it a go. That's my general response to almost everything.
If it doesn't work out the way you intended you learned something.
if it does, then you had nothing to worry about.

[SciFiFisher]

Since you put it out there.... here is my response for the general public

I guess it depends on how techie you want to be. If you want to build it from the ground up and host your blog on your own website then Wordpress is probably the way to go. http://wordpress.org/ The program is free but hosting will probably cost you.

Wordpress offers hosting but they insist that your site be a "non commercial" site. i.e. No trying to make money. So you will have to do separate hosting.

IF you want something that is less techie and has more of the work "done for you" then Blogger.com is the way to go. It even integrates Google AdSense right into the process. Of course, you have to have a Google AdSense account too. If your blog is wildly successful and it grows too big you might have to migrate to dedicated hosting someday but Blogger is a good way to start a Blog and not have to spend money until you know if it is going to generate traffic and fans. Did I mention Blogger is free?

If you don't have a Google AdSense account the best thing to do no matter which way you go is to build the blog first. wait until you have about 30 pages worth of content and some decent organic traffic before you apply. If you apply when you only have 1 or 2 pages and not much content Google will probably reject your application

[Rommie]

I've looked into the monetizing your blog type thing because I started getting offers on my own for advertisements and the like (turned them down though as my travel blog is a hobby and I don't wanna owe anyone expectations).

I say go for it- I use and really enjoy Wordpress, they'll register the domain name for you cheaply and easily too (I think I pay $30 a year, never had any issues). They have some sort of tie-in for people who go above a certain hit count where you get ad revenue money too.

When it comes to advertising money though I think it's over-optimistic to think you'll get any ad revenue before ~6 months or so- you need to build readership and search hits frankly before your rankings are high enough for folks to be interested in that.

Be sure to set up at bare minimum a Facebook page too, and ideally Twitter as well. I have no idea who the hell most of them are, but 1600 people follow me on Twitter for example in large part because of my blog.

[SciFi Chick]

I think "Cancer Chronicles" without the word 'brain' has a nice ring to it. What you're going through isn't specific to that type of cancer.

[Loresinger]

yeah opens to a larger readership

[SciFi Chick]

yeah opens to a larger readership

Exactly.

[Loresinger]

well cancer chronicles was taken but brain cancer chronicles wasn't. More details to follow.

[Loresinger]

Here's my first entry. I'm waiting on permission to use a green apple as an avatar of good health.

What do you think?

http://brain-cancer-chronicles.blogspot.com/

[Loresinger]

Hello is this thing on????

[SciFiFisher]

Here's my first entry. I'm waiting on permission to use a green apple as an avatar of good health.

What do you think?

http://brain-cancer-chronicles.blogspot.com/

Be sure to continue it. But, only post/blog when you feel you have something to say. Make it as personal as possible without being too out there.