Pavlina Steve Blogging
<p class="default">10:47 PM, October 09, 2007</p>
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The expense of running this blog is negligible. I pay around $220/month for a dedicated server with 1.5 TB (1500 GB) of available bandwidth, and that?s my main expense. Sure I bought other things like podcasting equipment, but that certainly isn?t essential.
A high-traffic blog is a wonderful vehicle for wealth building. First, it?s an asset you own. I?ve seen various evaluations that StevePavlina.com is worth anywhere from  <b>$1.6 million to over $5 million</b> . That nice to see, but it?s odd to have so much wealth tied up in an asset I don?t plan to sell, so to me the cashflow is what matters from a financial standpoint. I doubt too many banks would feel comfortable lending money against my web site as collateral.
A year ago I wrote an extensive article called  <u>How to Make Money From Your Blog <http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog/></u> , which has since become one of the most widely referenced articles of its kind. The content is slightly dated, since most of my income now comes from commissions on joint-venture deals, not advertising, but overall the advice in that article is still valid. Dozens of bloggers credit that article for getting them started blogging for income, and some are generating results much faster than I did. While some people tell me it?s foolish to give away such information, especially for free, I?m more interested in helping others succeed than in worrying about competition. To me the notion of turf protection is rooted in scarcity thinking. More competition is only going to push me to keep growing, which is what I want anyway.
If there?s one insider?s secret I can offer to how to become an A-list blogger, this is it: Treat your blog as your primary outlet for  <b>contribution to the world</b> . Make it  <b>your legacy.</b> Write to pass on knowledge and ideas that you think will really benefit people.  <b> Focus first and foremost on providing value</b> . If you can do that, the rest is relatively easy. Value builds referrals. Referrals build traffic. Traffic generates income. Income increases your ability to contribute, which in turn helps you provide even more value.  <b>The keys to unlocking this positive spiral are contribution, contribution, contribution.</b></p>
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<strong>Blogging software and hardware</strong>
I use <a href="http://www.wordpress.org/" target="_blank">WordPress</a> for this blog, and I highly recommend it.  Wordpress has lots of features and a solid interface.  And you can?t beat its price ? free.
The rest of this site is custom-coded HTML, CSS, PHP, and MySQL.  I?m a programmer, so I coded it all myself.  I could have just as easily used an existing template, but I wanted a simple straightforward design for this site, and I wanted the look of the blog to match the rest of the site.  Plus I use PHP and MySQL to do some creative things outside the blog, like the <a href="http://www.stevepavlina.com/million-dollar-experiment.htm" target="_blank">Million Dollar Experiment</a>.
I don?t recommend using a hosted service like <a href="http://www.blogger.com/" target="_blank">Blogger</a> if you want to seriously monetize your blog.  You don?t get enough control.  If you don?t have your own URL, you?re tying yourself to a service you don?t own and building up someone else?s asset.  You want to build page rank and links for your own URL, not someone else?s.  Plus you want sufficient control over the layout and design of your site, so you can jump on any opportunities that require low-level changes.  If you use a hosted blog, you?re at the mercy of the hosting service, and that puts the future of any income streams you create with them at risk.  It?s a bit more work up front to self-host, but it?s less risky in the long run.
Web hosting is cheap, and there are plenty of good hosts to choose from.  I recommend <a href="http://www.pair.com/" target="_blank">Pair.com</a> for a hosting account.  They aren?t the cheapest, but they?re very reliable and have decent support.  I know many online businesses that host with them, and my wife refers most of her clients there.
As your traffic grows you may need to upgrade to a dedicated server or a virtual private server (VPS).  My web server is hosted by <a href="http://www.servint.net/" target="_blank">ServInt.net</a>.  What I like about ServInt is that they have a nice upgrade path as my traffic keeps growing.  I?ve gone through several upgrades with them already, and all have been seamless.  The nice thing about having your own server is that you can put as many sites on it as the server can handle.  I have several sites running on my server, and it doesn?t cost me any additional hosting fees to add another site.</p>
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   <b>I read reviews of Pair Networks ... they are for professionals!</b></p>
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