Blogging 101: The Downside of Starting from Scratch

This website is beginning to be a thorn on the side.

My primary concern for leaving the confines of developer-hosted blogs is the enormous monetization potential of affiliate marketing, contextual advertising (Google AdSense comes to mind), and pay-per-click marketing–all of which I’m not the least familiar with until a week ago. In fact, I barely even thought it possible for me to single-handedly build a website from the ground up.

Various informative articles scattered online managed to get me through all the preliminary obstacles of setting up a website but newbies seem to have a way of attracting new and difficult problems along the way. As I have mentioned before, I don’t have previous knowledge about any advanced programming languages except for the elementary HTML I gleaned from my Livejournal days (even that, is a bit shaky). It is quite understandable therefore why I find myself struggling with layout designs and feeding on free WordPress themes from generous designers online.

The real problem, however, is not in the technical aspects of developing a blog so much as generating internet traffic your way. I’ve set up some trial ads from AdSense but of course, there isn’t anyone around to visit the site and do the clickity-clicks.