Back then I wanted to help teach travel writers and other freelancers how they could set up their own website quickly and easily in order to help promote themselves, and make good impressions to the travel editors of newspapers and magazines. Now the odds are good that those newspapers and magazines, if they have not already gone out of business, have at least slashed their budgets and are no longer paying decent fees to buy articles from freelancers anymore.

Now more than ever it is important for not only freelance writers but anyone who is looking for another steady income source to consider blogging for money. Newspapers and magazines are media of the past while blogs are a medium of the 21st century. The very fact that you are reading these words is living proof of the truth in what I have said.

There is, however, a catch. Although it is fairly easy to make money blogging, it is highly unlikely for one single blog to earn a writer enough money to live on. As a matter of fact, my research has shown that, in round numbers, the average successful blogger is lucky to earn between $5 and $10 per day from a blog. But please do not let that seem discouraging, because it is actually good news.

If you can, on average, get paid $7.50 a day with one blog, then ten of them will pay you $75, which comes out to a total of $2,250 a month. But why stop at ten? Well, of course there is a very good reason why, you are probably thinking. How do I come up with enough ideas to write content for ten different blogs, let along 20 of them? And, not only that, but how do I even know what topics to write about that will earn me $5 to $10 a day?

Well,  my curious colleague, I am very happy to tell you that those are the questions that had been keeping me up at nights worrying over, but I have finally found answers to. In a nutshell, you outsource the work to others.

Now, please bear with me…

If you are thinking that outsourcing your writing will be too expensive or the quality will be too poor, then you are thinking along the same lines that I was until I made a discovery that not only solved my problems, it will solve yours as well.

I have found a source that provides professionally written blog posts for less than 7-cents each. You get 25 posts per topic, and ten different topics per month, all for just $17. The posts are written by professional masters of the English language. The topics are niches that have been carefully researched and selected for popularity and profitability. But, as they say on late night television advertisements, wait. There is more…

In addition to enough content to start ten profitable blogs each month, you also get what you need even more than content. You get traffic. Let me explain how that works.

It’s easy to set up websites and it’s easy to put content in them. But where the rubber meets the road is getting visitors to come and read your pages and respond to your monetization methods by clicking on your ads and buying whatever your blogs are set up to sell.

I have researched and located the seven best ways to get free traffic to your blog, and they all boil down to one thing: getting links to your website on other people’s websites. These backlinks are what tell the search engine how good an authority your website is. It’s like a popularity contest, and now I know how to stuff the ballot box in your favor. You do it by posting comments on other websites in the same niche as yours.

Does that sound like quite a big chore? It can be, but I have found a way to automate the process. You do it by having someone pre-write your comments for you. And, voila! The same source that gives you 250 pre-written blog posts per month also throws in 100 pre-written comments at no extra cost.

And if this whole process sounds a bit too complicated and confusing to you, don’t worry. Because complete step-by-step instructions for how to find other blogs to post comments on, as well as how to use those comments so they will give you the backlinks you need to drive traffic to your blogs are all close at hand.

The source for all of the pre-written posts and comments you need for only $17 per month is Pro Blog Source, or www.problogsource.com.

And if you think all of this is moving just a bit too fast for you and you’d like to take it a bit slower and get more details first, here is what I recommend you should do.  Pick up a free, 5-page report called “Blogging Profits” that you can get online at www.getbloggingprofitsecrets.com.

It really is possible to start earning a good, steady income from blogging. And you do not even have to be a freelance writer to get started. It’s a home based business that a lot of people could get into. All you really need are a home computer and basic English reading and writing skills.

When I published my 2nd post and then viewed the site, I realized that the names of the posted articles could not be seen on any pages, and I want visitors to be able to see what articles have been posted recently. This is especially important because my site is configured so that only the most recent post shows up on the index page.

I made a video that you can watch and follow along with as I used widgets to control all the different components of my sidebar.

If you have any comments about this tutorial video, or requests for other videos you would like me to make, just let me know and I will be happy to help as possible.

Here is an instructional video that shows, step-by-step, how to change the number of posts a visitor sees when he or she lands on your index page.

This tutorial video is another in a series of instructional presentations I will be making on how to build an effective website on the WordPress platform. Next time: How to use Widgets to add your most recent posts to your sidebar.

Overall, for each site, I can see which are the most popular pages, and, of course, how many page hits, unique visitors, new visitors and return visitors I get.

I can tailor a graph that shows visitors per month, year, or whatever time period I choose.

Here is a video tutorial presentation that shows all the steps. It takes less than five minutes.

I can build a new website from the ground up in a matter of minutes. This is because I already have an account with PayPal that I use to pay for the domain name. I already have an account with NameCheap where I register the domain name. I already have an account with HostGator, on whose computer my site will exist. I already have FTP software I know how to use with dexterity, and I’m pretty good with PhotoShop for making header graphics. I have a Google AdSense account for monitization, etc. etc. If you’re a virgin webmaster, gathering all these tools together will take a while.

The best advice I can give is not to rush it. On the other hand, it’s also a mistake to wait until everything is polished to perfection before you begin. If you did that, you’ll probably never accomplish anything. Therefore, move carefully and deliberately, but move. A wise man once told me, “You don’t have to get it perfect; you just have to get it moving.”

Only you know your reasons for building a website, so only you can figure out the best way to proceed. This tutorial was based on a presentation I gave to a group of travel writers, so many of the examples I give are slanted in that direction. If you’re here because you want to make money as an internet marketer using AdSense and affiliate products, the method I describe is no less valid.

The instructions on how to start up your own website are based on my successes and failures. I built my first website in the mid 1990s before there was Dreamweaver or FrontPage. I used a new program called Hot Dog. Since then I have no idea how many hundreds of domains I’ve registered and how many thousands of pages I’ve put online. I’m quite pleased that one of my most recent websites achieved a #8 ranking on Google for its primary keywords within four days of my registering the new domain. I say this not to brag, but so you’ll realize my methods are proven effective for you to use.

I’ve arranged this website building tutorial in steps numbered from 1 to 10. Depending on your skills, you may be able to skip some of them and only focus on the specific details you need to know more about.

If you’re ready to proceed, then go to Step 1 - Setting Your Goals.