I was asked if I would do anything different if I was just about to start my very first money making blog.I think the main two things I would have done, the very first day, are:
(1) I would have got myself a .com URL instead of sticking with the .blogspot address.
One of the reasons I didn't do this, at the time, was because I wanted to see if I could make money from blogging without spending any myself. In other words I wanted to make money from nothing. It was a self imposed challenge.
Now that I have proved to my own satisfaction that this can be done I wish I had spent about $10 and got myself a .com. It definitely sounds and looks more professional.
Personally I'm quite happy with my blogs being hosted on Blogger and, as you may well know, there are options to purchase a .com and still host the blog on Blogger.
(2) The second thing I would have done straight away is to get myself another template and not stick to Blogger's standard layouts.
There are lots of places where you can get alternative templates for free, such as at FinalSense for example.
This won't give you an 'exclusive' template but they have lots to choose from. Make sure, if it is for Blogger, that it is an XML design so that it is compatible with the up to date version of Blogger.
Switching to a new template is very easy to do, though you will most likely have to update the side columns all over again.
Also it's useful learning a bit of basic HTML so that you can tweak your template if necessary.
Following these two things it's back to that old chestnut of publishing good content - that people want to read. Yes, I know I keep saying this but you can have the flashiest template, an interesting .com address but without quality content the blog won't make money. It's substance that matters.
I can illustrate this by saying that my biggest earning blog still uses a .blogspot URL. Though it's content that is important (1) and (2) above might just have given me an extra edge that would have made the blog more acceptable to mainstream websites.
I guess to sum up: make the blog look as good as you can, have a suitable .com and publish content of value.
Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum - or some say Quite Easily Done).
Good luck,
Mike
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