Live Experiment - starting an open blog for traffic and profit

This is the first post for the new live experiment that I announced in the past newsletter (June 2006). I�m showing step by step what I�m doing, how much money and time I invest and the revenues I earn from the new site.

Here is what I�m trying to accomplish and the idea behind the experiment:

Create a blog that is open for everybody to participate, i.e. post articles, stories and pictures. It will be similar to a forum, the only difference is that I�m using WordPress as content and membership management software instead of a forum script.

Anyone can register to become an author, but users won�t need to register to reply or submit comments to the posts. The one advantage that WordPress gives me over a forum script is the built-in RSS feed. Users will be able to follow the discussions either via RSS or opt-in to receive blog updates via e-mail (gonna use a plugin for this part).

I hope that the word about the new site spreads and many users come to submit their stories, share their knowledge and participate in discussions. This way, I won�t have to create content myself, the only work left will be maintaining the site and reviewing posts to make sure the site is not getting spammed.

Alright, today I spent two hours on this experiment. I have registered a domainname at Godaddy.com, added it to my Dreamhost hosting package, set the nameservers to Dreamhost and created an e-mail account for the new domain.

I�ve chosen the “home cleaning” niche and the domain is: www.MyHomeCleaningTips.com

I�ve also used “Fantastico” to have Dreamhost automatically create a new MySQL database and install the latest version of WordPress for me.

Later, I have compiled a list of topics and keywords for that niche and posted a project at Elance to have around 25 articles ghostwritten for me. I want to use these articles to get the site started quickly and also to submit some of them to article directories in order to receive traffic.

Time spent: 2 hours
Money spent: $ 18.40 (DN Reg. - two years)

Total time spent: 2 hours
Total money spent: $ 18.40

Revenues: $ 0

P.S.: Remember to use the 50$ off coupon when you open a new hosting account at Dreamhost (only applies to 1- and 2-year pre-paid plans) - coupon code: TJM50OFF