Newbie wants to know something

Already off to a bad start dude. If that is your way of thinking then I see a "I got screwed by squiddo or some free blog" thread in your future

You can't control what you do not own, so don't get mad if these free blogs take your sites and earnings offline without notice, just because you want to save a few bucks

If you are aiming for the Adsense road, you should take a few things into consideration.

Would you like to build a big authority site, or would you rather aim for small niche sites?

Many would say hey! I build a few hundred sites and cash in - yeah, perhaps and for how long. It is getting harder to rank these days, and Google are not very keen on sites build only for Adsense.

You can try to do some research for author rank. Google is very interested in sites that create value to the users - in other words. You have to build authority.

And with 100 sites in different niches, it might be a tough nut to crack! :-)

Building an authority takes time, and same goes for SEO if you are in a competitive niche, but if you are able to establish yourself as an expert for sure you can make a revenue.

Both examples require work, and is not done "over night" - decent work takes time.

If you are able to start it as a hobby and use like 10 hours a week for a week for 6-12 months, and you create unique content and do some back linking, yes you would make money. However, if it is enough to make you, a full time income is hard to say.

Video ranking on YouTube is a bit easier, and can be a profitable way if you master it. Good luck ahead :-)

Go with a hosted WordPress site. Search for "Website Hosting" on your favorite search engine and choose one of the top Hosting Providers. They all have easy WordPress installation scripts and videos on how to install.

Good Luck!

Raxux -

The fundamental question is one of TRAFFIC. You can't do anything on the internet without some kind of traffic.

Free sites vs. your own blog: DO NOT setup shop solely on a free site like squidoo or wordpress. Do as the folks above suggest and buy your own real estate ( domain and hosting ) then put your content there.

BUT use the free sites, youtube, squidoo, wordpress etc. to FEED your site. If one of them gets shutdown or drop in rankings etc. then you are still getting traffic from other areas. You can use paid advertising to send traffic to your own site as well.

On your own site, it's not a bad idea to put up a lead capture form and get those visitors to on to your list to repeatedly communicate with them. Provide good solid content of course.

The fundamentals are the fundamentals. Own your own stuff, provide good content, get traffic, market to your traffic, rinse-repeat.

There are no shortcuts to a good solid internet business.

Good Luck!

I thought that building sites always cost you money no matter how simple the site is, then why not just do the same stuff on free blog sites?

this question has been answered, and I agree that the main reason is all your hard work and earnings can go down the tubes in the blink of an eye, third party's controlling your destiny is always a no no ... take control of it yourself with a domain and hosting that YOU own

I know niche sites but I really do not understand the fundamental concept of why not blogs but sites?

and blogs can be self hosted and a blog is a site ... a web log

they used to be main for keeping "logs" when they first came out, but today you can do so much with wordpress self hosted sites, they can be sales pages, squeeze pages, full member ship sites etc. not just for the old fashioned blog