Many online professionals have warned against using free hosting to build your online presence. These warnings come for many reasons including the risk of losing your content.

In a recent sweep, a free WordPress blog hosting website called Blogetery.com that hosted around 73,000 blogs shut down July 9, 2010.

Blogetery was a free blog service hosted by BurstNet, Inc., a company that has been established in the web hosting arena for nearly 14 years.

Explaining the reason why it had to take down Blogetery’s server BurstNet told that it “was a critical matter brought to our [their] attention by law enforcement officials” and in that case they had very little choice but terminate the account. BurstNet further stated that Blogetery was terminated due to “history of abuse and ongoing abuse”.

When you’re looking at making money online, and you are using a free hosting service, in a way you are at the mercy of everyone else using that hosting service too. Don’t run that risk. Put your blog or website on a REAL hosting service that actually manages their business and protects their clients.

I’ve seen lists of things your blog does not need, some of which include:

1. Background Music
2. Animated Gifs
3. Comment Verification
4. Badges and Awards
5. Flashy Backgrounds
6. Social Bookmarking Buttons
7. A Really LONG Blogroll

The only one on the list that I really don’t agree with so much is the social bookmarking buttons. The jury is still out on that one.

There seems to be a lot of people using them – especially the Tweet option – but for now I’m on the fence.

What are some things you think should be added to this list?

Any you don’t agree with?

Unless you are blogging about topics that require you to provide the latest and greatest such as news or celebrity gossip, you should focus your writing on timeless content.

Timeless content is content you write that can be useful today, tomorrow, and even as much as 5 years from now.

It’s been my experience and observation that blogs designed around news or current events die as soon as the posts stop coming on a consistent basis. So unless you can blog or have a team of bloggers who can write on a daily and sometimes multiple times daily – you really should consider developing your own set of timeless content.

With a library of timeless content, people will be reading your blog for months or years after you stop writing as long as the content has some value for them.

When you think of timeless content, what do you think of?

As most people are aware, I have or write for several blogs spanning a wide range of topics. One of the most common questions I hear is “Where do you find topics and ideas?”

It’s not any great secret because most everything is available for free and actually, it’s right under your nose.

The following are my own personal tools for staying abreast of hot topics and content ideas:

1. Google Alerts – I love Google Alerts! Google tracks the web for topics and sends new Google results by daily email right to my account.

2. Yahoo Answers – This is a great place where people ask each other questions on any topic, and get answers by sharing facts, opinions, and personal experiences. You’re able to see what people are most interested in on a variety of niche topics.

3. Netscape – Netscape keeps a running list of the hottest stories of the day as voted by the people who read them. With channels in the sidebar broken down into just about every topic I cover, it makes finding content super easy and most times, I’m finding new bloggers within my niche that I can buddy up with.

4. Yahoo Buzz – Yahoo Buzz is a day-to-day eye on what the world is searching for. You’ll find a breakdown of actors, sports, video games and much more. Try to incorporate at least one of the top movers into your post. It’s great for the traffic flow!

5. Technorati – I like to keep my eye on Technorati’s Popular list. The entire page is filled with popular videos, news, movies, searches and more. You’re bound to find an idea or two (and some linking options) with the popular list.

Now you know my early morning routine! A couple’a cups of coffee and my top five idea generators and I’m good to go!

Your Turn: Where do your post ideas come from?