Money Making With Blogs

Blogging for Money

If you can write, you can blog. And if you can blog, you can make money. It is really that simple.

Blogging is nothing more than keeping a web log, or a series of posts on absolutely any topic you like. The majority of bloggers are just personal blogger, writing about their daily life and experiences. These people tend to have a large following among family and friends, but not necessarily anyone else, unless they happen to have a fascinating life.

In order to earn money blogging, you need a topic that interests someone besides your mother. That doesn't mean choosing a technical or difficult subject, just one that will draw a crowd when you write something interesting about it. This could be anything from natural cosmetics to horror movies and anything in between.

Although some recommend choosing your niche based on things like high quality keywords, I personally believe that you are far better off selecting a subject that interests you - at least for your first blog.  After all, you will be writing about your topic for the next several years at least, if all goes well!  You ought to feel some passion for the topic.

Starting a blog is easy enough. Most people have plenty of ideas at the beginning. You can start off with a handful of articles on the basics of your topic and then post every day or every week or as frequently as you please from then on. Keep your blogging posts on topic and full of interesting information to bring people back.

Now, just because you start blogging does not mean people will come flocking to read what you write. In fact, you will probably be a bit disappointed when you see the hits counter hasn't budged much in a week. Once you have a few posts up, it is time to start promoting your blog. That means talking it up to friends and family, MSN contacts and adding your blogging URL to your signature line anywhere you can . . . in your email, forums and assorted message boards.  If your blog has an RSS feed, which most do, submit it to the top blog directories.  These efforts will result in backlinks leading back to your blog, which will help you out in the search engines and gain you more traffic.

Depending on what blogging platform you use (Wordpress, Moveable Type, Blogger blog), your blog could be capable of doing a lot of it's own promotion automatically.  Each time you post, for instance, your blog could 'ping' the blog directories that you've just added new content.  This gets the search engines crawling your blog, and keeps a buzz going that draws in growing numbers of blog readers.  There are other blog 'automated promotion' features and plugins, depending on your blogging platform.  But it is widely accepted, and I agree, that a Wordpress blog on your own domain is the best blogging platform.

Earning by blogging can be accomplished in many, many ways. For example, you can place ads on your blog. Adsense is a fine one to start with, but there are plenty of alternatives. You can also take on a paid review ad from a website like Pay per Post or something similar, where you write a review of a product and post it on your blog and the site will pay you. 

Affiliate marketing is another way to earn through blogging.  In fact, promoting topic-related affiliate products can be quite lucrative. Recommending a product and then offering your own affiliate link for buying it or signing up for a service is a good way to monetize your blog.

You could also try selling your own products. These could be tangible goods that need to be shipped, print on demand products like from CafePress or Printfection, or information products like e-books.  These are just a few examples.  There are unlimited ways to earn money with a blog.  The idea is to turn blogging into a profitable venture.

Even after you start selling on your blogging site, remember to continue offering good solid information on your topic.   As long as you do, your blog will attract new visitors and keep them coming back for more.