Blogging For Money: The Four Step Process To
Blogging For Money: The Four Step Process To Success
So you want to make money with blogs? Good decision! Blogging for money is a simple and enjoyable way to build a presence online and make some cash while you’re at it. Actually, blogging for money is the bread and butter of internet marketing in this day and age, and there are millions of people making a small fortune doing it.
The first thing you need to do is make a decision as to whether you wish to blog about a subject that deeply interests you (hobbies, sports, politics, pop culture, yourself!), or whether you wish to build a blog which is primarily designed to be a money maker. If you choose the latter, you will need to identify a niche market that you can blog to. This can be almost anything, from horticulture to antiques, but the more targeted the better. For example, instead of targeting the general antiques market, aim for 19th century French ceramics.
After you’ve decided the subject of your blog, you will then need to register with a blogging host. The most popular blogging hosts are Blogspot and WordPress, both of which offer their service for free. Just go to their websites, follow the instructions and get your blog up and running. You can then spruce up the look of your blog by choosing between pre-designed templates, colours, fonts and designs.
The penultimate stage is to monetise your blog. There are two main ways in which to do this. The first is to add Google Adsense to your blog, and the second is to add affiliate links. Google Adsense is an advertising scheme in which advertisers pay a pre-determined sum of money to have their adverts placed across Google search pages and websites; as a blog publisher, you can add the advertising from Adsense on your blog and get paid every single time a visitor clicks on one of the ads. Google Adsense is absolutely free to sign up to. The second method of monetisation is affiliate links, which are simple text links or banners from vendors who are selling products. Typically you can expect a 50 – 60% commission on sales of digital products. Go to Clickbank to sign up for affiliate sites.
The final stage is to actually drive traffic to your site! If you’re blogging for money, then you’re going to need actual visitors to help make your blog an active cash machine. Getting traffic to any website is an art in itself, and there are many methods you can try out. One free method you can use is to post in related internet forums and message boards with a link to your blog in your forum signature. Another method is to submit articles to directories which, again, have a link to your blog.
This really is a general overview of blogging for money, which is a big picture. But do be reassured of its relative ease. The most important thing is just to make a start. Identify what you wish to write the blog about, register a free blogging account at Blogspot or WordPress, and then start posting! After that, you will surely pick up hints and tips about monetisation and driving traffic along the way. Many internet marketers will confirm that blog optimisation is a lifelong learning process, so do not feel you have to get it right first time. Blogging for money should be fun, so ensure you enjoy the process.
Jack Silver is an internet marketer based in the U.K.
He only started internet marketing earlier this year, but has already quit his job to work at home full-time. The lure of wearing pyjamas and drinking limitless coffee during the daytime proved irresistable.
Jack has published his rags-to-riches story for free public viewing at http://www.moneyinpyjamas.wordpress.com.
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Ready to Start Blogging? Check out WordPress
Ready to start blogging, but don’t know where to start? Try WordPress.
WordPress is an open source blogging software tool which affords pretty much anybody with basic computer skills to blog their way to stardom! Well, maybe not to stardom, but it an easy to use, easy to learn content management system and it’s FREE!
I’ll get into some of the features and benefits in a second, but here’s some steps and considerations you want to take first.
1. Do you want to tag your blog onto your existing site or setup a new domain name?.
There are two schools of thought on this one and both are valid. Tagging it on to your existing site most certainly has it’s benefits such as just having one set of logins to remember. It can get a bit tricky with 404 errors if you don’t know what your doing in the configuration stage, and you may lose some of the external linking benefits if you’re looking to increase your rankings on the search engines.
2. Do you want your blog to match your existing website’s look and feel?
Designing a customized blog with a new look and feel is basically easy to learn and there is a ton of support out there for even the novice PHP and CSS code writer. If you don’t have the time, or have no hair left to pull out after designing and managing your existing site, you may consider outsourcing your blog design. Costs on that can range from $50 to several thousand dollars depending upon the sophistication of your blog’s functionality. Check out http://www.blog-template-layout.com for some ideas and links to themes and plug-ins.
3. What is the purpose of your blog?
It’s a good idea to map out on a piece of paper, a cocktail napkin or whiteboard what exactly you want your blog to accomplish, how many hours a day do you or your staff have available to accommodate fresh content, promotion and optimization. Blogs can help you create a social network, act as a customer service tool, an internal employee communications vehicle, generate new members, customers, supporters, sales, donations, you name it. It’s important to do a bit of a core dump in advance and set some goals and timelines for implementation. Remember, your blog is a living organism and new features and plug-ins are always coming online so be flexible to change.
4. How much do I have to spend?
Figure hosting (if you need it) will cost around $10-15 a month on the high end. A new domain, anywhere between $2 and $20 (beware of cheap domain name registrars that won’t let you point the domain to your nameservers of choice and sucker you in with $2 domain name registrations only to stick you with an expensive hosting plan). Design, if you don’t do it yourself will cost between $50 and several thousand dollars for a massively feature rich content management system if you are a membership organization, a mid-size business, a media concern, have a ton of existing content you wish to leverage or just want to dominate your market space.
WordPress Features and Benefits
FREE Easy to learn Easy to Post, Edit and Manage Lots of cool plug-ins (be careful if you don’t know basic PHP, they don’t all work) Open Source (lot’s of smart people making a better system) FREE Build a subscriber database Easy to do basic customization Easy to setup Lots of hosting companies already support it (see Fantastico FREE Great support forums Pretty much search engine friendly Pretty stable Pretty secure (beware of some PHP formmailers) Did I mention it’s FREE?
So, if you’re ready to start blogging, check out WordPress, make a list of objectives, set some goals, do a content inventory and get started. And keep an eye out for more articles on blogging, or subscribe to http://www.theblogmill.com and get the latest delivered via your favorite aggregator.
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