by Harry Constantine
If you’re serious about using blogging as a method of making money online, here are guidelines which point out the different options you have.
Step 1 – Find a Topic of Interest
Think of a topic or niche you are interested in. Itll be very easy for you to write regularly and authoritatively and be a go-to industry expert.
Step 2 – Setup Your Blog
Different blogging platforms offer different levels of service. Some like Blogger.com and WordPress.com offer both the platform, domain name and hosting for free. Others like Wordpress.org (note this is different to WordPress.com) offer the platform for free but you then need to find and pay for your own hosting and domain name. Others still, like MovableType charge for a license for the platform (depending how many blogs you have and whether they will have a commercial, personal, educational or not-for-profit use – they do also have a free version) and then you need to arrange and pay for your own domain name and hosting.
You need to include the keywords in Step 1 in the content of your blog. Try not to overuse these as it sends out bad signals to the search engines, and this is 100% not what you want.
Step 3 – Go Google
Sign up for Google Adsense account and paste the generated javascript code into your blog html. Every time the page is accessed, the code will pull advertisements from the Adsense program. When someone click on the ad which resides on your blog, you get paid. However, Google doesn’t disclose the exact revenue share or percentage that webmasters will earn.
If you want to track where your visitors are coming from with regards to direct hits or from search engine results then I would suggest you use Google Analytics and again you can get all the help you need setting that up from within the program.
You will also want to add your URL to Google’s index.
Step 4 – Find Something to Sell
If you don’t want to sell anything and are happy with the income Google Adsense is bringing in then you can skip this step. If you want to maximize your income and truly learn How to Make Money with Blogs you will want to find an affiliate program to join. A couple of affiliate programs I would suggest are ClickBank and Commission Junction. You can sell anything from office furniture, pet supplies, movies and clothing to PC games, Dieting tips and Audio software.
Whatever program you join will give you help inserting the code you will need to insert into your blog, but be sure you do this correctly or you WILL NOT earn money from your visitors. If you do not know how to edit HTML, W3Schools HTML tutorial is a great place to start.
Step 5 – Social Bookmarking
There is no better advertising than word of mouth, but the next best thing is social bookmarking. You will want to make things easier for people to do this. Social bookmarking sites I use and recommend are OnlyWire and SocialMarker and they are used for people to share their bookmarks or websites that they have liked with other people in their online community.
I would not suggest you add your own links to these services, but provide visitors to your website the ability to do so.
Step 6 – Write an Article
Whether your blog is about a specific product, for example a certain MP3 Player you are promoting, or just about giving people information, I would suggest you to write an article or a review of it. Most article directories require articles of 500 words and over so I would use this as a rule when writing to ensure your article is published.
Submit your article to any of the 100’s which are out there. I personally use a few of the Top Article directories such as EzineArticles, Article Dashboard, Amazines.com, isnare and SearchWarp. I also use a nifty piece of software called Article Submitter which will submit your articles to over 600 article directories, which saves you lots of time and leaves you to focus on writing your blogs.
Blog online marketing is only as hard as you make it. Use these powerful tips and get your blog out there and seen today!