As blogging has become more and more popular, it has risen as a popular way to make money on the Internet. Like all new things, a lot of buzz is generated and people begin to think that all they need to do is start a blog and the money will become coming in. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. It is certainly possible to make a decent living using a blog, however it is hard to do so until you have that most important commodity: eyeballs.

I will be dedicating an entire course to this subject in the near future, but the essence of doing this is the following:

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• Decide what you are going to write about on your blog. It is important that you choose something that you are highly interested in. For a blog to become popular, you must post to it regularly. You are going to have a hard time doing so if you are not interested in the subject. The lack of care will also reflect itself in the quality of your writing. Secondary to your interest level would be: is there a market for this? Spend some time Googling around for sites having to do with your prospective subject. Are there many out there? Do they look to have any traffic? What can you do differently? You can also use some of the keyword research services that are available on the Internet to gauge the quantity of searches on particular keywords. This is a very accurate gauge of the size of your target market.
• Install your blog software. The most popular option, and the one I would recommend, is WordPress. You can self-install WordPress to your own server and have full flexibility. You also have the option of going with a free, hosted blog on the likes of WordPress.com, Blogger and others. These types of services are certainly easy, however you give up flexibility which is going to be useful later if you intend to try to make money with your site.
• Fine-Tune Your Theme. WordPress has a wide variety of free themes available. You can use a free, pre-designed theme to get started. However, if you are serious about your blog you want it to stand out. This means that you’re going to want to modify your site’s theme in order to give it a custom appearance. This is, too, important when trying to make money doing this. Copycat sites don’t make money.
• Start Writing. The keyword to success with any blog is: WRITE. When first getting started, I would recommend you write a series of blog posts about your target subject. Make sure to make these posts very informative and useful. These articles are going to be your “pillar content”. Essentially, these posts are what you will promote and what will convince people of the worthiness of your blog. Once these are written, post them all to your blog. Without delay, you then want to begin blogging regularly. The most successful blog sites out there get posted to at least once per day. Many are posted to much more often than that. What you want to avoid is boredom on the part of your readers.

Once you have your blog started, it is going to take some time to build up. While I will go into MUCH more detail on blog promotion later, I’ll give you a few basics:

1. Post regularly.
2. Participate in the blog community by visiting other, related blogs and posting comments on their posts. Be sure to enter the URL to your website with your comment.
3. As often as you can, be sure to link to other sites in your blog posts – especially other blogs. When you do this, your blog software will “ping” the site you are linking to. This tells them about your link and they are much more likely to come check out your blog. This could earn you a mention on their blog!
4. Be sure to make your blog’s RSS feed easy to see and subscribe to by all your site visitors.

Now, a blog has the ability to make money in two very different ways:

1. Blogs are great promotional vehicles for another product or business you may have. In this way, you can use your blog to indirectly earn money by generating buzz on the Internet.
2. Blogs, when they have a lot of readers, make great advertising mediums. This means that you can make money by running banner ads on your site.

Most bloggers get started by putting Google Adsense on their sites. Adsense will accept almost any site (as long as it is not adult, gambling, etc) that abides by it’s terms of service. Adsense is also a well-paying service. However, in order to do the best with Adsense, you have to have those eyeballs on your website clicking the ads. A blog only visited by a few people per day is not going to generate any more than a few pennies for you. With that traffic comes numerous opportunities, Adsense being only one of them.

Many blogs also make money by earning affiliate commissions. By joining up with affiliate networks like Clickbank, Commission Junction or AzoogleAds, you can pick and choose products that you’re interested in, promote them on your site and then earn sales commissions. The advantage of this money-making method is that it is not as dependent on traffic volume. Even with a lower traffic blog, you can still earn money through commissions. This can either come in the form of banner ads which click into the product you are selling, or actual blog posts where you review the item and link to it using your affiliate link.

Another option is paid posts via companies like ReviewMe and PayPerPost. With these programs you are paid to write a review of a product. The amount that you are paid is based on various factors related to your site’s popularity. So, of course, a brand new, low traffic blog is not going to make much doing this. However, you can make some money.

With both paid blogging and affiliate products, it is always my recommendation to be honest. Do not artificially give something a good review just because you will make money with it. That dishonesty will be seen by your readers, whether immediately or later down the road. And once you have that reputation, your chances at making money doing it are out the door. So, while it IS possible to make money promoting a product in your blog posts, do not lie.

Blogging is indeed a great way to make money, but the passion has to come first. Those who have started a blog only to make money usually fail. Those who start the blog because they enjoy it have a much higher chance of success. This form of money-making online is very much about publishing and about providing value to your readers. There is a lot more involved here than sheer numbers.

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