How to Blog for Money

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 8:27 am

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Blogging has become insanely popular in recent years, and all indications are that it is here to stay. But most bloggers do not make much money from their blogs. In this article I will discuss how to make money blogging.

Here are some quick tips:

First and foremost, in order to make money blogging you must get traffic to your site. This is indeed the hardest step, and familiarty with Internet marketing is essential for success. Unless you have experience with marketing, you will probably need to get some tools on Internet marketing to help you get started. You may not be aware of it, but there are dozens of effective ways to market your blog. Some of the more obvious ways to get people to your blog are a) submitting your blog to directories, b) making posts to forums with your blog address in the signature area, c) rewriting blog posts as articles and submitting them to article sites, and d) submitting your rss feeds to rss aggregators.
Once the traffic starts pouring into your site, one of the easiest methods for making money is by signing up with Google Adsense. These ads are very convenient since they will automatically present ads that are most relevant to your page. Do not flood your site with Adsense ads, since this could lower the payout rate for your clicks and consequently lower your income. I would recommend putting them in 2 or 3 prominent spots, but no more.
Along with your Adsense ads, you will want to join some affiliate marketing programs and put up some ads to some products. You can even review these products and recommend them if you like, but be aware that if you do this, you must provide a disclosure statement on your site stating that you provide affiliate links to products you recommend (see the new FTC rules on affiliate marketing).
Finally, once your blog is somewhat popular, many people will actually pay you to write reviews of their products. To get in touch with such people, check out sites such as reviewme.com.

Take your blog seriously and approach it as if you are running a business, since you are. It will help a lot to buy a guide or two, and fortunately many bloggers who have had success sell their tips online. We recommend the following site for people looking for more resources on how to make money blogging.