How To Make Money Blogging
After you create a blog that is interesting, now it is time to start making money. The second step of getting visitors is the most important, if you plan on making money. The third step is choosing how you will make money from your blog.
You should try to keep your blog on the same topic on all your post, being that you can have an unlimited number of blogs, you can have a blog for any and every topic you choose. Make sure to start a new blog if you are totally off the main subject of the blog that you are posting to.
Blogger and several other free blog companies make it very simple to have a brand new blog up and running in a matter of a few minutes. Try not to post an article about dogs on a blog about golf. Once you have an interesting blog on one particular topic, the best place to start making money is Google AdSense. Blogger has made it very simple to add AdSense ads to your blog.
The ads that show up on your blog will be targeted towards the topic of your blog, which means if you have a blog about dogs, the ads that show up on your blog will deal with pets. It's like Google is paying you to advertise on your blog.
Another way to make money with your blog is with affiliate programs. Companies will pay you good money to advertise their products, and all you have to do is put a link or banner on your blog leading to that companies website. Once a sale is made the company gives you a commission. That is the reason you should pick one topic for your blog. If you want to have a blog about your life, by all means do it, but have other blogs about specific topics if you want to make money.
Once you find a topic that interest you, look for affiliate programs for that particular topic. With the dog blog example, there are several dog training products that you can have links and banners to on a dog blog that will make good money.
ClickBank is the top company when it comes to affiliate products, they have over 10,000 products to choose from. Browse their products to see which ones you would like to promote. Obviously you want to pick something that fits the topic of your blog, but don't limit yourself to just one, you can change a product you are promoting with a few clicks.
The internet is the essence of marketing, by that I mean, every word in an ad matters, every color, where the ad is located on your blog, whether is blinking or not, and the color of the text. It might not seem like all of those things matter, but the fact is, everything that you decide matters.
The good thing is you can experiment with how your blog looks as much as you want. There are several e-books written on how you should place and where you should place them, in the beginning, just go with the basic blog set-up until you get the hang of things.
How to Find a Niche For Your Blog
It is important to realize that your choice of a niche can have a significant influence on the success or failure of your new blog.
Deciding on a theme can be a daunting task. What exactly are you going to write about? Your niche needs to be a popular topic that many people are interested in.
If you are going to blog about yourself, then you better have a very interesting life, or you will have difficulty keeping your readers coming back for more. You should choose a topic that will make it comparatively easy to grow your readership and build a strong following.
Since many bloggers write about their favorite subjects, it’s not a bad idea to start brainstorming by writing down a list of your hobbies, interests, and any areas of professional expertise. Now try to determine a niche you can target within one of those areas.
Should you blog about automobiles in general, or the latest sports cars? If you choose too narrow a theme then you may struggle to come up with regular, fresh content. And if you choose a topic that’s too general your readers may be confused by a jumble of seemingly unrelated posts.
You might consider niches within the following general topic areas which have proven to be popular for blogging:
• Automobiles
• Computers & Information Technology
• Digital Cameras
• Gadgets
• News
• Photography
• Politics
• Shopping
If you plan to use Pay-Per-Click advertising to get traffic to your blog, then remember also that the hottest topics might have the highest pay-per-click fees.
You can sometimes get great niche ideas by browsing at Blog directories and sites like Google Blog Search: http://blogsearch.google.com
Since it is so time-consuming trying to com up with the ‘perfect’ niche idea, many bloggers and webmasters have turned to specialized niche discovery tools. I particularly recommend Online Gold Finder and NicheTopics.
With Online Gold Finder you can uncover profitable, undiscovered online markets with just a couple of clicks. Read more about Online Gold Finder at: http://www.moneyforblogging.com/goldfinder.htm
NicheTopics is quite handy in a different way. You get to use some great research that’s already been completed by an expert. It is a ready-to-use report on 109 unique, untapped niches. Read more about NicheTopics: http://www.moneyforblogging.com/nichetopics.htm
The tools above are not free but consider for a moment. If you are planning – or would even like - to make some money from your blog, then it will be worthwhile to start off with a well-researched niche.
If a particular tool uncovers a good niche that pays an additional $5 a day, it will pay for itself inside the first month!
Don’t forget, it will be very difficult to change the theme and niche of your blog later. So invest some time wisely during your planning stage.
You will be off to a strong start in building a successful blog.
How To Find The Right Blogging Platform For Your Needs
Choosing which blogging platform to use is one of the most important decisions that you can make as a blogger. The right platform can make blogging a breeze, and the wrong platform can make blogging a chore. Because the program that you used to blog with is such a powerful part of your blogging experience, it is well worth putting in the time to find a platform that provides your ideal balance between a user-friendly interface and a flexible framework that allows you to make your blog look and feel unique.
Finding the right platform isn't always easy, but with a little bit of contemplation and a little bit of research, you will be on your way to finding the perfect blogging platform.
Deciding what your priorities are in terms of ease of use versus customization. Most highly customizable blogging platforms, like moveable type, are a bit more difficult to use than very automated platforms like wordpress. If you are new to blogs and to internet technology, you might want to sacrifice the ability to create a custom background design or to integrate a unique font into your template in order to find a program that will be easy for you to use.
On the other hand, if you are a veteran web designer with knowledge of html or javascript, you will probably find the limitations of a user-friendly platform to be frustrating.
There is no such thing as a blogging platform that is objectively the best platform, because every blogger has unique needs. The blogging movement is very much about individuality, so it makes plenty of sense that there would be many platforms available that are designed to meet the needs of different kinds of individuals undertaking different kinds of projects. This diversity is a good thing, because it means that you will almost certainly be able to find a program that suits your level of technical aptitude.
However, the fact that no two bloggers need the same thing from a blogging platform can make your search for the right platform a bit tricky. When you are reading reviews of different platforms, try to keep your priorities in mind and do your best to take into account the position that the reviewer is coming from. For example, a negative review written by an accomplished software designer who complains that a popular platform is too limited may tell you that the platform in question is ideal for a beginning blogger.
There is no such thing as the perfect platform for everybody, so instead of looking for the "best" platform, look for the best platform for your specific criteria.
How to Get Your Blog Indexed on MSN in less than 72 Hours for Free
MSN uses a search engine crawler known as MSNBot; You have to tell MSNBot to crawl your blog or website.
I do not know why MSN indexes blogs(Blogger especially)during such a short time; I guess its because they are hungry for new pages...
I found this secret whilst trying to get my websites indexed into search engines for Free, and that was a while ago.
This is what you have to do, step-by-step:
1. Go to MSN.com and search your blog address. It will be BLOGNAME.blogspot.com for Blogger blogs.
2. MSN will say "We couldn't find any results containing BLOGNAME.blogspot.com"
and 4 lines below there is a link with the text "Send the address to Us" Click that link to index your blog.
3. You now have access to MSNBot. You'll see a code verification system; type the correct code and the URL of your blogger or wordpress blog.
Remember to include the http://...
Within 3 days your blog will be indexed! When your blog gets indexed, try this system with your websites too.
Getting indexed on Yahoo is a bit harder, and takes longer.
1) Go to Altavista.com
2) Click on "Submit a Site"
3) You'll see 3 options... Click "Basic Submit". You'll need a Yahoo! account for this.
4) Once logged in, you'll be taken to Yahoo!'s free URL submitter.
There you have it - the simple secret of getting your blog indexed in search engines.