Blogging for Money

This one of the most widely used online money making techniques, blogging. A blog is easy to set up, easy to operate, and all you really need is something to say.

How do you know if blogging is for you? Here's 5 questions to ask yourself.

1. Do you have time for it?
If you are serious about blogging for money, you want to be able to put yourself in it. This blog will never take-off like some out there, for one simple reason, I don't have the time to put my whole self into it.

2. Do you have enough to say?
Sure, you can sit here and ramble off a couple ideas that may make great blog posts, but if you run out of steam within 2 weeks, you blog will sink and that will be the end. Give your readers something to come back for and they will.

3. Can you keep up with the times?
No one wants to read about something they already know about. Stay with the times, post as it's happening. As of 1/25/08, Congressional Economic Plan, Heath Ledger, both big items, already old news, stay with the times, know whats happening NOW.

4. Can you keep up with the technology?
Technology changes, you want to be able to master the art of traffic, without vistors, you're writing a diary. Know how stumbleupon works, submit to digg, make sure you have an RSS feed, without these, your hoping someone falls upon your site and tells 500 people, the odds of this? 1 in a million, with the rise of social bookmarking, you can go from 0 to 100 visitors in a matter of hours if properly used. I will write a later post about this so you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed.

5. Do you really want to do this?
Sure, I can stand here and say,"leik omg, blogging is so totally cool and everyone should like do it!" and everyone will jump gleefully and start posting their own blogs. But in order to be successful in blogging, you have to want to do it. A writer not involved in their work shows. It seems like easy sailing, but it does take a little work, although blogging is much easier than some forms of work involving writing.

So you decided to stay, good to hear. Hopefully over the coming months, we can share some good ideas on making a successful blog, for testing purposes, I have created another blog where we can compare techniques for adsense placement and various other ideas. Head on over to 02sense.blogspot.com to check it out, I'm going for a humor/satire angle for the site, tell me what you think.

So let's get started:

Step 1: Find yourself a good host, I use blogspot, obviously, it allows me to alter the html for the template and also add any widgets of my liking. This is very nice when it comes to posting adjustments, say the digg window on the right side, or the bookmarking tools on the bottom, all edited on the template. Wordpress is nice as well, loads of customization, the only downside to wordpress is the need to host your own site. The wordpress hosting site will not allow javascript, so you will be unable to monetize.

Step 2: Find a topic, this could really be step 1, but if you don't know where to put it, no sense in having an idea. Finding a good niche is always a good idea, if you're too general it will be hard to keep traffic, but also beware of being too specific as it may alienate some readers, think of it this way.

If I write a blog aimed at "Men" or even "Men aged 18-45" it's too broad, different men always have different tastes, a 20 year old college student in NYC may find something very different intriguing than a 35 year old father of 2 living in TX. Also, you don't want to be too specific, how many left handed women, aged 32, living in Oklahoma, who's favorite color is teal, can there be?

Step 3: Read up on the topic. Things change, make sure what you're writing is up to date. If you want to come across as an expert in your field, make sure you know it, having a career in the field is good, who better to write about computer programming than a computer programmer?

Step 4: Monetize. Go with adsense first and foremost, there is NO reason why not to. Also look into specific companies to promote with commission junction.


What you do after this is totally up to you, please check back in with me as I will be adding some more blog tips to the site. Also check out other blogging sites like ProBlogger, there is an abundance of information there for you to read.