How to Make Money with a Blog

In a time of recession many people are looking for ways to make a few extra dollars. One of the ways that you can possibly make a few dollars is to start your own blog.
It will not bring in money magically overnight but if you work hard and stay at it you might me able to create a certain level of passive income. Here are 12 steps to get you started.

 

 

Pick your niche or topic. The first step is to find a topic that you want to write about. I suggest that this be a topic that you are knowledgeable about or one that you are willing to learn about.

 

Research your niche or topic. In some instances you passion or niche that you have picked may not enough people who share the same interest. This is not usually the case but you will want to research to make sure there appears to be enough interest.
Actually you are looking to see that there are other blogs in your niche. If there are none there may not be enough interest.

 

Pick your hosting company. I would recommend that you host your own blog and not have it hosted on a free site. Some free sites put limitations on your ability to monetize your blog. This would defeat your purpose. You can find pretty cheap hosting. Many hosting companies will do it for $8 - $10 per month. And this gives you the ability to host unlimited domains. One such company is Host Gator. You can find a link to them in the resource box if you want to check them out further.

 

Pick your domain name. You will need to register your domain through a domain registrar company such as GoDaddy. You will pay a yearly fee for the rights to the domain name. This will cost you in the neighborhood of $10 - $15 for a .com, .net or .org domain. Others may cost you less. I would suggest a .com domain.
It is also best to have your topic of your blog found in your domain name. If you were going to do a blog on Chineese Recipes and you registered the domain name that included your name like www.joesmith.com then you would put yourself at a disadvantage. You may want to choose something such as www.chineeserecipesonline.com.

 

Load Wordpress on your blog. You will need to have a blogging template loaded on your domain server. In my estimation Wordpress is hands down the best template available.

 

Begin posting. Once your blog is up and running you can begin blogging. I would add at least 2- 3 articles per week. Make sure they are keyword rich and that the post are optimized for long tail keywords so that you will begin to rank in the search engines for these terms.

 

Build readership. Remember a successful blog does not happen overnight. You will have to continue to post quality, original posts that offer good information to your readers. If you optimize you posts for the appropriate keywords you will begin to drive readership to your blog. Be patient and consistent and you will begin to see your readership grow.

 

Get the email addresses of your readers. You can offer a free course on your topic or you can offer a re-brandable ebook from an affiliate program that your have signed on with. If you build a list it will allow you the opportunity to stay in front of your readers and to offer them information that they may be willing to purchase at some point in the future.

 

Monetize your blog with Adsense. Do not do this right away. If you do you will most likely be punished by Google in the search engines. If this happens it will be difficult to build traffic. I would monetize with Adsense when you have built up a decent readership or no sooner than three months into the existence of your blog. You may want to wait as long as six months.

 

Sell advertising. If you are able to build your readership up to a very nice level on a daily basis you have the ability to sell ad space on your blog. I would venture to say that you would need to have somewhere near 1000 visitors per day before this can become a reality.

 

Sell affiliate products. Find some affiliate products on Clickbank or PayDotCom.com that fit with your niche and offer them to the readers of your blog. This can go a long ways toward helping make a residual income.

 

Create your own ebook. If you are up to the task you can write your own ebook and offer it for sale on your blog. This can be a tremendous source of revenue for you. It requires a lot of work but it is worth it in the long run.