What is a blog?
If you want to make money blogging, you'll first need to understand what is meant by a blog. "Blog" is an abbreviation of "weblog," a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of
information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles
or other Web sites.
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Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, politics, sports, or mobile technology. Some are more
eclectic, presenting links to all manner of other sites. And others are more like personal journals, presenting the
author's daily life and thoughts.
Most blogs tend to feature the following:
- A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top.
- An archive of older articles.
- A way for people to leave comments about entries.
- A list of links to other related sites.
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Getting Started
Several blogging sites provide you with all the resources to get started immediately
including templates and hosting free of charge. Some of the most popular are:
You don't need to restrict yourself to the templates provided by the blogging companies. If you're
looking for something different, take a look at http://www.eblogtemplates.com
who have free templates for both Blogger and Wordpress. They are surprisingly easy to install and require
minimal internet experience. If you can download a file and find files on your computer then you have all the skills you need.
My 11 year old son has just created his own blog using one of these templates and needed only a
few minutes tuition from me. Take a look at http://picturesofhell.blogspot.com/
and if you have the time please post a comment or two as it would make his day.
Paying options include TypePad and
MovableType (free for personal use).
Alternatively you can host your blog with your own domain name and hosting package for total flexibility,
avoiding any restrictions placed by the free resources. Take a look at http://wordpress.org/
generally considered the platform of choice.
Download the free ebook, Blogging Power Package. If you go to
the "free blog resources" section, there's a step by step guide to getting a blog with Blogger.com
Earning From Blogging - Revenue Sharing
The popularity of blogging has led to the growth of free hosted blog providers
which offer the opportunity to share in their advertising revenue. You simply sign up from their site, and create
and maintain a blog. As your content generates traffic and attracts readers you get a share of the advertising
income.
Squidoo is probably my favourite blogging site. Professional
templates make it very easy to get started, and various extras encourage visitors to your site. Not only
do you get the chance to earn from Google advertising revenue, but you can add relevant recommendations
from Amazon and eBay and earn on sales made. With 50,000 sites already, your webpage isn't sitting
out in the wilderness, hoping to be discovered. Instead, you benefit from the proximity effect -
your stuff is right next to thousands of other pages about other interesting stuff, and by choosing
a category for your site, you make it easy for others to find. They also make it easy to encourage
interaction with your readers. You can add polls, let people add their own links and even allow people
to vote on the sites and products listed.
I've just created my own Squidoo page (called a lens) at http://www.squidoo.com/homeworkinguk/ Take a moment or two to take a look and as a reward, if you've got your own website you can add it to the "member sites" area of the site and create a one way back link to your site. Once you've signed up as a Squidoo member please also rate the lens. The higher it rates the better the value of the back links for you.
To get your own lens, just go to squidoo - it's completely free
Thanking you for making our Squidoo lens one of the top 100 business pages on the site (and top 1500 overall out of over 100,000). Visit this blog and
add your own site details free of charge.
Writingup.com also offers you the chance to
earn a regular income, simply by writing your own blog. Google ads are
placed alongside your entry and you'll earn an income every
time someone visits your page and clicks on one of your Google ads. In addition,
refer others and your ads will also appear on their pages. To find out more about earning from Google ads and
open an Adsense account
click here
Other blogs that offer a revenue share include:
Placing Ads on Your Blog
By far the best and most rewarding advertising option on blogs is Google Adsense, as mentioned above. Adsense lets
anyone with a content rich site to publish relevant ads next to the content on their sites. See the top of this page for a typical example.
Once you've added a few lines of code (provided by Google) to one or more of your Web pages, everything else
is done automatically. Visit our Adsense page for further information
Blogads is an advertising service specifically for blogs. According to the site, the average blogger makes $50 a month
selling Blogads, with some pulling up to more than $5000 monthly. Blogads receives 30% of your ad fee.
You set prices, customize design and write copy to solicit advertising. You alone decide what
appears on your site. Blogads is now invitation only. To participate in Blogads, you need to be sponsored by a blogger in the network.
If you don't know a sponsor, write to signup@blogads.com and they'll notify you when a sponsor appears in your niche.
You can see typical examples here
Tagword works in a similar way to Blogads but
takes just 10% in commission (currently free if you receive more than 50,000 hits per month)
Crispads works in a similar way to Adsense, but is
aimed specifically at blogs. Rather than having to sell advertising on your blog, you can simply add code
provided by the company and earn from clicks made by visitors, in addition to obtaining individual sponsors.
Get Paid for Reviews
Many sites will pay you to add their links to your blog, or to review their products in your blog. Try out:
Further Reading
Blogging to the Bank
When he started, Rob Benwell went from zero to over $500 per day within just a few months
from a network of blogs - all of that earned through
affiliate commissions (using free software and without buying domain names,
web hosting or advertising.) What is so impressive about this is that he was not a
longtime blogger. He had only been blogging for a few months, and is completely
self-taught. Despite only having a handful of sites linking to him, his blogs are
outranking sites with hundreds and even thousands of links, for his chosen
keywords in search engines.
When this first happened, he spent hours trying to figure out why this was
happening, looking at everything different he had done with his blog that others
were missing. He set up others blogs which included ads for affiliate programs and
followed this method with a few little tweaks here and there. He now seems to have
"cracked the secret code" to getting a ton of free traffic and keeps setting
blogs up on a weekly basis and was expecting his affiliate checks to double or even triple
in the next two months. Rob then put together an exact blueprint of his system
that takes you from zero to huge affiliate checks like him. You don't even need
to know anything about blogs. It includes screenshots and examples all the way.
You don't need to worry if you feel you can't write perfectly. Rob's blogs are
littered with typing mistakes, grammatical errors and poor design yet they work
and he shows you the results to prove it.
Since first publishing his guide, Rob has continued to research the sector
including testing alternative methods, and has published his results in the newly updated version of the guide.
Full details of this step by step guide are available from
http://www.homeworkinguk.com/blog.htm
Niche Marketing On Crack
If you've been looking for an online business for any length of time, you've probably realised that the biggest stumbling
blocks to building a sustainable business are the time it takes to create a site and the difficulty in obtaining a
significant level of visitors. This guide has solved these problems by offering a method with which:
- You can start earning quickly - rather than developing a site for months before seeing any profit, you can be watching the sale notifications flow in as little as a week.
- You can make big money from tiny traffic - Traffic generation is the hardest part of internet marketing but anyone can drive just a few visitors a day to a website
- You can multiply your income by repeating the same formula - No guesswork is involved. Each site takes a very short amount of time to create and you can make as many of them as you like.
- Your income grows with time, rather than declines - A lot of the money making methods around at the moment can generate fast cash but with a method that can cease working just as quickly.
One recently
created site, for example, has just ONE page of content and made $231.04 USD last month yet took no more
than a few hours to create and promote and got no more than 11 Visitors a day. You'll find many more examples on
the site but as I know many of you are sceptical about sales pages I've asked around and got the following
feedback from people who've tried it out
I bought NMOC and am actively working on several projects using the method outlined in NMOC. I have made money using this method. It is very simple and gets great results. I can also say that the author Andrew is very responsive and helpful.
Just to let you know I started a campaign using NMOC last weekend. Only went through 60% of the guidelines and got my first sale yesterday.
Hello here, yes I am using NMOC methods. While one blog has not had too much success, another netted me over $2000.00 in my first month.
For more information visit http://www.homeworkinguk.com/nmoc.html
Case Study
If you're still wondering whether it's really possible to earn from blogging, take time out to visit John Chow dot com. This blog not only shows you how
to make money online but he also gives a detailed breakdown
every month of exactly how much he's earned and where it's come from, and doesn't mind admitting what
isn't working for him. A very active site, John posts new information and opinions every day and includes a
good quantity of personal news rather than just coming across as a sales pitch. One of
my favourite blogs and an excellent example of what can be achieved. He is even offering to provide a link to your blog
if you review his blog. With a PR6
home page, this is definitely worth a look
Get paid to give your opinion
If you've got time on your hands to commit
to providing regular information, as well as making money from blogs, there are many other ways to
earn from providing information for other websites. Many
sites are now committed to providing a directory of websites
or other information and are prepared to pay you for your
time. Don't expect to get rich, but you can expect to have
your internet bills paid, or receive a few pence per review
or even a share of advertising revenue. In some cases you
are required to make a monthly report so don't take on too
much. New sites are coming online every month so remember to
check this page regularly if you are interested. More details on our online reviews page.
ALSO - Click here for details of sites that pay you for completing surveys.
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