Blogging for Money

Some people blog for enjoyment. They use their blog like a journal to share with others the things that go on in their life. Others use it to promote their business that they may run. Others blog simply to make money! Is it possible to blog for all 3 of these reasons?? Hmm, well, yes!

You can have one blog or you can have 50 blogs! It doesn't matter! People are nosey! They are interested in reading about new things; reading about someone elses life and what others like! Find your niche, something that you are interested in and tell the world about it!

There are all sorts of ways that you can earn money with your blog. It doesn't all revolve around adsense (which I will delve into at some point). You have all sorts of options to choose from. I'm going to share with you some of the simple ways I have made money with my blog!

There are all sorts of places that you can use to start a blog! The two most well known blogging sites are

BLOGGER

WORDPRESS

.. Take a look at both and decide which one you feel would work the best for your blogging needs! Both do the job but have different features that you can use!

Find your niche! What are you interested in? What are you knowledgeable about? A hobby? A business making idea? Parenting tips? The list is endless! If you are interested in something then be sure to remember that others out there are interested as well!

Pick a title! Something catchy. Something that people will search for! Something that will get people interested enough to have a look!

Write! Just write away about the subject you are blogging about! Let your mind flow out through your fingertips!

Pics/Graphics! As Squidoo says, people LOVE pictures! Search for pics or graphics that are related to your subject! I like to use Photobucket, Make an account and you can search for photos on whatever subject you need a pic for!

Spread the Word! Tell your friends and family about your new blog! Link it in your emails or on forum signatures!

... Soon we will explore the different ways you can drive traffic to your blog!

Before you can even think about making any money with your blog you need to first make sure that people are seeing your blog! Traffic is key in your success but it is not going to happen over night! You can't expect people to just magically know that your blog exists especially in an internet world that has millions of blogs!

Apart from the obvious things like telling your friends about your blogs, posting your link in your email and forum signatures...etc. here are some other ways to help drive traffic to your new blog!

TRAFFIC EXCHANGES With a traffic exchange you visit other blogs (usually for a set amount of time.. 20-30 seconds) to earn credits or points, in return you can use the credits you have earned to have other people click on your blog! Kind of like, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours! A lot of people think that traffic exchanges are a waste of time but I beg to differ. While waiting for the timer to time out I always sift through each blog and if I find one that I think is interesting I will bookmark it to go back to! Here are two that I use:

Blog Soldiers
Blog Explosion

Myspace Yes, myspace can be a great tool for networking and promoting your new blog! You can use your own personal page to advertise it and/or start a new myspace page specifically for promoting your blog!

Entrecard I am fairly new to Entrecard but have to say that I love it! How it works is that you place a code on your blog with a small blog advertisement and you click to "drop" your card on the page. For everyone blog that you "drop" on you get an Entrecard Credit or ecredit. You can use your ecredits to buy an advertisement for your blog on someone else's blog and others can pay you ecredits to advertise on your blog! Ofcourse, the more credits you earn, the more places you can advertise on! I have to say that I have had great results with Entrecard and my traffic stats have been enough proof for me to stick around!
Entrecard

Join Blog Communities These are blog networking communities that help you advertise your blog and talk with other bloggers. You can get a lot of tips and advice.. and traffic from these places!
Blog Catalog
My Blog Log

Twitter Twitter is also a great place to find new people. You send out tweets giving your updates, basically saying what you are doing at that time.. etc. You can include links to your blog or other websites in your tweets. People can follow you and get your update every time you change your status. It can be fun, interesting and a great tool all in one!

Feedburner A great tool to build your rss feed, your subscribers and find out all of your stats on your blog!
feedburner

Technorati Is the leading blog search engine. Sign up, make your profile and submit your blog(s) to get them listed in their search engine!
Technorati

Link Exchanges Find other blogs on the same subject and contact the blogger about exchanging links. You put their link somewhere on your page and they put YOUR link on theirs! It helps to build your traffic and your ratings!

Also, don't forget to digg your blog and stumble it as well!

These things should keep you busy for awhile. It may take a bit of time to sign up for all of these places but it will be worth the time in the end building that traffic to your blog!

There are a few different ways that you can earn some money with your blog. I'm going to explore them next.

The first way that you can earn money is by placing ads on your page. I think most of us have all heard of Google Adsense. Some people love it, some hate it. I did use it personally for awhile until like a lot of people, my account was closed by THEM. I was told that it was for invalid clicks. I do not know what invalid clicks they were talking about. I do not tell people to click on the ads so that I can make money. The only reason I can come up with is because I use traffic exchanges? I asked them for specifics but they refused to give me any other details! Their payout is $100. I had been using adsense for about 2 years at the time and had only made not even $10.00! If I was intentionally getting invalid clicks to earn money don't they think I would be a BIT closer to payout in all that time?? Needless to say, I wrote off adsense very quickly as I've heard this has happened to many others.. some who were very close to payout and then had their account closed!

So, I've found a few other ways to generate money from my blog.

AdBrite is very similar to Adsense. Ads are placed on your blog, you decide what size and where to put the ads. If someone clicks on the ads on your page then you get paid! You can set your payout amount as low as $5.00!



Pay Per Play This is a new and innovative concept for advertising. This is audio advertising! A 5 second audio advertisement will play on your website. Every time an ad is played YOU get paid! You don't have to wait and hope that a visitor will click.. you get paid no matter what! They offer great tutorials and information to help you learn how to promote and earn!




Publish NetAudioAds Adlets

Amazon Sign up for an Amazon Merchant account. You can pick products to sell on your blog! Pick things that are similiar to the subject of your blog. They have plenty of products to pick from!

What are paid to posts? Well, advertisers will PAY you to write a post in your blog about their business or website! There are many different paid to post websites out there. These are ones that I have used and have been paid by! Most of them pay via paypal and you pick and choose which ones you agree to post about!

SPONSORED REVIEWS Sponsored Reviews lets you look through available advertisements and if you find one that is suitable for your blog you bid on it. If an advertiser accepts your bid then you write your post and get paid!


REVIEW ME Advertisers give you their proposal, you can choose to accept or deny it!

SMORTY You get "tasks" that you can accept or deny. They also have a great blog post exchange program where you can trade blog posts with other bloggers. You can blog about THEIR blog and vice versa. A great way to get your blog name out there!


BLOGSVERTISE This one is the same as the above. You are given offers and you have a choice of accepting the paid post or not!

BLOG POSTS FOR SALE This is a new one that I have just signed up with. I have heard good things about them but I have not had any opportunities with them yet!

Pay Per Post Is the biggest paid posting site that I have heard about. However, they have more stricter rules to be qualified. You have to have a certain amount of posts per week to be qualified. I don't post often enough to qualify for them but there are plenty of other opportunities above!