Make Money Blogging

Before you dive into blogging full speed ahead, you need to stop and consider what niche you'll want to target. Just like the expression says: 'you can't be everything to everyone', your blog can't be everything to every visitor or it will fail.

Choose a niche you are interested in learning about or that you enjoy working in. The concept behind this is simple: you're going to be spending a lot of time working to promote this blog. It's far easier to promote something you're enthusiastic about than something you're not.

Spend some time researching various niches. You can start by making a list of all of your interests and hobbies. Do you have a unique hobby? Have you always been interested in learning more about surfing or another sport?

Once you've determined a few niches you might want to explore, you'll want to make sure they're big enough so you can earn a decent income but small enough so you won't be competing with millions of other pages.

Using your favorite keyword search tool, type in your niche subject. Calculate the number of monthly searches. I recommend choosing a niche with five to twenty thousand searches a month.

Write the number of searches down then go to your favorite search engine and enter your niche keywords. How many results are there? Those are your competitors.

Go down the list and view their websites. What are information did they forget to share with the reader? What audience aren't they targeting? How could their methods of reaching out to the reader improve?

Answer those questions and you'll not only have your niche but your target audience as well. But after choosing your niche, you still need to choose the product you'll sell in order to make money online...Read on!

You've done your homework, chosen your niche and have a foolproof plan for attacking the enemy. Now you need to decide what you'll sell on your blog.

You might sell your own product such as an e-book but that depends on how much in-depth knowledge you have of your subject and whether or not you really want to invest that much time and energy into writing an e-book.

If you don't want to sell an e-book, but have another great product, you'll want to offer a way for your customers to safely purchase your product. There are many e-commerce options out there, some even free. Look around until you find one that fits you.

If you think selling your own product is a lot of work, you're right. It is a lot of work. But there are other ways to make money through your blog. You can sell advertising space on your blog. This might be more difficult in the beginning stages of your blog before you get high traffic. So offer advertisers a deal they can't refuse. Or use an advertising program such as AdSense.

You can also sell a product that compliments (not competes) with your blog. This is called affiliate marketing. Think like your potential customer. What would they need or want. If you run a blog on puppy care, you might feature dog accessories. Depending on your affiliate marketing system, you could be paid a commission (sometimes up to 25% of the sale price) for directing customers to the product.

Many blogs use a combination of these techniques to earn money. It all depends on your niche, your target audience, and you.