People have different reasons for setting up a blog. These include
wanting ot drive traffic to an e-commerce site; making it another source
of income; or they might want it just for a hobby to have fun with.
Often it's a mix of these, sometimes event all three.
Whether set up on a blogging platform, such as Google's Blogspot, or on
an independent website, a blog won't make money without visitors. Be
warned, there is no quick and easy route to getting lots of traffic. It
takes time which you might be prepared to invest yourself, or employ
someone else for.
Content
The first element of this is publishing regular, quality content.
Generally blogs do better traffic-wise if their content is themed to
match a niche.
Thus, if you are a wine importer, your blog can be a series of articles
about the wines you offer, whether they should be drunk chilled, and
what food they go with. Occasionally you might want to digress and give
information about a wine tasting trip or an area where the wine is
produced. But somehow there must be a wine connection, either direct or
more subtle. Many of your readers will find this interesting so it
should be easy to find ideas for your content.
If you own a direct delivery transport business, you might have to think
of some other way to keep your readers coming back for more. For
example, your blog could be a kind of travel journal, filled with the
interesting places and things you or your drivers see from the cab or at
break time. But don't forget to mention the satisfied customers at the
end of the journey, too, if the website is for raising awareness of your
services and getting more customers.
Content should be interesting, well written, in an appropriate tone, and
updated regularly, preferable more than once a week. To bring visitors
from search engines, it should also have a smattering of key words and
phrases sprinkled around. Think up a catchy title that includes a
keyword or two as well.
Reading and Commenting
Once you become a member of the blogging fraternity, you can't just
write your own blog, you want other bloggers to read your content, and
make comments, and if you reciprocate, you will build up a following and
become popular. Anyone blogging as a hobby will soon make virtual
friends this way.
Don't forget that, if you belong to social media sites such as Twitter
and Facebook, you can set up a feed to let your friends know about your
blog posts and get more traffic that way too.
Advertising for Cash
When you accept adverts on your blog that will bring you an income, you
are participating in affiliate marketing. You will receive a commission
either on the number of views and clicks the ads receive, or on
resulting sales, or both. You can display ads from any number of
affiliate marketing schemes to have multiple income streams, but
remember that a much cluttered blog page can be off-putting to the
majority of visitors, so it's best to select just a few.
One of the most well-known way to make money blogging online is Google
Adsense. You select the size of the space you want to make available and
Google fills it with ads. However, the earnings from just one blog are
very meagre, and Google only pays out once you have $100 in your account
(60 in the UK and 70 in the Euro zone). Google does give you lots of
tips on how to maximize your earnings but you really need to have
Adsense ads on multiple web sites to reach payout in a reasonable amount
of time.
You could also put Amazon products and referral links on your blog. They
pay a slightly better rate than Adsense and will probably have a higher
conversion rate. This is because Amazon is so well known, and trusted
for internet trading.
ClickBank, Commission Junction and LinkShare are affiliate networks
representing many business clients whose products and services you could
advertise in your blog. You will get a much higher rate of commission
on sales through these networks.
If you sell your own products on-line, you will also advertise these and set up links to your sales pages.
Content for Cash
Some advertisers prefer a more subtle way of raising awareness of their
products. They will pay you to write about it in your blog. Sites like
Blogsvertise, PayperPost and Social Spark act as agencies for this,
putting advertisers and bloggers together for their mutual benefit. The
more traffic you receive, the more likely it is that your blog will be
selected for a particular assignment. Some of these agencies will not
even accept your blog unless you have a Google page rank to prove its
popularity.
You've probably gathered from the above that blogging is not likely to
make you a fortune. Given time and effort, however, it could give you
something of a supplementary income on a regular basis and yes, you can make money blogging online!
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