August 2008

Whether you have had a blog for years or are thinking about starting one, there are many ways to make money blogging.

Get A Blog
If you don’t have a blog yet, the first step is to start one.  One of the easiest blogs to set up is a Blogger blog http://www.blogger.com. Bought by Google in 2002, they strive to make the experience easy and the sites made are easily searchable by Google and they are free. If you get to the point where you would like to do more customizing than possible at Blogger, try TypePad for about $50 a year.

Buy A Catchy Domain Name
When a blog is hosted by a blogging software, it is given a rather long name, such as www.thebestblog.blogger.com. To shorten the name and make it more catchy, buy your chosen domain name at GoDaddy.com for about eight dollars a year and set it up to mask the longer name, so that www.thebestblog.blogger.com becomes www.thebestblog.com.

Write With Authority
Start honing your writing skills by posting everyday. Everyone has something they are passionate about, whether it is raising beagles or buying photography books. If you love something enough to write about it, you can guarantee that others out there will be into the same thing. Be specific and don’t be scared to be personal- people will want to get to know you too.

Start to Make Money Blogging
Now, we get to the part on how to make money blogging. There are many ways to do it and you should pick the one that most fits your subject and doesn’t compromise your integrity.

Advertise Yourself
In many fields today, having a blog makes your supporters feel more connected to what you are doing. Bestselling author Nick Hornby has blog where he writes about the state of his various projects so fans know when to head to the bookstore. While you might not be a bestselling author, people are still interested in you and your process. They will keep up to date on any shows you have or track things you have for sale. A great example of commerce and blogs blending is Etsy, www.etsy.com, where you can sell one of a kind items. In their success stories, most of the successful sellers have blogs that detail what they are making and how.

Relevant Contextual Ads
Advertisers have been interested in blogs since the onset. Many of the first ads were big and unrelated to any of the site’s content and were very distracting. With Google Adsense, https://www.google.com/Adsense/, distracting is not an issue, as Adsense scans the site content and posts related ads, similar to the way gmail puts ads in the sidebar. In addition to google Adsense is Chitika.  Chitika is the leading blog advertising company with a network of thousands of blogs/websites and hundreds of name brand advertisers and merchants.  Highly recommended!  Most bloggers using ads report earning anywhere from $30 to $5000 a month.

Become an Affiliate for a Relevant Product or Service
Many blog topics lend themselves to talking about merchandise, from camera and computer talk about equipment to reviews of books to niche topics.  To reward those who talk about stuff, Amazon set up one of the first affiliate programs on the web, http://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join.  Just keep posting and any time an item is mentioned that can be purchased from Amazon, have them generate a link with or without a picture which refers back to their site. For every purchase from these referrals, you can earn up to 15% of the purchase.

Amazon is just one of thousands of affiliate programs you can join.  I personally prefer to join affiliate networks such as Commission Junction, Shareasale and Linkshare to peruse potential products to promote from my blogs.

Books And Calendars From Blogs
If your blog is original and funny, at some point, a forwarding-happy emailer will probably find it and then the world will know about it. These sites then get seen by book publishers and entrepreneurs and get turned into merchandise. Two good examples are the addictive and heart warming Cute Overload, http://www.cuteoverload.com/, which posts sugary-sweet pictures of all things small and furry, which now has a best selling calendar on Amazon. Another example is Stuff White People Like, http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/, which simply list things white people like, such as bumper stickers and New Balance shoes, and writes about them in a funny manner. Rather than publishing old posts from their site, the book is filled with all original content.

Become A Celebrity Yourself
One of the most famous bloggers is Perez Hilton, born Mario Lavandeira, who with www.PerezHilton.com changed celebrity blogging forever. His signature style is doodling on celebrity photos and often posting catty remarks and picking on his least favorite celebrities, like Jessica Alba. Still, he gets the scoop faster than anyone and Perez posts non-stop throughout the day. Many celebrities have admitted to checking out his site more than once a day. Perez is now a celebrity himself and lives solely off the advertising revenue from his site and his appearances on television and radio.

These methods are a start on how to make money blogging. Remember, write about something you are passionate about and the money will follow. Happy posting!