More and more people are realising that blogging is one of the best ways to start your own online business. It requires minimal start up costs, you can build an impressive and loyal readership over time and once you know how to monetize your blog it can also bring in a decent income that will keep on coming even on the days when you don’t update your blog.
There are several ways to set up a blog online. You could use Wordpress, Blogger, or another free site that hosts your blog for you; or alternatively you can set up your own blog under your own domain name.
If you want to get started right away, check out this great little step by step guide, click here.
If you want to make serious money from blogging, you must have complete control over your blog – and that’s something the free blogging accounts won’t give you. You’ll be bound by their terms and conditions and that usually includes not being able to actively promote anything. There are plenty of people who have established a blog only to have it removed without notice some weeks or months later.
It will cost you a few dollars to buy your domain name and set up a web server that will host your blog, but the benefits will far outweigh the cost involved. It can literally be as little as $20 a year we’re talking about here – and that buys you total freedom.
Once you’re ready to set your blog up you’ll need to choose a good theme and layout for it. You might find one that relates to your choice of subject (more on that in a moment) or else there might be one you just like the look of. But there are thousands of templates available for you to use – a simple search on Google will reveal the ones that will be best suited to your topic.
But perhaps the most important question is what you are going to blog about. The whole world is your oyster here – some people blog about their lives in general; some blog about their jobs; some blog about their hobbies; some tell the world about their kids and what it’s like to be a parent, and still others blog about the weird world of celebrities. But whatever you choose to blog about it needs to be something you are passionate about. Don’t forget, you are going to be writing about this topic several times a week, and if you don’t have the enthusiasm for it, that will show in your posts – and no one else will have the enthusiasm to read them.
Okay – so you’ve got your subject. Now you have to start writing your blog posts. If you take a look at just a few of the blogs already online, you’ll notice that the length of the posts varies a lot. Some people only write a paragraph or two each time, but you’ll get better results if you go for something a little longer than this. Around 400 to 500 words makes for a good post with a lot of information in it; some people write hugely long posts that are thousands of words long and could be called an e-book by another name.
But you can also take the format of this blog, by posting a short blog entry which leads into a longer article. This has the benefit of highlighting a lot of blog posts on the home page of the site, and people can then click through and read the ones they like the most.
You should remember however that there are no real rules when it comes to blogging. Over time you will naturally find what works for you, and your blog will settle down into a nice pattern that both you and your readers will enjoy. You’ll find your character and personality will start to come through in your writing too; don’t fight against this as it is one of the hallmarks of blogging. It is, after all, a personal account of an individual’s life and experiences, so show people what you’re made of! You’ll get a more loyal – and bigger – audience like this.
So you’ve got your blog up and running and you’re posting to it on a regular basis. The next step is to get it in front of as many interested eyeballs as possible.
One great way to do this is to submit it to as many of the social bookmarking sites as possible. You can also join social networking sites and build a profile which contains a link to your blog. Other no cost ways to generate traffic include writing free articles for article directories with a link to your blog at the end, and creating signatures at the end of any posts you make to internet forums, and also in all the emails you send out. When you really start thinking about it, you don’t actually need to spend anything to generate plenty of traffic.
All we need to do now is monetize the blog itself. You’ll want to generate some money from all the visitors you’ll start getting, and there are plenty of ways to do this easily. Google Adsense is probably the most well known method – you can join the program for free and display contextual ads that your visitors will be interested in to maximise your click through rate.
There are also a handful of websites which give you the opportunity to get paid for each blog post you make on a specific subject. Pay Per Post and Review Me are two such examples, and they will pay you a certain amount of money to review a product or website for the owner. In a similar vein you can also review and recommend other people’s products through affiliate links inserted into your blog posts, and earn money on commissions earned through any purchases people make.
And once you’re more established you can offer ad space on your blog too, and charge a fee for both classified and display ads if you wish. What could be better than setting your own price?
But there is one final step you can take with your blog if you enjoy a change of scene every now and again. You can sell your blog! Once it is established and has plenty of revenue and traffic, you can usually sell it for ten times its monthly revenue.
And then, you can start all over again with a whole new subject!
So that’s it – profitable blogging in a nutshell. If you have any questions feel free to leave your comments in the form below. And once you’ve done that, get out there and get started building your first blog today.
If you are serious about learning how to make money online, be it for a little extra cash, or to replace your income, the best place to start is with Steve Peirce’s Income Elite program.
Steve and his team of experts will take you by the hand and show you every step you need to take to get a website up and running and making money. Plus you can check out the whole program for as little as $4.95 on a 5 day Risk Free Trial to make sure it lives up to what it promises. Click here to read more about the Income Elite Program.
Great Info I really like the way you give your ideas. I just started a blog on making money online. I been generating revenue online for over 3 years now and wish would have found this when I started
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Blogging is an excellent way to start earning money using the internet. It is easy, there are lots of templates, and lots of the work is automated for you.
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Lolz. It’s not that easy to make money blogging. What will you blog about, and who will read it? You need -tons- of hits & clicks to make even the most modest income.
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Don’t try to make money online. Don’t take your time. I used to try with Google Adsense when my account reach around USD50, it will be disable why? I try a few time, but the same. No reason, No explanation, can’t contact, why?
It means Google Adsense cheat…cheat…cheat…! a lot of site such as peoplestring and more are cheat. don’t believe it. Crazy…!
Please Don’t wast your time. consider that if it’s easy to make money all of people stop to work and stay at home then get a lot of money by work only one or two hour. don’t believe it.
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Mika Reply:
January 26th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Sorry to hear that Roth, but I have been using Adsense for about 6 years and they have never missed a payment. I would have to guess that there was something on your site that was in breach of their TOS.
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Michael Erik Reply:
February 21st, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Your Adsense setup on your website is one of the best I’ve seen for strategic ad placement. If you don’t mind sharing, how much daily traffic do you get and how much do you make each day on average from Adsense for this blog? Some of us need something to gauge our own efforts with and if you don’t mind sharing, that would be helpful. My CTR, for instance, on the sum of my blogs is probably around 4% average. What’s yours?
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Hi,
as a beginner this was helpful to me and i do like to visit this site again. I want to learn more about to start blogging. If possible please advise me
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Making money on blogs is exciting and opens a whole oppurtunity in making money at home. I do make money on may 5 blogs about health and medicine.
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Very nice input. I really didn’t know about pay per post.
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Blog is a good way to build image.
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I like the info and comments on blogging.
I would suggest, get your own web site, use the blogs to drive traffic to it.
Make certain you find good keywords.
Write your own articles don’t use freebies, writing your own articles make them unique.
Put Google Adsense along the top and down the side of your web and blog pages.
Write up the blog at least 3 times a week.
Thats just a few tips, for what they are worth…..
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Good post and its all true. Creating a blog is easy, but generating traffic is difficult. My blog byamile.com isn’t generating enough traffic to make me much money
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Nice tips, really enjoying reading.
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Well I enjoyed reading what everyone has to say. However, I feel if you really want all the in’s and out’s read ‘Blogging For Dummies’ by Brad Hill (Wiley Publishing, Inc.) which is, by the way, a free eBook download on my site.
The book indicates “Chances are good that a few dollars per month is the high end of a blog’s earning potential” So I find 1K a week a little hard to swallow. Nonetheless, if it works for you more power to you.
I personally feel that if you want to start a blog, let alone make money with it, you need to research and read, read, read before you start to undertake such a pain staking effort. Like it’s been said in here already, you’re going to need time to generate traffic, let alone a few bucks a month.
Good luck to all of you who endeavor.
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Mika… now there’s an opportunity — “Your Blog Here” Transliterate your blog into a different style and spelling and it becomes “Your Blog There”. Two blogs for the price of one.
Nahhhhhhh. Write on. Or Right on…. as the decade might imply.
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That looks so great,I will use this method and write on my blog,thank you very much
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It’s realizing not realising. You misspelled it. People won’t take your article seriously if you can’t spell.
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Mika Reply:
December 19th, 2009 at 12:39 am
lol, well it really depends where you come from as to which is right. If people can’t take the article seriously because of a word spelled in another country’s style, well then, I really can’t help them.
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Sam Jackson Reply:
February 28th, 2010 at 1:48 am
Realizing is U.S spelling. Realising is U.K and rest of the world spelling. I.E. English English
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making money by blogging is very exciting. i make money on my 5 blogs about fashion and health.
.
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hmmm…not so sure about this but it seems like a good idea for “passive” income. Indeed lots of effort and dedication to make some cash out of blogging. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
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You hit the nail right on the head here, I agree with you absolutely, great idea blogging..
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Hello there, good write up on blogging.I would want to add that building a list on your blog is actually one of the most profitable ways to monetize it.This is because you can mail your list quite often and make money as often.All you need to do is sign up with either getresponse or aweber and then setup an optin form on your blog.You could entice your readers to optin with some quality relevant free gift.
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Blogging is such a great way to start up your own business. There are virtually no overheads.
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Trying to blog for money is not easy and requires dedication. It is not unusual to blog for a year before traffic starts to build up
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Mika Reply:
November 28th, 2009 at 7:32 am
I agree its not as easy as some people make it out to be, but what makes people think it should be easy?
Too many people want to spend 5 mins a week on a blog and expect it to make them a full time income.
Put it this way… Most of us spend 40+ hours per week working a job that will pay us a salary. If we stop working we stop being paid.
Imagine if you spent 40 hours a week building a blog or online business, that can continue to pay you for a long time to come.
I know which I prefer to do.
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Nick Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Hey Mika, my name is Nick and I’m 14 years old. I really want to start a blog and I am willing to spend 3-4 hours a day on it. I know it might be hard but I really want to start something with alot of interest and viewers. I just still can’t think about anything yet. I enjoyed reading your post and thank you for it. What would be the best way to start off a blog to make money? Because there are alot of blog websites out there I need one I can use google adsense on.
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yes i really agree with your suggestion about this money making technique. i am really interested to involve in this system. this site is indeed very useful for me.
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I never knew you could make money blogging this information is very useful. I love to blog so I will have to look into this further.
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Making with money by blogging takes a lot of learning and also time.
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in today life earning money is very important..online earning is playing major role..so in this need above article gave some important tips to me..really its good
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Very nice post dude..!
But i think blogging can get help other people in the wolrd..!
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wow it is really nice and it is very useful to know about how to make money……… concept is really super
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The things said above looks to be good and the way of making money using blogs is one of the best among the all. The details given above is good and ample to all others
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Hi,
Thanks for the useful information and really helpful for those who are very much interested in earning online through blogging.
Thanks
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You can join CJ or Clickbank as affiliate provider,Subcribe to product under your niche and blog them.You can choose blogging portal like blogger.com or wordpress.com.But for begginers i will ask them to read above post to get complete knowledge.
Thanks For Sharing Mika it’s a great book for begginers.
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Hi Mika,
This is a really helpful blog post to start on making money with blog.
I am searching for making money and your site came first. And I guess you just getting started.
Congrats,
Julius
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Well, all your tips are great but after reading the topic and the comments, I want to ask that is it really possible to make money from blogging?
I mean no one would call 1 dollar in three months a source of income.
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Mika Reply:
November 21st, 2009 at 6:02 am
Well, while technically not a blog, this site is based on wordpress, & I consider it the same thing. and not to boast, but its currently making around 1500 to 2000 USD a week. Not that it would make you rich, but its an ok income for me. for very little work once its built and ranking well. Plus now I am free to go and build more if I want.
So, is it possible? yes absolutely. But it does take some time and effort. Nobody gets rich with no effort. Well at least I don’t know how to.
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This is fact that you have to think about the engaging topic of blog,otherwise your blog fails to survive whether its paid or free and to make money you have also an idea about adsense.This site provides good information about blogging,thanx for such an information.
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Very well carved sentences and has given with a lot of features .Especially suited to all people who would like to start a blog to earn and i feel fine with that. Keep things going.
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I want to start a blog, but i want to have control of it as you mentioned in your site. so can you tell me how to get started. do I just go to “go daddy” or is there a better place to go? will they set up a web page for me that will allow me to control the content and cash flow?
Thanks
G
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Mika Reply:
November 19th, 2009 at 2:59 am
Yep godaddy is fine for domains, I use them, but they are not the best for hosting. (You will need both) I personally use and recommend HostGator for all my sites. Click Here for details.
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Making money with blogging is not that easy. I started my website, fortunately got a pagerank of 2 within a month. But still tryin to build traffic. It needs hard work and lots and lots of patience. Neway, nice info.
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I’ve just start blogging to make money..
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Yep, it can certainly take some time to build up, but you can speed it up by learning how to market your blog. Take this one for example, I only started working on it about 3 months, and its now making me over $1k a week. Not a lot of money sure, but its a start.
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Morris from http://benefitsofpeoplesearch.com/tissa.htm Reply:
December 8th, 2009 at 4:48 am
Mika,
This sounds interesting to me,you are making $1k/week in 90 days?
Kindly teach us how to promote any blog you seem to have some insider secrets on this.
Maybe an outline of your weekly promotion strategy will do.
Thanks.
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I started to blog 4 months ago, so far I made 1.97…..
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dickey Reply:
December 24th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I started with Google AdSense 1 year and 3 months ago. I have been on/with the Internet for 16 yrs now, I know all about SEO, optimization, keywords, etc. and many of my sites held first page rankings for YEARS. So far after busting my butt with AdSense I have made $20.72 to date. There has to be a better way.
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I start with bloggig and use adsense but in 3 month i earn only 1$
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Morris from http://benefitsofpeoplesearch.com/tissa.htm Reply:
December 1st, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Don’t give up on blogging.This is actually the best way to build reputation and following in any niche you choose only that it requires patience consistence and focus.
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I really don’t think blogging is the best way for beginners to start making money online. As a long time blogger I feel they would be better off doing something else, unless they have a lot of time and are prepared to not make any money for at least 2 months.
Blogging is about SEO and ranking your posts high in the search engines, + newbs have to compete with people like you and me. Not only that, they also have to complete with auto blog spammers, who pump out 100 blogs a day!!!
Your tips are great and right on the money, but I do not recommend newbies start out with blogging, unless they have a specific plan to move forwards with.
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Mika Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Fair Point, it certainly does take a lot of time and commitment to build a successful blog. But I do believe its one of the easiest ways to get an online presence.
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gwen Reply:
November 17th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Its funny…maybe you just dont want any competition..sounds like you are a little insecure to me! dont bother responding either, i was just browsing through here and gave a fake email. hah loser
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Mika Reply:
November 19th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
ummmm ok, I have no idea what your talking about???
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CrystalQ Reply:
February 10th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Say what you want Gwen, I only speak from my own online marketing experience.
A good way for beginners to get started would be to start in say site flipping or product creation.
I remember the first product I created and sold was for $17.00. It was a PLR pack of like 20 thousand PLR articles, hundreds of MMR ebooks, scripts, website themes and templates.
It was the easiest money I had ever made! Selling your own goods is the way to go, read up on that. Find a “need” or “trend” in a market, create a good product and sell it!
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Morris from http://benefitsofpeoplesearch.com/tissa.htm Reply:
December 1st, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I agree with you on this.Blogging takes time to build a consistent income.This should be a long-term strategy to build your reputation in your chosen niche not a quick way to profit.
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Hi guys,
Does anyone know of any other programs like google adsense ?
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Mika Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 1:38 am
adsense is generally the best, but it depends on what type of traffic you have. ClickBank run a similar ad style that pays commission on sales, but if your looking for ppc programs, then try Yahoo Publisher Program, Kontera, Chikita, Azoogle just to name a few.
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Erica from http://100DollarsPaidDaily.com Reply:
February 28th, 2010 at 12:42 am
Adsense is one of the best, but it depends on how much traffic your already generating to your website. If your only generating 100-500 visitors a day to your site then adsense will not work very good for you. You might want to turn to a site that pays you per lead! I am a member of one and they paid me over $100 bucks so far!
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I found your blog via Google while searching for how to make money from home with no money down, thank you for posting !
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Mika Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 1:38 am
No problem, thanks for reading
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This site which contains ample of information to earn through blog is one of the best of its kind. Beginners can make use of these valuable information to start blogging.
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Blogging is the best way to start up a business.For beginers like me
this is the best blog.
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I agree that blogging is the best way to start up a business. Not to mention a great FREE way because for most business start ups there’s a cost, but not if you use a blogging system.
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this is the best blog for beginers who want to make blog.
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This is exciting to me because I’m thinking about starting a blogging business soon. It’s so true that it’s easier to start this type of business than any other.
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