Fact: Blogging is one of the simplest ways to make money online
If you’re looking for ways to make money on the Internet you’ll probably be offered lots of complex ideas and plans. But blogging really is one of the simplest ways to make money online today. It’s easy to do and better still it can even be fun!
If you’d like to make some money from blogging here are some tips for getting started:
What is a blog? A blog is basically a diary – but on the Internet – where you can post all your thoughts, ideas, news and so on… whatever you like.
There’s a bit more to blogging than just posting random thoughts though. Blogs are one of the longest established forms of social media and are absolutely fantastic as a method of generating good quality traffic.
What could you blog about? Anything you like really. But try and make it something you’re passionate about as it will be easier to write. Hobbies and interests are great for blogs… everything from cookery and current affairs to football and fashion. It’s more than likely that the thousands (if not millions) of people who share your interest are already frantically searching the Internet for news, views and opinions on it – and your blog could be just what they’re looking for.
Tip. Make sure your blog subject is something that it is going to be fairly easy to monetise, i.e. there are related products and services that you can sell to visitors.
How to set a blog up: You don’t need any technical experience to set up a blog as there are lots of ready-made packages to help you. Blogger.com is a simple blog hosting platform where you can set up a blog without needing to set up a website first. It’s free to use too! WordPress is a package that can help you create a more polished blog with some really clever features (www.wordpress.org).
Maintaining your blog. It’s well worth thinking about exactly how you are going to get content for your blog before you even start it. The more good quality, original content you add the more successful it is likely to be.
Tip: Autoblogging software, which automatically cuts-and-posts content from other places on the Internet, isn’t normally a great idea as duplicated content isn’t popular with search engines.
It’s great if you can write original content for your blog yourself. But one way to create a regular stream of content with minimal effort is to use web curation. Curation is a way of aggregating and presenting all the great free content that is out there on the Internet so as to create your own unique story.
Here’s an article telling you more about curation
And here’s a good example of a curated blog which you might also find interesting: Great Business Ideas
You can post to your blog as often as you like. A few times a week is ideal. But you can even post a few times a day if you’ve got a lot to say.
Making money from your blog: While a blog can be just a hobby they really become exciting when you use them to generate traffic, and generate an income.
Here are the two main ways you can make money from blogs: Publish Google AdWords ads, so that when visitors click on ads you get a commission.
Sell affiliate products and services on there, and earn a commission on the introductions you make. Here is a handy article explaining how you can make money from your blog using affiliate schemes.
But here’s an even better ‘under the radar’ way to make money from your blog or blogs: If you have (or start) a business with an Internet presence or an online shop you can use your blog to generate and attract good levels of high quality traffic through search engines and so on – and then discreetly direct that traffic to your business or online shop.
Although blogging started out as a hobby, blogs are now quite big business. Some of the most famous blogs have millions of visitors a year… and make hundreds of thousands of pounds for their owners.