Blogging for money

Blogging for money can be a very attractive option once you're in the swing of writing regularly and you've managed to build an online audience which is interested in what you have to say.

But how do you turn what probably started as a hobby into a blogging business?

There are a number of tools at your disposal which lend themselves naturally to a blogging business and which will enable you to utilize the strengths of this popular medium.

Blogging for money: Contextual ads

The advantage of blogs is that they're text based and keyword rich.

This means that they lend themselves naturally to contextual ads, the type of ad that you place on a page and it pulls in advertisers based on what your keywords are for each page.

The obvious candidates here are:

# Google Adsense

# Yahoo! Publisher Network

I have used contextual ads on this page, look at how they pull in adverts that are related to my blogging keywords.

Other tools you might like to try for your home internet business are text-link-ads.com and adbrite.com

Blogging for money: Affiliate marketing

Although I generally think it's better to avoid too many banner ads on a blog - they can distract from the content - it's always good to have a few affiliate companies up your sleeve.

You should select these on the basis of their relevance to your blog readers and their scope to give 'added value'.

You should take a close look at the Affiliate Programs section of this website to get a feel for the numerous options that are available to you.

Blogging for money: Making the most of RSS feeds

The joy of blogs is that they make your content available to users via RSS feeds which mean that once somebody subscribes, they are a captive audience for you.

There are some really useful tools available which will let you put adverts directly into your RSS feed, so that they're delivered at the same time as each new post.

Probably the best starting point when assessing the options is Feedburner which is now owned by Google.

That means that it ties in neatly with your Google Adsense account and you can monitor its use and performance alongside all your other ads.

However, there is another well established alternative which is also worth a look and it's called pheedo.com.

Blogging for money: Using sponsorship

Your blog will no doubt deal with a particular subject in great detail and this creates a 'community of interest' online which will bring in a certain type of reader.

Once your traffic is steady and you can prove it - with a strong Alexa ranking and monthly user stats - you have a bit of online clout.

That means that businesses in fields related to your blogging might be interested in a sponsorship arangement, either by paying for their ads in prominent places or by providing products or services ... to test, keep, use as prizes or in return for adverts on your site.

It's likely that any sponsor would wish to have prominence on your blog pages, and you should make sure in any negotiated deal that you do not give away your editorial independence or you'll lose all the credibility that you've worked so hard to build up.

Blogging for money: Get paid for your articles

Payment upfront is always going to be the most attractive of the monetization models when you start a blog, and there are a couple of services which you should be aware of, even if you decide that you prefer to retain your editorial integrity.

SponsoredReviews.com pays bloggers to write reviews on their sites.

Here's what the website says:

# Earn cash by writing honest reviews about our advertiser's products and services.

# Write reviews in your own tone and style, and gear them to your audience's interest.

It's good to see that editorial integrity isn't compromised and the site is very keen to stress this point:

# You write the review in your own tone, and can be as critical as needed. Constructive criticism is encouraged, but rude or hateful reviews will be declined.

# We also require full-disclosure that the review is a sponsored one. You can simply state the words "Sponsored Review" or you can integrate it into the content.

PayPerPost.com works on a similar principal and pays bloggers once again for writing paid reviews with full disclosure:

# Get paid for blogging.

# Write about web sites, products, services, and companies and earn cash for providing your opinion and valuable feedback to advertisers.

# Disclosure required.

More intriguing is the panel on the left hand side of this website which indicates the level of earnings for some bloggers:

With a little hard work and marketing our Posties can easily make $500 a month or more. Check out some of our top Posties this month. Congrats peeps...you earned it!

Struggling with your blog?

If blogging for money seems a million miles away for you because you're struggling to get even basic levels of website traffic, you should sign up to my free 5 day e-course called 'Boost your blogging business'.

Over the next five days you'll receive a daily lesson via email explaining why your blog is struggling for traffic and exactly how you can turn that situation around and start making some money.

Even better, you won't have to change the way you're producing your blog and you'll be able to use all the content you've already generated ... after a few tweaks of course!

www.waysaroundit.com is an all intensive guide on how to start a blog and
see it through until the end and start making money just talking about your interests.

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