How to Make Money Blogging

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

a computer w/internet
a domain name
a webhost
a blogging platform such as Wordpress installed.

Step 1

Choose a topic. Your blog needs to be about something in order to have direction and attract an audience interested in that topic. Choose something you’re passionate and knowledgeable about as it will make writing about it more enjoyable and easier.
Step 2

Do a little keyword research. Go to Wordtracker’s free keyword research tool (link is in the resource box at the end of this article) and put in a general one or two word phrase that describes your topic. For instance if your blog is going to be on growing herbs try entering the word “herbs” and see what results come back. Check to make sure there are enough searches for your blog’s topic with various keyword phrases. If there are very little search results you may need to choose another topic. It’s hard to make money blogging if no one is searching for that particular topic.
Step 3

Copy and Paste Keyword Phrases. If there are a good number of keyword phrases that come back with more than 15 search results you’ll want to uses these phrases as titles for your blog posts. Copy and past these keyword phrases into a word document and save this document for later.
Step 4

Set up your blog. Now that you know you have a good topic to write on you’ll need to set up your blog. Choose and register a domain name, get hosting with a reliable but affordable hosting company and install Wordpress on your site via Fantasico in your cPanel.
Step 5

Write 10 articles. Even though your blog is brand new you’ll want to have some content there when people visit. Take 10 of those keyword phrases you copied and pasted into a word document and write a blog post for each phrase. Use the keyword phrase, exactly as it appears, in both the title of your blog post and use it two or three times in the body of your post. This will help with search engine optimization and will help your blog posts show up in Google and Yahoo. Try to aim for about a 400-700 word count post.
Step 6

Publish your posts. Upload each of the 10 posts you wrote. You’ll want to have some content ready for anyone who might visit your blog early on as well as have some content set up to publish once a day for the next few days. I recommend uploading 5 of your posts immediately and then scheduling the next five to post one per day for the next five days. This gives you a five day cushion of posts while you think up and write more posts.
Step 7

Set up your blog's RSS feed. RSS stands for real simple syndication and it's an easy way for people to read your blog posts on a daily basis when they subscribe to it. Feedburner is the most popular way to set up and track your RSS feed
Step 8

Set up your ads. If you’re going to make money blogging you’re going to need a way to bring in that revenue. The easiest way is to set up Google Adsense and place a couple of related affiliate ads that compliment your blog’s topic. Blogging about dog training? Sell an ebook on how to potty train a dog by placing an ad for the ebook somewhere visible on your blog.
Step 9

Create an "Advertise with Us" page on your blog. One of the best ways to make money blogging is to allow other companies to pay for ad space on your blog. Set up reasonable prices at first for weekly or monthly ads in various sizes and positions on your blog. Charge more for ads that site "above the fold" or are visible without having to scroll down yoru blog. Put your email address associated with your blog on this page as a contact email and encourage visitors to contact you to place an ad.
Step 10

Submit your blog posts to social bookmarking sites. Social bookmarking sites not only give you some great backlinks to your blog but allow others visiting those social sites to find, read and rate your blog posts. Social Marker is a good one because it allows you to visit one site but submit to many social sites at once.
Step 11

Comment on related blogs. Find blogs that allow backlinks (called “do follow” blogs) and post relevant and helpful comments regarding that blog’s posts. So if your blog is about gardening you will seek out other gardening blogs, make useful comments on them and enter your url in order to gain a backlink. This will show up as a backlink for your blog and many times will be followed by readers of that original blog. Both mean increased traffic to your blog.
Step 12

Write new posts. Keep yourself in a healthy supply of blog posts. Readers don’t like dry spells so try to post consistently. You can also begin to mention recommended products relating to your topic and place affiliate links directly in your blog posts. Those who follow the recommendation and buy the product will earn you a commission.
Step 13

Use your SEO plug-in. Input the title of your blog post, including the keyword phrase you're targeting, a description of your post and your keyword in to the SEO plug in section below each post you write.
Step 14

Lather, rinse and repeat. You will now be repeating a cycle of writing and posting new posts, submitting them to social bookmarking sites and commenting on other related blogs. Write quality posts that people will want to read, bookmark them to increase your exposure and backlinks and comment on similar blogs. It might not sound like a magic formula but providing good content that is search engine friendly, driving traffic to that blog through search engines, social bookmarking and commenting on other blogs will bring in and keep readers. Those readers will, in turn, become customers that trust you and buy what you recommend. Simple as that.