How to Start a Blog & Make Money

Do you have a special interest? Do you want to share your knowledge with a large community of people while making money? Creating a blog is a great way for you to achieve that. It's fun and easy!

Instructions

1. Determine what the blog will be about. It is easier for advertisers to place ads if you have a specific interest or topic in mind. Having a set blogging topic will also make it easier for people to find. You can even be considered an expert in that area if you have enough traffic and feedback.

2. Choose a blog host. There are many different types of blog hosts that are free. The layout and themes are easy to change and personalize to your specific needs.

3. Get the blog set up. After you have finished choosing the layout and theme, you can begin the specific details. Create the pages and content that your blog will be using. This can take a few days to get all of the content placed the way you want it, but that is fine. Typically, pages include a home page, a page about you and the blog, a contact page, a page dedicated to the blog postings and any other pages that you will fill with set information.

4. Add any widgets that you feel are appropriate. This can include anything from recent blog posts to recent comments and any fun items that you want your viewers to experience.

5. Go to simple advertising services through Google, Yahoo, and Amazon. These are the most basic ways to make money on your blog. It might take a few days for each one to process your request, but after that the directions are straight forward. You then have to add the code into your blog and you're all set.

6. Plan to update your blog at least four times a day. You will be getting more traffic if you update regularly. It is a good idea to plan ahead and have ideas ready for you when you update your blog everyday. Four times is the minimum, but updating more than ten times a day will be overwhelming. Choose a set number to go by.

7. Advertise your blog. Let everyone know that it's there. There are several different blog advertising services available to you like BlogCatelog. They are each very simple to use and only takes a few minutes to set up. Also, make sure that your blog is being crawled by search engines like Google and Yahoo. A simple search on the search engine will determine if it is being crawled. If it's not, request it by submitting your blog site in the specified forms.

Tips & Warnings

• Allow anybody to post a comment. You can always moderate each comment as they are posted.

• Keep your blog postings relevant to the topic at hand. You are allowed to stray a little, but try to relate it to your blog topic.

• Visit and comment on related blogs in order to get more advertising and interact with the blogging community.

• Don't post rants if you want to create a successful blog. Reviews of anything are allowed, but try to be professional and mature when writing for your blog.