Earn money while you blogging
Blogging is turning out to an addictive past-time for a lot of people around the world. Apart from being a great medium to express your feelings and experiences,blogs can Turn into alternate means to earn some quick bucks.
With recession rocking the boat and intermittent lay-offs and salary cuts - why not make some extra money through blogging. You need no special technical knowledge or literary abilities to start a blog. Here are ways in which you can earn money while blogging:
Select an exciting topic:
The basic rule of blogging is to choose a topic close to your heart. Its best if you love something other people also love, such as sports, politics, or celebrities. All blogs have the potential to create revenue, but the popular ones are those which are informative or related to one’s life experiences”.
blog tip: Instead of picking a niche topic like diet tips, where there's only little you can write on, pick a general way of looking at life or an area of interest that you're passionate about. Successful bloggers always stick to the theory that "content is king". It holds particularly true if you hope to earn by blogging. Ensure that new content is contributed on a regular basis. And this can always be possible when the topic of your blog motivates you to write on a regular basis.
Increase traffic to your blog:
Your blog will not make money if no one finds your blog! Your ultimate goal should be to achieve a high ranking in the search engines. So try and build traffic to your blog or make your blog accessible to a large number of readers so that people visiting your blog can increase. The basics involve writing quality content, and updating the content on a daily or weekly basis. The best way to promote your blog is by joining a blog network such as blogadda, technorati, blogarama, buzzerhut, blogcatalog, etc. A blog network website helps bloggers by highlighting and promoting their blog to millions of users all over the world.
blog tip: Joining a blog network and gaining a strong following through that network is the best ways to build blog traffic. It is difficult to get good traffic to your blog, but after submitting your blog to various blog network websites you will more page views. To calculate the amount of traffic coming to your blog, Google and other websites provide a solution. Google-webmaster, mypagerank, trafficonblog etc are some websites that calculate the amount of traffic generated by your blog. You just need to register on these websites to can check your traffic details on a daily basis.
Advertisements
Once you are able to get a good amount of traffic to your blog, you can proceed to the earning strategies. The most obvious way to make money through blogging is with advertising. Advertisers pay a few cents when an ad is clicked upon. Or, they may pay a certain rate for each 1,000 page views.
blog tip: The most famous advertisement method for most bloggers is Google Adsence Google ads are usually the first foray of new bloggers into the world advertising. Easy to use, they only provide a fraction of income to successful bloggers. Lucrative deals come from advertisers who pay a good deal of money for displaying there ad on your blog. Some of them are AdBrite, AdGenta, BidVertiser, Pogads, clicksor etc. It's easy to get ads on your site, but difficult to earn from them. You'll need thousands of visitors each month.
Affiliate programs
Affiliate programs are again good methods of earning money through a blog. Affiliate programs are similar to advertising. But in affiliate programs you are paid directly by advertisers for placing a text ad or a banner on your site. Here people can also earn by putting affiliate links inside their blog You may get paid when a visitor clicks an affiliate link. But usually, visitors must make a purchase from the affiliate.
blog tip: Earning money from affiliate programs is more difficult, but if it works you could earn ten per cent or more, per product user buy through your blog. Amazon, ebay, commission Junction, linkShare are some of the websites that are leaders in the affiliate programs. You can recommend books or other products available for purchase from other sources, and earn very generous sales commissions when your visitors buy those products.
Pay-per-post
Some companies will pay you to write about their products and services on your blog. Your pay varies depending on your blog and the traffic generated on your blog. There are many websites available on the Iinternet that can pay you handsomely for writing reviews of their products. Some can even pay you up to $1,000 per post. If you have a good traffic coming into your blog then you can easily join any of these company websites. Some require you to blog for a month or more before enrolling. Or, you may need a specific number of posts or site visitors.
blog tip: Not all bloggers are willing to get paid to write about a specific product or website, but the ones who do can make good money. Some of the websites which offer such opportunities are PayPerPost, SponsoredReviews, Blogvertise etc
Paid Surveys and Polls
Bloggers can also earn money by running polls and surveys on their blogs. There are many websites that pay you money to run a small survey or poll on your website. The most popular one among them is called Vizu Answers.
blog tip: You need to sign up with them, and select the kind of polls that you want to run your site. It’s free of cost and you are paid handsomely if your blog generates a huge amount of traffic.
How to utilize ads on a blog to increase the revenue
The trick is to have a combo: a good topic and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. These drive traffic to sites and, in turn, attract advertisers. Right now, the widest form of blog-advertising is through Google’s Adsense. Google places a couple of their text-ads on a blog (on request) and pays the blogger according to the number of people that view that ad and the number of people that click on it.
The beauty of Adsense ads is that you don’t need traffic to get it on your site. Once traffic starts coming on to the site, cheques begin to be mailed to your postal address by Google
The blogger need not be an expert in a subject, he only needs to be in touch with the happenings in his field, and be consistent with his postings.
So what is it that will drive traffic towards your blog? “The way to make money (from your blog) is to focus on a niche subject. If you go deep into the subject, you will get dedicated readers. There are number of people who earn an average of Rs 10,000-15,000 a month. On the other hand, some bloggers are earning a couple of lakhs a month.
The revenue of AdSense is mainly depends on the five factors:
1. Traffic
2. Ad Positioning
3. Ad Design
4. Relevancy (between reader intent, the content and the ads)
5. How much are ads paying
Start a Blog to Earn Money
1. Register at least six blogsites. Here I strongly recommend you use blogger. Blogger is a free blog publishing tool from Google. So many reasons of using blogger including Google like blogger as it is product of it.
2. Confirm the themes. The theme of each blog can be different. But you must make sure that your visitors like it so that you can get more traffic to your blogs. You may try the followings: women pictures .how-to articles or some things like this. Just make sure your visitors find content of your blogs useful and helpful.
3. Promote your blogs. Once you have set your blogs up and filled something in your blogs, it will get some visitors. Of course you can optimize your blogs to get traffic, but it is a long time to learn how to Optimizing your blogs to be search engine friendly. Through promoting your blogs in social book marking sites like digg, facebook, reddit, stumbleupon, hi5 etc you will get at least 100 visitors per day, if you do it hard.
4. Put ads on your blogs. Once you have visitors, you can earn money from Google Adsense. Here is the Google adsense url https://www.google.com/adsense. Sign it up and put ads on your free blogs. You can use blogger's Gadget to put your ads on your blogs. Just promote your blogs and you will earn money from Google ad sense with your free blogs.
Top Free Blogging Websites
There are many sites on the Web where you can write your blog and have it hosted for free. Here are the Top blog hosting sites to make yours a great blog.
WordPress (wordpress.com) this one is number one for one main reason; it does not have ads on your blog. You can set up your layout, color scheme, theme and everything just the way you want it. Not only can you install WordPress on your own sites, you can use the same software on their site and save yourself all of the technical work. You do not have to install anything, but you can if you choose to.
Blogger/BlogSpot (blogger.com): It is one of most commonly used blogs, linking to others is quite easy and updating it is very user-friendly. You also have the option of deleting comments, which is nice for those who don’t want people advertising on their blogs.
LiveJournal (http://livejournal.com) not only is this a great blog, but it a great tool for writers. There are hundreds of groups set up designed to let you join a writing challenge. For anyone who is looking to have their skills as a writer tested, this is the place for you. Customizable theme, avatars, layouts and a few more things you can get if you want to pay for them, but I did that a few years back, not really worth the money.
Vox (http://vox.com) A personal blogging service where people share thoughts, photos, videos with friends and family
BlogSome (http://blogsome.com) BlogSome is the fastest growing blog host in the world (in percentage terms) was voted Forbes Best of The Web pick. Based out of Ireland, this site uses the WordPress MU platform, large choice of themes.
Xanga (www.xanga.com) this is more community-centric blogging, including Friends lists.
Insane Journal (insanejournal.com) - Another site based on the same software that runs LiveJournal, offers free and paid accounts, paid benefits are only enhancements.
BlogABond (blogabond.com) - A site dedicated to travel blogs with map integration and more.
Blog Cheese (BlogCheese.com) - A video blogging website.
Blog (Blog.com) - Offers free blog hosting with unlimited bandwidth for their free package, more benefits for paid members.
Blogr (Blogr.com) - Allows you to blog, host photos & videos, and podcasts.
Blogster (Blogster.com) - Offers free image hosting in addition to free blogs.
Bravenet (Bravenet.com) - Free blog hosting with RSS feeds and more.
Busy Thumbs (BusyThumbs.com)- A blog site specifically for your text messages and camera phone images.
Blogetery (Blogetery.com) - Offers multiple templates, anti-spam, free sub-domain and more. You can also get paid to write there, your profit there is 90%, which is higher than most paid to write blogs. I am a member here and highly recommend it.
Journal Fen (JournalFen.net) - Runs on the same platform as LiveJournal platform, very much directed towards various topics and is meant for users 18 and older.
FreeVlog (Freevlog.com) - Designed for video blogging and completely free.
Trippert (Trippert.com) - Create and share blogs of your travels.
Word Count Journal (http://www.wordcountjournal.com) - A new blogging format that is also part challenge. Write one word on the first day, two words on the second day and so on, at the end of the year you’ll have written 66,795 words.
EduBlogs (Edublogs.com) - WordPress powered blogging for educators and students alike.
ClearBlogs (ClearBlogs.com) - Free blog hosting and offers templates, friends only posts, IP-Banning and more.
Multiply (Multiply.com) - Mixes blogging and social networking, with photo galleries and more. There are rumors that this one is about to close, but I have no way of knowing if it is true or not. There is nothing on the website about it closing though.
Netcipia (Netcipia.com) - Free blog and wiki for private or public display with 2GB of storage. This one offers revenue as well, check it out for more information.
Open Diary (Open Diary.com) - Offers unlimited storage and posts, low cost subscription rates for advanced features.
ShoutPost (ShoutPost.com) - A platform for creating blogs with a focus on generating traffic. Ad-free!
Soul Cast (SoulCast.com) - Have something you want to talk about, but want to say it anonymously? This may be the blogging site for you. You can also get paid to right here and there are no restrictions on what you say and how you say it.
Tumblr (Tumblr.com) - A blog platform with a focus on allowing media-rich posts.
Weebly (Weebly.com) - Allows you to create a site and blog, free hosting and change designs on the fly.
ZoomShare (Zoomshare.com) - Free blog hosting with 250MB of free storage.
Thoughts (http://www.thoughts.com/free-blog)- At the eighth spot I listed Thoughts as another blogging hosting provider. I haven’t checked it out too much. This is definatly great for those of you who want something a little less mainstream.
Experience-Projects (http://www.experienceproject.com) - Here is another provider for a person to start blogging away.
Free-Blog (http://freeblogit.com/) it is another promising website to lend bloggers a helping hand.
What is a Blog?
Blog or Weblog: There are numerous definitions for a blog, a contraction of weblog. It is referred as an online journal or dairy that is available on the web that are displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs are mostly available in a series.
Blogs are typically updated and maintained on a daily basis using software, which people with little or no technical background can use. Generally blogs are entries about the personal experiences and hobbies of the writer.
Vivid definitions of ‘blog’ are as follows:
A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser.’
‘A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.’
‘A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.”
‘A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there’s also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc.’
‘A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly.’
‘A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”, and some blogs discuss personal experiences.
Need for Blog:
Blogs are an interactive medium that allows even micro-business owners to become niche experts. Blogs are also sometimes considered an excellent marketing tool. Once a blog catches the attention of readers, it can be used to develop a wider audience and potential customer base for business.
Generally blogs are of 2 types,
1. It is a general posting with often impersonal, dry “brochure” content
2. It is very personal posting that even allows user interaction.
Blogs can be combined with websites using software’s such as WordPress that can handle both. Even if the content of a website is not updated, a blog which is updated on a regular basis, allows the viewers to interact with the blogger, and know about the current happenings vis-à-vis the blogger and his business.
Types of Blog:
There are several types of blogs on the internet. The most searched or reviewed blogs are those that talk about happenings in a particular persons’ life. Other most searched or reviewed blogs are those that talk about a particular system that help people to simplify there work style. These include blogs about web 2.0, content management system, and information research.
Slow blogging:
It’s a movement that emphasizes blogging after thoughtful consideration instead of hammering out posts in a surge of emotion. While successful bloggers are known to update their blog regularly and in a quick manner, slow blogging urges bloggers to slow down. Slow blogging is “a rejection of immediacy... an affirmation that not all things worth reading are written quickly
other social networking sites
Facebook, MySpace may be the hottest social networking sites around but there’re so many other online social networks that are also very popular and cater to some special interests. Let’s take a look:
Muxlim- It is like MySpace for Muslims but family-friendly and free of any nudity or adult content that may offend the Islamic community.
MyChurch- This is online community of Christian Churches. Each Church on MyChurch has a profile page that allows its followers to join and then the church members can also inter-connect with each other. Ministers can also post sermons as audio podcasts on MyChurch.
Eons- Eons is a social community for people who have crossed the age of 50 (see past coverage). One of the most active groups on Eons is ‘50+ Singles Group’. From the founder of Moster.com.
CafeMom- This is a hugely popular social networking site but just for moms - you won’t even find a gender column on the sign-up page.
Dogster- A social network for pet dogs and dog owners. Like Facebook gifts, you can "leave a bone’ when you are on any dog’s page to show your appreciation. Doggy Space and My Dog Space are other social communities for dog lovers. Cat owners can flock to Catster and My Cat Space.
Geni- This is more than just another family tree builder. You begin by adding your own name to the tree, followed by relations who are then invited to complete their details and also join own your private ‘family’ network.
First Wives World - This is a social network for anyone who has been affected by divorce, directly or indirectly. Members include divorced women, children of divorced parents, family members of divorcing women and so on.
Totspot - This is a social network for new born babies and kids maintained by their parents. If you are expecting a child, you can also join but keep the birth date same as the expected date given by your doctor. Totspot will also keep a record of other members who have recently viewed the profile page of your child.
