Making money online is just a dream for many, but it doesn't have to be. There are several legitimate sources of income online, but finding them can often prove difficult, as there are many work at home scams out there. Blogging for money can be a lucrative occupation if you work hard at it. As with many jobs, the top %5 make %95 of the money. The difference is- when you're a blogger, you're your own boss. That means that your income corresponds to your efforts. Unlike hourly and salary jobs, the harder you work, the more benefits you'll see. I've been doing this since October of 2006, and I make around 500 dollars a month for blogging part time. Other bloggers make two thousand dollars a month or more while blogging full time.
Step 1: Start A Blog
If you want to get your foot in the door on this paid blogging phenomenon, I suggest you act now. What can you do? Start by getting a blog. And a domain. Then connect them. Domain forwarding isn't all that hard once you find instructions, which are readily available online.
There are a lot of choices when it comes to getting a blog... you could try blogger.com, Wordpress.com... well, there are a ton of options, and you may have to do a google search to make your decision. I like Blogger.com, but some people hate it. That's the beauty of computing- there are a dozen ways to do any particular thing.
Blogger.com does make it easy to forward your domain to their blog. This blog is hosted on blogger.com for free. And you will want a domain. It's best to get one right away. It should cost about 6 dollars a year- which you'll make back as soon as you start writing paid posts. Bear in mind, it takes a few months before your blog will be established enough to qualify for most paid posting programs.
This what you should take away from this section of the article: figure out what blogging platform best suits you. Pick a topic or three (or more)... make it something that you can write a lot about. Then write a post every week. Make each post fifty words or more. Have fun.
Step 2: Promoting Your Blog
Okay, so you've got yourself a blog. You've got it looking pretty much how you'd like it to look, and you've written some posts. What's next, you ask? Promotion! It's time to learn how to build up your readership and PR.
PR stands for Page Rank. It was named for the guy who invented PR. His last name was Page. He worked at Google. Google tracks the Page Rank of websites. When it comes to PR, the higher the number the better, with 10 being the best. The ranks are exponential, so a site with a PR of 4 is many times more important than a site with a PR of 3.
In order to build up your websites' PR, you've got to get inbound links to your site. There are a few ways to accomplish this:
You can leave comments on articles and blog posts, and fill in your URL if there's a field for it. Don't put your URL in the content of the comment, and make the comment worthwhile, or it may be deleted or filtered out.
You can also get inbound links to your blog/site by doing what is called link baiting. You either write a controversial post (about another blogger, maybe?) then tell them about it... or review a product, then tell the manufacturer of the product about it. If the scheme works, you will get at least the manufacturer/author to link to your blog. If you're lucky, several sites will link to your article.
You can also submit your URL to a linkdump or similar web directory. Blog carnivals are becoming a popular way to promote your blog as well.
Then there's paid search engine optimization, or SEO. Basically, you pay a company to generate links to your blog. They usually pay other site/blogs to link to your site/blog. I don't know a ton about SEO, so I assume there's more to it than that.
Regardless of how you promote your blog, don't expect results overnight, as Google only updates PR every so often. I've found that it takes about 3 months to see a movement in a site's PR.
Building your readership/traffic means the onus is on you! You've got to produce quality content that makes people want to come back to your blog for more. I really can't help you with that one. I have noticed that writing more posts seems to generate more traffic.
One last nugget of wisdom before I start the next part of this article- link to your sources! Be sure to link to any source you use for videos, ideas, etc... the authors may notice and link back to you, or even ask you to be a guest blogger. They will usually let you link to your blog in articles that you write for them, meaning you get a nice PR and traffic boost!
Step 3: Finding Advertisers
I bet you've been wondering just how you're going to generate an income with your blog. This is the big reveal. If you want to get paid to blog, this is the list of resources that will be most vital to your income stream. Now, on to the list of sites that pay you to work online using a blog:
PayPerPost:
These guys are the biggest and the best. They have the most opportunities for you to advertise on your blog. They have the most advanced site, and the highest level of communications between bloggers and their staff. If you choose only one of the sites that I've listed here, you should choose this one.
blogitive
Blogitive has offers from time to time. When it rains, it pours. Sometimes, they'll push out a handful of blog ads in one day, sometimes you'll go weeks without an opportunity. Expect to write about vacation property, gold, and online education. These guys use a lot of the same advertisers over and over.
loudlaunch
This one is fairly new. The have a steady supply of ads. Most of them require a lot of writing for the money. Still, if you like to elaborate about things, this could be a decent source of revenue.
sponsoredreviews
Another new face in the paid to blog scene. I've actually made some decent money at this site. The thing that makes this site different that the rest is that you set the rate that you work for, and negotiations can occur between bloggers and advertisers. A lot of the requested reviews are wordy, but it is very much worth the money that you can make here.
bloggingads
I just signed up with this site, and I haven't done any ads for them yet, so I can't say much about them.
bloggerwave
I've only done a few ads for these guys, and they're very new. But the site is nice, and there are a few ads to be had. It takes a month between when you pot an ad for them and when you get paid. This is fairly common in the paid blogging world.
paymetoblogaboutyou
I don't even understand how this site works. It's supposed to be some sort of messaging system, but I'll be darned if I can figure it out. Good luck.
Big money to be had here, but you've got to have a big/popular blog. None of my blogs qualify. If you are fortunate enough to run a very popular, highly ranked blog, then you can earn some serious cash here.
linkworth
Not sure how this one works- I've only done one campaign for them, and it only paid about three dollars.
smorty
Another one that I've yet to use- it's new to me!
Payu2blog
These guy pay five dollars per post, but you're assigned the posts. In other words, you don't get to pick and choose your assignments. You could be stuck writing an advertisement about crotchless panties or incontinence supplies, and this may not go well with your blog or your ethics.
creamaid
This one's odd. Basically, if you find one of their widgets, you write about it, and if your post is approved, you get paid... I've never used this one- mostly because it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
I think that's all of the advertisers, and that also concludes this article. You now have all of the information that you will need to get started blogging for cash. It takes about four months between starting a new blog and seeing your first payout, so be patient and persistent.
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