Make Money With Your Blog

This post is divided into two parts, first 4 steps are regarding setting up your blog and last 6 steps are about making money off it.


Step 1
Setting up your blog
This is a fairly easy job, get a domain, install wordpress and you are done! Speaking about this, I prefer that you setup your blog in a separate .com domain, since it gives you some physiological credibility factor. Not to downgrade the blogs in blogspot and other free blog sites. The blogspot has some really fine bloggers like Kumiko, Mikes Money Making Missions and others who are making money off free blogs. But having a .com is as cheap as it can get. So, why not get one?


Step 2
Customizing and Branding
This means work for your creative side. Name your blog, something different, something catchy, create a logo, a header image, a tag line. In other words, you are creating a brand. Or you can always put your personal name up there and market your own brand! Put in some useful plugins if you are using wordpress. Initially put in some general useful plugins, as the blog grows, you will get new requirements, and hence new plugins.


Step 3
Posts and Content
I don’t have to tell you that need content to make some money, every 3rd grader knows that! So, put that thinking cap on and write those articles, anything, anything you know, want to share about. You can always use the power blogger tip if you want to! Once you have about 30 posts on your blog, proceed.


Step 4
Promotion
Have you installed the share plugins, the mybloglog widget and other promotional plugins that will allow easy sharing and viral promotion of your site? Now start moving out into the blogosphere and look for blogs that interest you and relates to your blog theme. Comment on them, join into the discussions at forums, put your blog URL where ever you can. Here is another gem of a tip: Comment on some blogs that have a nofollow off. Which means free back links and Google Love! CourtneyTuttle has a good D-List of bloggers who have nofollow turned off. Start there.


When you finish up all these steps, you have a nice little blog that is waiting to be monetized.


Step 5
Getting Recognized
This can be tricky and difficult, I am facing some difficulty in this as well. The point is to get maximum people know you, who you are as a blogger and as a person. If you have a look at my first post, I never really knew what to do with a blog, what to post and on what niche to concentrate. But these days I know the purpose, to make myself some money? yes, in a way, to post content related to the Internet, technology and gadgets and my views about them. I am not claiming that everyone reading this blog will make money like John Chow, but I will share tips that helped me make some money on the net. It may help you too.


Coming back to the topic of getting recognized in the “make money” sense means to get some authority for your blog, a Google PageRank, a useless but important Alexa Ranking, Technorati Rankings and back links are some of the factors used to judge your reach and recognition on the blogosphere.


Step 6
Ad Monetization
Google Adsense is every bloggers first step towards monetization, the easiest way. Sign up and place their code, get some clicks and get the paycheck. Sounds Easy? Well, its not! Frankly, I am not expecting my adsense check sometime in the next one year. This led me to explore some other options for monetization.


Step 7
Paid Posts
This is one of the biggest options and the best money making options available for your blog. If you have a page rank already, its a good way to make some extra dollars. The basic idea is to find a publisher and blog about them with a link and make some greens!


PayPerPost: They are my favorite and the first program I have used. brought me some nice greens in the first month. Its as simple as signing up, finding an oppurtunites in relation with your blog, blog about it and get the money in 30 days of posting it! Yea, its simple. Earlier they used to take almost a week to approve my posts, but now they approve it in 2-3 days at max.


LoudLaunch: Another PayPerPost with a nice design! They usually take 3 months to approve a blog. Duh! Serious. But the payment is faster than PPP. I have not used them yet, but am approved.


SponsoredReviews: This is a new player. While on the other two, the advertiser has no control over who takes the oppurtunity, this one needs each publisher to be approved before taking a opportunity. Nice for the advertiser, but not easy for the publisher. I have requested for some, they are in pending approval status. and this one has some good advertisers than the others.


Blogitive: I did this post on 07-May, with my power blogger tip, that I am using these days. But I got a mail yesterday, ie 08-May, that my blog has been accepted into the program. Have not got the time to review it yet. More updates and a post on paid blogging comming soon.


Step 8
Link Sales
This can fetch you some recurring money every month. I have not explored this one, since I am yet to get a decent PagrRank which is very much required to make some money off Link Sales. You can use some reputed companies like TLA to sell some ads, also directly sell them yourself at some busy forums like DigitalPoint, WebmastersHideout.


Step 9
Aff. Sales/Commisions
This is also a good money maker, if your blog is pinpoint on a niche, like cellphones. You can sell related stuff like accessories, covers and other things. I never use this since I think not many of my contacts online and offline use the internet for purchases. But the payouts are very good and can be more than 50% of the product value in some cases. The place to start with would be Clickbank.


Step 10
Keep your eyes on the blogosphere!
This means reading the blogs of some veteran bloggers like Shoemoney, Problogger, Copyblogger, JohnChow and other big name bloggers. Do share your favourite blogs in the comments section.