Brenda Moody asked:


Blogs can be a source of income as well as being fun to work at. The fun part is finding what you want to write about. Anything that interests you can be the theme of your blog. Pick something that you know about, are interested in and that you feel will have a lot of topics to write about. The first step is going to be writing so have fun with it!

Setting up the income part, it is a little more involved. What you will need to get started:

A blog! Sign up for a blog. You can do this at no cost. Once you have a blog just follow the instructions given and create the look and features of your blog.

You should consider adding a Meta tag in the html editor of your blog. Some search engines use it for information and ranking of your site.

There are varied opinions on site maps. Sitemaps give more information about your site to search engines. You can get a sitemap at Google. Some say it helps and others think it doesn’t.

Find advertisers to place on your blog. If you have a favorite product or service, check their website for an affiliates link. Sometimes it is located on the very bottom of the page. Follow the instructions given to get an ad for your page. There are also mass advertising selections you can get at sites like Pay Dot, Commission Junction or Clickbank. Choose the ads that you yourself think are the best for your site. Ask yourself if you would click on the ads you chose. Consider also adding Adsense from Google.

The most important part, and probably the most time consuming, is finding ways to get your site seen. To get your site seen, link to as many directories as you can (you can list your site in these), write articles (most let you add your URL in a resource box) and get yourself into the main search engines. Google, MSN, and Yahoo are essential. There are many free directories on the Internet. If you want to pay to have this done there are service sites that will put your site in directories for you.

If all of this is seems like Martian talk to you or you are new to the concept, I highly recommend Profit Aricle.

For a very reasonable price, this can guide you step by step through the whole process. They provide links to everything you require to get started and tools you may need. It is worth every penny to get if you are serious about blogging for money. It is the program I started with and I am still impressed at how straight- forward it is.

joelcomm asked:

http://www.AskJoelComm.com
Blogging is a great way to make money with Google AdSense. In part 7 of my AdSense presentation, you will learn how to get started in just a matter of minutes. To start this series at the beginning, go to http://www.askjoelcomm.com/adsense_secrets_liveindex.shtml

Christos Varsamis asked:


It should start with the question on how targeted is your Blog. Does it refer to a specific niche or is a general blog? General Blog themes should be avoided because there is no way to satisfy every internet user and in the end you will loose your traffic from other super targeted blogs that focus on niches or even sub niches.

The next question is when to display ads. Do you want to gain significant readership and then display the affiliate ads or you do this since day one?

What to display? The answer is not simple either. The default and reliable is Google Adsense but there many profitable alternatives such as:

• Chitica

• AdGenta

• Text Link Ads

• Blogads

• IntelliTXT

• Net Audio Ads

• Ad Bright

• Double Click

• Kanooble

Each one of the above can be profitable if they are applied correctly. There is also banner advertisement which still produces results but not as much as text link advertisement. In text link advertisements what is important is the capability of displaying contextual ads.

Contextual ads mean relevant ads to your webpage's or blog's content. That makes them more effective and certainly more clickable. That's why Google Adsense is so popular.

Another issue is the product advertisements where Chitica and Amazon are the pioneers. The problem here is again the relevance. In order to develop a profitable blog or website you must provide relevant content. The outcome will be the showing of similar products at your WebPages.

Ad Payment types.

The first is CPC (cost per click). That means you get paid for every click on your website's ads.

Next is CPA (cost per action). Action means a generated lead or signup through email forms.

Finally CPM (cost per thousand). That means views. You get paid when an ad has been displayed at least a thousand times on your blog.

Marketing Tactics.

There are many online marketing techniques you can adapt. Article marketing is one of the most effective long term and free marketing strategies. Especially if you submit your article to very popular and reliable article sites like ezinearticles.com goarticles.com and articledashboard.com you will create links from these important sites and increase link popularity.

Forum marketing is another important internet marketing technique. When you interact in the forums with other users you gain readership since the forum administrator permits you to show your link on your resource box at your posts.

What you should avoid is spamming, because you will loose your account and the most important, your credibility will vanish. Spamming is the ultimate unprofessional action.

Finally the most advanced marketing technique for your blog is the social marketing which has become a boom in the internet the last three years. Some of the most effective social marketing media to start with are:

Digg.com

Squidoo.com

Technorati.com

If you master the social marketing and use these media plus many others you will gain massive exposure for your blog. But you must realize that this is not one night success plan, it's a long term marketing strategy.