How to Start Making Money Blogging
- Understand what is a blog? Define a blog as a
type of website or part of a website often maintained by someone making
regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material
such as graphics or video. Most blogs are interactive, allowing
visitors to leave comments and even message each other via widgets on
the blogs and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from
other static websites. A typical blog combines text, images, and links
to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The
ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format forms a
large part of a blog.
- Plan to write your blog in a tone appropriate to your blog topic.
The most important part of any blog is what you have to say and how you
say it. People will inevitably return to your blog if the subject you
write about and the style in which you write it appeals to them. Keep it
personable so as to invite interaction through blog comments and links
back to your blog from other bloggers who like what you write.
- Choose a niche market and domain name.
If you’re setting up a blog with the intention of making money, you
need to find a profitable niche. Let’s assume that selling hair care
products is a potentially profitable niche. A possible search term that
someone might use for a hair care product might be "hair care shampoo,"
so an appropriate domain name would be "haircareshampoo.com". You can
check domain name availability at Hostgator.com, and you can also
purchase your domain name there.
- Choose blog software to use?
There are a number of popular blogging software around, including
Blogger and Wordpress. My favorite is Wordpress – in fact I created this
blog using Wordpress, and that’s the one I’m going to use to help you
setup your blog - it’s very simple to use, and it has many powerful
features including plug-ins and web template system that uses a template
processor
- Go to your new blog website. (Such as http://www.yourblogname.com) Substitute your actual domain name for "yourblogname".
- Click on “Cpanel login.” If you don’t see "Cpanel login" to click then type this in the browser address bar +slash+cpanel. “http://www.yourblogname.com/cpanel using the actual name you registered.
- Type in your username and password that you chose when you bought the "web hosting" provider. Should be in your BLOG FILE.
- Scroll down to “Software/Services.”
- Click on “Simple Scripts.”
Example Blog, WordPress
- Click on the WordPress icon.
- Choose the latest version of WordPress. (The highest number is the latest.)3
- Click “Install Now.”
- Select your domain name.
- Leave the “subfolder” box empty.
- Give your site a name. This is the name of your blog, i.e. “My Hair Care Blog.” Usually the same name as your domain name.
- Enter a tagline – caption catchphrase. This would be like your
branding, i.e. “The Place Where You Learn All About Ducks.” (You can
modify this very easily later so don’t worry about it being perfect
now.)
- Uncheck the check box next to “Generate Admin Login.” This way you can choose your own.
- Choose and keep your Admin user name and password. This is for
logging into your WordPress Dashboard for writing your posts and setting
up your blog. It’s best if this is different from your cpanel username
and password.
- Leave “Automatically create a new database” checked.
- Check the legal agreement.
- Click “Complete.”
- Read your email to
confirmation from BlueHost (your web host) with the username and
password you chose, plus any other information you might need.
- Setup
your WordPress Dashboard -- where you control everything about your
blog including writing posts and customizing the look of your blog.
- Login, go to: “yourblogname.com/wp-admin” in your browser.
- Enter your WordPress Dashboard Login username and password that you set up in an earlier step.
Design and create your site
- Create a blog design that reflects your blog's image.
It’s important that you create a design that reflects the content and
image of your blog - from your font to your color choices, make sure
each element of your blog's overall design is consistent with your
blog's image. For example:
- In a serious blog about marketing, it would be confusing in readers'
minds, if the blog design included cartoon like clipart, balloon fonts
and glitter effects.
- Choose elements that often make up a blog including:
- About Me
- Categories
- Posts
- Contact
- Install a theme for your blog.
Under appearance, click on "Themes" and then click "Install Themes".
From here, you can browse through a number of different themes from
which you can select one you’re happy with.
- Download the theme plugin and save it in a sub-folder on your computer.
- Open the zipped folder.
- Click “extract all files”
- Upload files or a folder to “wp-content/plugins” on your “remote server” via FTP on FileZilla.
Start Blogging
- Write blog posts people want to read which is a matter of speaking honestly and openly about a subject you're passionate about.
The more you promote your blog, the more people will find it and the
greater likelihood that some of those people will read what you have to
say, like it,
- Use strategies to drive traffic to your blog:
- Email Marketing: send emails to your contacts who might be
interested in your blog and suggest that they forward your link to their
contacts.
- Participate in blog carnivals. Search online for them or check out BlogCarnival.com.
- SEO: Optimize your site for search engines. One software I recommend is WebCEO, and there is a free version of it.
- Post relevant comments on related blogs for exposure to those readers. Register as a member using "yourblogname.com" as your username and:
- Build links to your blog by posting comments on other blogs that
have “dofollow” links which means that search engines will see those
links. That helps to improve your exposure.
- Do video marketing: Creating a video for marketing is much easier than you think. The best software used for making a video is Animoto.
- Promote your blog using "Yahoo! Answer" as a great idea of utilizing that facility to drive traffic to your blog.
- Drive more traffic to your blog using some of the social networking sites:
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- StumbleUpon
- Digg
- Reddit
- Be persistent and write good content and while these steps take time, and you will have success. And once you have the basics down you’ll continue developing and learning more.
Make Money
- Get help from friends.
One way to get a friend like this is to join a forum, like Digital
Point, which is full of people looking to help each other for online
business.
- Stay away from buying How to ebook scams about making money online.
- Consider buying a system
and eprogram that can completely automate everything -- from e-sales,
e-credit card usage and e-downloads (delivery online) -- to everything
else that is needed to keep sales, customer info and operate a
successful business online.
- Choose, create and sell your own "e-product" that people will want to buy:
- Information e-products may be quick to create and quick to
market. The product that you would sell is digital and your space taken
up is on your computer and on the online site harddrive. This method
does not take years, nor require much help, nor take great funds to
manufacture. You can create information products in as little as a a day
or two, post it, and begin generating revenue. You need a special topic
and a computer (no stock, no mailing or counting inventory). This takes
no space in your garage, house nor a store because you do not have to
buy any products to sell. For example:
- Create a good ebook yourself and make money by marketing that online.
- Create an "e-store" yourself and make money by marketing several e-products online.
- Sign-up for "Pay Per
Click" with a site(s) where you get paid for visitors on your site
clicking on other peoples' ads to be redirected to that other site, for
example. That may work by creating cookies that give you credit for sending a [legitimate] client. For example:
- Google’s Adsense program: Google will read your article that you
write and find "ads that are relevant" to it and display them next to or
within the article. Having very relevant ads, can be of benefit to the
readers, too.
- Do
affiliate marketing selling someone else's products but you must learn
how to connect with your buyers on a more fundamental level, using
unconventional strategies and techniques, mixed in with more
conventional methods such as the pay per click.
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