Make money online blogging
Have you ever wanted to make a little extra money? Niche blogging (blogging about a specific topic) is a great way to generate some extra income. Below are several tips if you’re just starting out. If you’ve been blogging a while without making any money, there are also some tips on how to make money with your blog.

Choose Your Topic Wisely

The number one tip for starting to try to make money with blogging is to pick a topic or subject that you know a lot about and that you are passionate about. Blogging sounds like easy work (and it is!), but it’s also tedious. So, if you pick a subject you know something about and enjoy talking about, it will be easier to come up with new things to blog about every day.

Going along with this, you don’t want your topic too wide (something like transportation), but you also don’t want it to narrow in focus (1968 Camaros.) A good way to choose your topic is to write it down from one end to the other. That is, start with Transportation on the top of your notes, then list narrower and narrower topics until you get to specific types of vehicles. You want something that’s in the middle of this list.

Posting Frequency

The second tip is frequency. Try to post at least one good blog entry per day. This is good for a few different reasons.

One, it helps get people to come back to your blog over and over again. If they come on Tuesday and see something then come back the next day and don’t see anything new, they might not ever show up again. If they see new content every day, they may start visiting your blog every day to see what’s new.

Secondly, the more content you have on your blog, the more pages you have for Google and the other search engines to index. And the more pages you have indexed in the search engines, the greater your chances of people finding your blog.

Increasing Traffic

In addition to the tips above, there are other ways to increase traffic (and income) from your blog.

* Become an expert - If you know your topic well and are able to explain it to people who are interested in that topic, you’ll gain the reputation as an expert in whatever subject you’re writing about. If people think you’re an expert, they’re more likely to point other people to your blog. Word of mouth brings high quality traffic to your site because people are being sent there by someone they trust.

* Become active in the community - Whatever topic or subject you choose to write about, there are most likely already a few blogs, forums, or sites that cover the subject. It’s not good to just go to these sites and spam links to your own blog. However, if you become an active member of another community, it’s generally accepted that if you contribute to a web community in a positive way (helping other members, sharing your knowledge, etc.) it’s ok to promote your own site as well. There’s a fine line here and you’ll want to check any rules that the community may have in place, but if you’re helping them they’ll be more likely to help you promote your own site.

* Unique is Good - As I mentioned above, even if your topic is very focused, there are more than likely a few other websites out there talking about the same thing. Try to add a little bit of your personality to your posts or make them unique in some other way. If you can make yourself even just a little different than all the other blogs about your topic, people will be more likely to come to your site and stay. Adding humor to your blog is one good way to do this.

* Content is King / Community is Queen - Having great content will get the ball rolling on your blog, but the key to making your site sticky (getting people to stay there a long time and click around) is to actively engage them in conversation. It takes time to wade through spam if you leave your comments open, but it’s worth it for those one or two comments on your blog posts. If you do start getting good comments on your post, make sure you respond personally to each and every one. Most people like to feel like they’re part of a group. By allowing people to add comments around your content, you’re encouraging them to feel at home on your site. This will keep them coming back for more.

Monetizing Your Blog

Ok, now you have a blog on a topic you love and the traffic is coming in. What can you do to make money from that traffic? Here are just a few ideas to make money with your blog.

* CPC - This stands for Cost Per Click advertising (you get paid when someone clicks on your ad.) You may have heard of http://www.google.com/adsense but there are other CPC ad networks out there as well, including ones from http://publisher.yahoo.com/ and others. Stay tuned for more specific posts about using CPC networks to make money from your blog.

* CPM - This stands for Cost Per Thousand. What it means is you will receive $x.xx per 1,000 pageviews on your blog. Two of the bigger CPM ad networks are http://www.casalemedia.com and http://www.valueclick.com/ Both networks have requirements to join (based on traffic on your site, content on your blog, and other things), but they’re a good addition to your arsenal for making money online with your blog.

* Affiliate Programs - Affiliate programs are where you add a link to your website and if a visitor follows the link and purchases something, you get a percentage of the sale. http://associates.amazon.comis one of the bigger affiliate sites, but you can find a lot more (specific to the topic you’re blogging about) at <a href=”http://www.cj.com“>Commission Junction</a> or similar sites. The trick here is to choose items for sale that are closely related to the topic you’re writing about. So, for example, if your blog is about boats, you might choose some books about boats from Amazon and link to them from the content of your blog posts. Remember, if you’re an expert in your field, it’s an easy sell if you have people who are already interested in the topic and they trust you.

Closing Thoughts

These are just some basic tips and pointers for making money with your blog. If you’re wanting to make money with your blog, realize that it won’t magically happen overnight. That said, you can make a decent amount of money if you go about it the right way and put the work in.

Stay tuned for other great ways your blog can make you money online.