Almost everyone has a blog these days. However, the word blog is so new to our world that Microsoft Word still sees it as a misspelling. The internet is filled with sites claiming to make you rich by writing a blog. While it is true that some bloggers, such as Perez Hilton, find great wealth from blogging most of the time blogging for cash will only give you a few extra dollars.
What is a blog? A blog is basically an electronic diary. Every blog is different, some focus on celebrity trends, others go on about motherhood, and some are used to keep consumers up to date on businesses. Most blogs are simply online journals that people use to keep in touch with their friends and families.
Some blogs do make money. Some internet sites pay bloggers for every post they make on their blog. However, these sites often lure bloggers in with high payment amounts and cut the pay amount once the bloggers has failed to produce astronomical page views. The companies that pay per post for blogs make money by placing relevant ads on the blog that the paid bloggers write. If you are looking to write for a pay per post blog site pick a topic that will draw lots of page views such as celebrity gossip or news.
The way most bloggers make money blogging is by affiliate marketing. What is affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is when someone posts an ad with a link to a product on their blog or site. The person who posts the link on their site is then paid for every click on that link or for every product that is sold from the link. The payment amounts can vary from a few cents to hundreds of dollars depending on the item sold.
The down side to affiliate marketing is that in order to gain your blog readers trust you have to recommend quality products that fit with the theme of your blog. For example if your blog is about raising children, a good affiliate link would be for a book your kids loved. A bad affiliate link would be for a power tool. Plus blog followers want to read more than ads, so you have to be sure to post relevant blog posts and not just affiliate links.
The major problem most bloggers have is maintaining traffic flow to their blog. Traffic can be generated in a few ways. Writing interesting, unique and relevant content is most important way to get traffic. However, every blogger should learn about search engine optimization to bring in traffic from search engines. Another great way to generate traffic to your blog is by participating in blog circles that share ad space and readers.
