How to Set Your Blog Up to Make Money

make moneyThe rise of the blog as a form of communication has benefited millions of people.  The blogosphere gives amateur writers, journalists, artists, students, teachers, workers and business owners the world over the chance to connect on a personal level and express themselves freely.

More recently, blogs have offered a different kind of benefit to the user.  The possibility of making money through blogging has driven thousands to take to the Internet as a source of income.  Blogging doesn’t offer easy money, but the money is certainly there to be made, whether you’re a business owner or simply someone sitting at his computer with some free time to spare.

Affiliate marketing

The most popular method of paid blogging involves affiliate marketing.  To become a paid affiliate, a blogger must insert HTML hyperlinks into his blog posts and encourage his readers, either explicitly or implicitly, to visit the links he’s posted.  These links will lead to a different website offering a product or service for sale that is directly related to the subject matter of the blog post.  In return for the hits that the blogger provides to the company’s site, the company pays the blogger a fixed amount per click registered.

This is not exactly a new concept.  Referral marketing is an old practice with a similar premise that usually involves word-of-mouth advertising to attract business.  Today, however, the affiliate doesn’t have to leave the home to make a profit.  If you have a blog, you may be able to enter into an affiliate marketing agreement with a company.  In order to actually make money from this arrangement, you’ll need to make posts that revolve around that company’s products or services – you’ll essentially be advertising for the company.  Many bloggers choose to set up their affiliate marketing blog posts in the form of reviews.  Whatever method you choose, you’ll need to make well-written and interesting posts on a consistent basis and gain a large readership to make a significant profit.  If you’re a blogger using a service such as http://www.virtualhosting.com, you might want to consider taking this route as long as you don’t mind plugging other companies’ products or services on your blog.

Paid posts

Another way to make money from blogging is to write on someone else’s blog.  Many prominent bloggers are willing to pay outside writers to make guest posts on their own blogs.  This system profits both the blog owner and the guest writer: the former is freed up to manage other projects, while the latter is able to make a quick buck by writing a blog post.  Naturally, bloggers who offer these opportunities are usually fairly picky about the guest posts they choose to buy, so you may have to do some serious footwork to snag a paid post opportunity.  If you’re a skilled blog post writer, however, you should be able to find some good money-making opportunities in the area of paid posts.

Writing content that sells

Millions of personal and professional blogs inhabit the Internet.  As a result of the sheer number of blogs in existence, most of them have small readerships.  If you’re a blogger writing for a circle of relatives and friends or a hobbyist sharing tips with your club members, the size of your following might not matter.  If you plan on making serious money through blogging, however, you should be aiming for more traffic.  Make effective use of SEO tactics, post on a regular basis and, perhaps most importantly, write content that sells.  Product reviews and previews are just a couple of examples of blog posts that have high potential value and can draw a large number of readers to your blog.  The same principle applies to paid posts.  If your blog posts are able to attract a high volume of traffic, you may be able to set up a steady and reliable side income source through blogging.