Making Money By Blogging

Many people are using a blog as an ordinary website, because it's easy to get started online with a blog, especially for an internet newbie. It's fast and easy to add content to a blog, and if you open your blog for visitors to write comments to your posts, you can have lots of free content added, which in turn will get you more visitors.

Blogs are search engine friendly out of the box, making it relatively easy to get free traffic to it from the search engines. And obviously traffic (visitors) is a most important factor for making money by blogging.

The most popular blogging platform is WordPress, and a WP blog serves well as a basis for an online business blog. WordPress is free, and it's easy to install, especially if your hosting service has a script installer. Thousands of available plugins (most of which are free) extend the functionality of your blog, and can automate certain tasks.

There are different ways you can make money from blogging, and in the following the most popular tactics are explained.

Making Money by Blogging with AdSense
Without doubt putting Google AdSense ads on your blog is the easiest way to monetize it. AdSense is a free program that enables website owners and bloggers to display relevant Google ads on their web pages.

In order to display Google ads on your blog, you only have to add a a snippet of code (created by AdSense) to your blog. That's all you have to do. Then, each time a visitor to your blog clicks on an ad, you will earn a small amount of money from that click.

This is automated income at its best! When your earnings have reached a certain threshold, you will be automatically paid by Google. So, your job will be to put good content on your blog and attract as many visitors as possible.

To start making money by blogging with Google ads you need a free AdSense Account. Inside your account, click on 'AdSense Setup', then on 'AdSense for Content' to set up the ads. Then follow the outlined steps to create the ads and retrieve the code which you will paste onto your blog.

It's pretty easy to do, but if you'd like in-depth instructions before starting, here's how to create AdSense ads in more detail.

Feel free to download "Blogging for Cash" (right click on the image and choose "Save target as...) - it's free

Adding AdSense Ads to the Sidebar
Here's how to add AdSense ads to the sidebar of you blog. Inside the admin area of your blog click on 'Appearance', then on 'Editor'. In the right column, click on 'Sidebar'; then a new window opens, displaying the code of the sidebar.

Where to paste the AdSense code depends on the blog's template and other things, so it's not possible to tell exactly. Of course it also depends on where in the sidebar you would like it to display.

This may require some trial and error before you are satisfied with the placement, however making money by blogging can be so lucrative that it's absolutely worth it.

Tip: Copy the sidebar code and save it in a text document before starting, so that you can replace the whole code if things get messed up.

Remember to save the changes to the code by clicking on 'Update File' (Save Changes) below the code window. To see the result you must visit the site. You might be satisfied on your first try (if you are lucky); if not, you'll have to go back and move the AdSense code a bit within the sidebar code (cut and paste).

If you would like to center the ad block in the sidebar, type <center> just before the AdSense code, and </center> just after the code. If you wish more space above or beneath the ad block, type <br> (html for 'break') just above or below the code.

AdSense Ads in the blog body
To put an AdSense ad block in the blog body (post area) above the posts (but beneath the header!), you do just about the same things as with the sidebar.

However, while you on the sidebar will use a vertical ad block (f.ex. a Skyscraper, 160 x 600), here you will use a horisontal ad block (f. ex. 468 x 60 Banner), for which you can retrieve the code in your AdSense account.

In the admin area of your blog, click on Appearance > Editor and click on 'Index' (or 'Main Index Template') on the right hand side.

The "right place" to put the AdSense code is a little more difficult to find than in the sidebar, so you may have to try a bit more here. To display the ads above the posts, the AdSense code must be placed near the top. Remember to make a backup of the 'index' code before starting out.

Making money by blogging with affiliate links
Having affiliate links on your blog can be a very a good way to make money by blogging. In your blog posts you can attach affiliate links and earn when someone buys through your links. For example, you can write a review on a product that you wish to promote, and add affiliate links in that blogpost.

Learn about affiliate marketing.

Attaching a link to one or more words - or to an image - in a blog post is very easy:

1. Log in to the admin area of yor blog
2. Open (edit) a blogpost, or make a new
3. Highlight some text (one or more words), or an image
4. Click on the Link icon
5. Type or paste in the URL of the affiliate link
6. Click on Insert

Depending on the length of the blogpost, create two or three links. Vary the anchor text (link text), don't link to the same word(s) every time.

This blogpost will be pushed downwards on the page by the next article you publish, and at last it will not show on the first page at all. However, if the article is of good quality and you have paid reasonable attention to the keywords, search engines will find it.

Making money by blogging is one of the easiest and fastest ways to start an online business and make money online. Of course, you can use bothAdSense and affiliate links to monetize your blog. Once set up, your earnings are automated – all you have to do is add content to the blog and get visitors (traffic) to it.

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