subject: Blogging for Cash [print this page] Blogging is one of the many ways to make money online. As long as you have a creative mind and spare time on your hands, you can make some extra money supplement your usual income. It's not as hard as it seems, although you'll have to avoid believing the exaggerted claims that many unscrupulous websites tend to pitch. Just believe in yourself, put effort, and the money will come.
The first step is to pick a topic to blog about. It could be any topic, but picking a topic that you know about is the best way to go in the beginning. The next step is to set up your blog. You can choose one of the several free blogging services such as blogger.com to get your own free blog. Once you've registered, you're given tools to create your blog. It shouldn't take too long for a typical computer user to figure out how to use the interface and the web tools. There's no wrong way to design your blog, but try make your blog easy on the eyes. Avoid using too much colors or fancy graphics. Making the design of your match the topic that you're writing about is another plus. To make money off your blog, you need to add adsense to it. In blogger.com, you easily add that through its widget menu.
Once you got the blog set up, it's time to post. You might have to do some research on the topic before hand if you're knowledge is spotty. Make sure you reference your sources if you're citing information. Once you're finished with your post, submit the link to your post to various social bookmarking and networking websites such as digg and facebook. You might also want to talk about your blog at other places such as forums. Remember to talk about your blog in the right context or people will think that it's spam. Don't expect money to roll in soon, though. Have patience.
How much traffic and money you earn from your blog will depend on a variety of factors. Of those you have control over, unique content and return traffic are two of the most critical factors. Make sure what you write is new and not just another reinventing of the wheel. As long as you make your posts interesting, people come back to your blog to read it and they will talk to their friends about it, further adding to the traffic to your blog. Don't try too hard though. Make your blogging an enjoyable activity.
