Do You Blog For Fun Or Is It A Money Making Enterprise?

When people first start writing a blog a lot of them believe it will be effortless and that somehow it will automatically attract visitors. A great many also think that it is possible to make money by blogging without expending any extra effort. The reality is not quite that simple though. For a start, your knowledge and opinions will go unread unless someone can find the blog, so making it visible in the search engines is a critical task.

Anyone who is determined to make money by blogging can earn a good income, but not without a lot of effort and most important of all, consistency. There is a temptation to start out by posting every day, but as time becomes tight and outside pressures build up the novelty wears off and keeping the blog updated becomes a chore instead of a joy. This is exactly what the search engines do not want, so any traffic there might have been will soon dry up.

Here are a few key points that might help turn your blog into a money-making machine:

ï Consider advertising on your blog. Of course, you will need some traffic to make this worthwhile, but by adding something as simple as a Google AdSense block to a sidebar you can generate a few pence each day. If you are consistent, write quality content and engage your visitors you will attract more traffic, and in this case the income you can make will be considerably more. If you have a regular readership you can sell advertising space yourself ñ the rewards will be substantially more, and as long as you are selective about who advertises you can maintain the integrity of your site.

ï When you have an idea that seems popular you could create your own product and sell it from your blog. This lends itself particularly to digital products, but you might be surprised how popular a blueprint, a tutorial PDF or a video series could be. If you have a skill that other people do not this can be a great way of adding quality content to your blog and a way of generating income at the same time.

ï If you are not able to create a product of your own there is always the opportunity of selling someone elseís as an affiliate. There are hundreds of affiliate schemes available to join, and many focus on physical products rather than digital ones. A great example is Amazon, one of the worldís largest retailers and one of the most trusted names online, who will allow you to promote their range of products and make every effort to support you in your endeavours. You will not earn huge rates of commission until you start selling a reasonable volume, but it is not unknown for affiliates to earn commissions of 30%-70% on each product they sell.

Anyone who plans to make an extra income stream from a blog could do a lot worse than following the tips I have outlined above, and with a bit of luck and some decent traffic you can start to genuinely make some money by blogging.