What is the best way to blog for money??

[melissabb]

I have a blog idea. I would like to make revenue from the blog. I don't need alot of revenue but ideally I would like to make around $500 a month. Not sure if this is realistic and of course, would depend on the traffic I could generate.

Anyway, is it better to blog on a site like blogspot or go out and purchase a domain name and go privately???

Do sites like blogspot provide you with advertising right away?

Talk to me about blogging for profit.

[CHoney]

: I'm curiuos about this too!

[dearmama22]

Yes, it will depend on the traffic you get.

I have seem blogs on blogspot and personal domain blogs that are successful, so I don't think it really matters what you go with. It's the content that will bring people to you, bring you traffic and result in any $$.

Blogspot does not provide you with ads right away. You can do ad sense if you want, but from what I've read about them, they aren't too great. I hate seeing them on sites- I think they're annoying and not many people click on them.

You are more likely to make money from personal sponsors or business putting their ad on your blog.

Although, this is all just from what I have seen on other blogs. I don't know really, I don't have any ads on my blogs and I'm not making any money.

There are a lot of great articles out there on making money from your blog. Try googling it. Or I'll see if I can find some and link them here.

[mamadaan]

Writing for Internet

I found this article about the difference between writing for print and Internet. I found it very interesting. It picks up on a few points that have been made in this thread.

http://www.emwa.org/JournalArticles/...1_Hillier1.pdf

[KoalaMama]

I would recommend getting your own domain name and self-hosting the blog using WordPress. Or if you don't want to self-host, then at least get your own URL and have it be your web address, rather than xyz.blogger.com. The reason for this is that if you ever decide to change your web address you will lose all your traffic and search engine ranking and have to then build it back up.

Also, if you go for free hosting platforms you are at their mercy - if they change the rules and make it so you can no longer advertise, or advertise a certain way, then you are stuck with that situation.

Speaking of which, if you do go with one of the free sites, check out their guidelines for what you can and can't do on their sites. I know with WordPress.com (different than self-hosted WordPress) you can't advertise there, and I don't believe you can use it for business purposes. I think Blogger has some similar rules about the types of blogs they allow.

[lisarussell]

The only time adsense is effective is if your blog is VERY focused on one specific topic. Google analyzes the words on your site to decide which ads to place, so if you're talking about real estate, ice cream, insurance, gardening, hiking, airplanes and childbirth, your ads will likely be completely irrelevant, and therefore not profitable. In that case, private ad sales / sponsorship would be the best approach. Good luck acquiring that anytime soon, work first on getting a lot of traffic (subscriptions, giveaways, very high quality content, reader interaction, social networking, build incoming links...)

Another option is affiliate sales.

Whenever you mention a book, link to it on Amazon. Scour clickbank.com and commissionjunction.com for affiliate products to sell.

My most effective made-for-income blog is self-hosted, wordpress and in its first month, it brought in almost $500 between adsense, amazon and clickbank sales. It's currently almost 3 months old and just barely skimmed the $1000 mark for all-time income. I get about 10,000 hits a month, ALL from google.

It can be done.

I have like 25 of them, and the rest make under $10/month.

[MyTwoAs]

Another vote for self-hosted WordPress. It can be done, definitely!

[rabbitmum]