by Les Scammell

Created on: June 27, 2009

Blogs have become the most popular form of internet web ownership available with tens of millions of people writing to blogs everyday. With that many blogs in existence you may wonder how it is possible to make money with a blog. First, notice I said make money and not earn an income and there is a big difference.

For most of us, blogs will only ever produce pocket money. If you are lucky and have a self hosted blog, you may make enough each year to pay for your domain name and for its hosting. For millions of bloggers, they make little more than a few cents each day. One of the reasons for their lack of income is their inability to draw a large number of visitors to their blogs.

That is the real key - visitor numbers. There are many different ways to attract visitors to your blog, the most important is the content itself. You have to offer your visitors a reason for coming in the first place, a reason for staying and reading, and a reason to return at regular intervals to read more. The best way to publish good content is by writing about what you know. If you have skills in a particular area, create a blog in that area and write regular helpful posts that people will find interesting and which will help them solve problems or answer questions. There are other factors involved.

Engage your readers by responding to comments or questions with thoughtful replies. This gives the reader a reason to come back. The more often your readers come back, the better your chances of making some money from a blog.

Become involved in social activities on the many and varied social sites. If there is a forum dedicated to your area of expertise, become involved in the discussions. Answer questions, ask questions or just generally discuss issues. Most forums allow you to include your blogs URL in your signature. If people are interested in what you say on the forum, they will visit your site. Of course you have the more traditional social sites like Facebook and Myspace where you can do a little self promotion.

The most important way to attract traffic is by ensuring your blog is optimized for the search engines. When people enter a search term related to your area of expertise, you want your blog to appear close to the top of those search results. The searcher will then hopefully click through to visit your site.

Of course, traffic is not the only factor to making money with a blog. Having the right advertiser is the second key to success. It is not much good having a blog on parenting for example, if your advertiser is promoting used cars. By selecting advertisers that are related to your blogs topic you are more likely to see visitors clicking through.

Very few bloggers make full time incomes from their blogs. There are a lot who do make decent amounts that certainly add to their income. If you are not dedicated, writing regularly, optimizing your site for search engines and providing good quality content the you can forget about making money with a blog. If you can do it all - who knows, you could become a professional blogger - just don't quit your day job yet.

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