Blogging is a really great way to reach an audience, share your thoughts, even help you with your Internet marketing. I’ve been blogging for nearly 3 years and continue to enjoy the benefits of not only communicating with an audience, but engaging in meaningful dialog. Starting a blog is easy to do and pays huge dividends.

There are a number of free services available that offer free blog services. Sites like Blogger and WordPress only require a brief registration and set up. Once you determine a theme for your blog and a template, you’re ready to begin posting. Posts are entries you make on your blog that are published instantly.

Some bloggers post comments to their blog each and every day, others once a week. Regardless of how frequently you post to your blog, content can be focused on a specific theme or random topics. The most popular blogs focus on a specific niche and provide valuable information, content, and commentary that encourage interaction with blog followers.

Sign up for a blog service. Begin development of your blog by signing up for Blogger or WordPress. Once you have an account, you can quickly set up your blog. Consider the goal of your blog and what type of commitment you are willing to make. Start small and be consistent.

Determine how you will monetize your blog. If you want to use your blog to generate revenue, there are a few techniques you can apply depending on which platform you’re using. One of the most popular methods of monetizing your blog is with the help of Google Adsense. This is a popular option and very easy to add to your blog. Not only does it generate a small amount of revenue for you on a weekly basis, but it also provides relevant links based on your posts.

Another great way to monetize your blog is through paid links. The concept of offering paid links is pretty straight forward. You create a section of you blog that lists recommended sites. In this list, you only place links that people have paid you to post. There are some tools you can use to automate this process. I simply add a link to a post that says, “How to post your link” with directions and a pass through to a Paypal page. You can set up a single time payment or subscription, allowing would be advertisers the opportunity to purchase a link on your blog monthly or for a longer period of time.

Many individuals are monetizing their blogs by using pay per post or other blogging network. Essentially, advertisers search for bloggers who are willing to write a post to promote their product and services or brand. You can sign up for one of these networks quite easily and be contacted when advertisers feel that your blog would be ideal for distributing a message. You write a blog post and get paid for doing so.

One thing to keep in mind is that the success of you blog is based on a number of factors. I believe that having a targeted blog that offers original content is ideal. You will build a large following. This is essential because most of the monetization methods are based on having enough traffic to make your blog appealing to advertisers as well as blog readers.

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