Is it Possible to Make Money Off a Blog?

Is it possible to make money off blogging?

Let me just start with, unless you have horseshoes up your butt, you are not going to make money off your blog right away. I'm not saying it's not possible, you might find a niche with no competition and high traffic...but the odds are against you. Most people who start a blog, give up quickly.

 They either never initally launch it or worse, because it doesn't make money they give up. Most successful blogs have been around for two years or more. And when you speak to these bloggers it's taken them that time to get traffic and a huge readership. They did not start over night as a success.

In fact when you talk to people like Darren Rowse at Problogger, he will tell you that he started his blog as a hobby. He also says that you shouldn't build a blog to make money initially, but as a hobby. If you are expecting to make money, you are going to be disappointed. I'm not saying you can't make money on a blog.

But the odds are against you. It's a constant battle of promoting your blog, and getting traffic to it. That and having highly valuable content. If your blog is just filled with google adsense, and ads, but no real content, you may get the traffic, but they won't come back.

To make money from a blog, you need to build foundation articles; reasons that people want to come to your blog. You add a value that they need, you give your readers hope. You provide them with something they are looking for.

Some bloggers say having pillar articles aren't important, but I differ. I think it's important to build a blog with a few strong articles. Hopefully these articles will create some link backs with other sites. Bigger bloggers might see your article and want to put it on their site.

By doing this, they will give you a lot more traffic, and a market of readers you might not have gotten. Another great way to get more traffic is to network. Join forums, groups, comment on other blogs with similar subjects. The more you publish your url on sites, the more linkbacks you create, the more you are increasing your page rank. I think submitting your link on popular blogs via comments is a great way to go.

Even if they have no follows. (No follow means your link is not a trusted source and google won't trust that link back, which doesn't help your page rank. Some blogs do have follow, which means when you link to them, your link is treated as a trusted source and helps your page rank.)

Why I think commenting on no follow blogs is a good thing, because if 3,000 people are reading that blog article, that's 3,000 people reading your comment. And lo and behold, you are getting traffic you might not have originally gotten. Some people actually try to be one of the first comments by a popular blog author, that way everyone who reads that article and wants to comment on it, is going to see that first comment.

And the important thing is, to actually read the post you are commenting on, and offer something on value. If your comment is generic and dull, you might not get the traffic you would if your comment added value, or was interesting. The odds that people are going to click on your link are increased when you appear intelligent and informed.

Writing an article and submitting them in free article databases is another great way to get yourself out there. Write 3 or 4, 300-500 word articles and submit them to as many free sites as you can. Just be careful to make your article informative and not a sales letter. If it's nothing but promotion, your article might be rejected.

Also keep in mind when submitting articles, it takes them a bit of time to be published. Well that's a few ways to get you started on making money. Remember to never give up, and at least once a day concentrate on promoting your blog.

Submit links to everything you can, and always blog. The more blog posts you have, the more important google is going to think you are. How do you think some of the popular blogs got that way? They offer pages and pages of content. For you to build a readership, you need to do the same.

Tressa