Blog For Profit

If I was prone to exageration I could claim that I am making thousands from one quick and simple blog. I could write a short e-book on it and then sell that book for silly money to people with a disclaimer that their earnings may not be the same as mine. I’m not prone to exageration, and am too lazy to write the e-book to cash in, so instead I’m going to outline a way to make a quick bit of extra pocket money from a simple blog.

The blog in question at http://www.articlesand.info could probably make a bit more profit with tweaking, probably will make a little more as it grows, but in reality was just a way to use up a domain I already had paid for.  It took next to no time to set up, takes a few minutes a week to keep it going and brings in a little pocket money. Now that’s a way to get started blogging for profit.

So how did this come about?

Firstly I had the domain http://www.articlesand.info sitting around awaiting a script for me to publish an articles directory (I have used a couple before but they were insecure). I also have a reseller hosting account for all my domains at Hostgator which is paid for by my other sites profits. If you are hosting more than a couple of sites, Hostgator is a great place to put them. So I had everything I needed to put together a site except the script for the article directory.

That’s when I saw something about using Wordpress as an article directory. I experimented on my own but it was a bit hit and miss. I googled for a Wordpress article directory plug in and found there was one available at http://articlesss.com/article-directory-wordpress-plugin/ which also offers a nice article directory style theme to go with it. To get it up and running quickly, I used cpanel to install Wordpress from Fantastico (all included in your hostgator hosted account) filled in a few fields on a form and Wordpress was installed. I then installed the article directory plug in and theme. Now it was ready to take some articles from other authors.

Actually it wasn’t ready yet, if you have ever installed Wordpress on your own domain, you will probably have encountered comment spam. So one of the first plugins I activate in Wordpress blogs is the Akismet one which is usually installed with WP anyway. There are other comment spam filters, but Akismet does the job well enough. So this helps to keep my time spent on the blog to minimum as most comment spam is removed for me automatically.

part 2 to follow soon.

Many people dream of blogging for profit, and this goal is not far beyond the reach of someone with average intelligence, a willingness to work hard, and a basic grasp of blogging technology. However, very few people manage to reap the profits they want from their blog. Most people who attempt to make money with their blogs do not succeed for two reasons.

Often, bloggers have unrealistic expectations of how fast their readership will grow and how much money they will make, and when these expectations are not met the disappointment can crush the desire to continue blogging.

The other trap that many bloggers fall into has to do with lack of planning. If you want to turn a profit as a blogger, the key to success is to make a realistic plan and stick with it.  

To succeed at blogging for profit, the main thing that you will need is a large readership. The higher your traffic, the more advertisers will agree to pay you. However, cultivating the regular visitors that you will need in order to make a profit isnt easy. As more and more blogs appear each day, having a great idea or a wonderful writing style is no longer enough to get attention. You need to be able to market your blog effectively.  

Too many bloggers spend all of their time writing posts and almost no time marketing their project. To be certain, updating as often as you can is a great way to keep your blog high on blogrolls and high in blog search engines like technorati, and once your readers know that you update frequently they will return to your site on a regular basis. However, it does not matter how often you update if nobody is reading your page, so dont skimp on the time that you spend drawing visitors to your site. To make your dreams of blogging for profit a reality, try decreasing your number of posts and using some of that time to draw new visitors by setting up link exchanges with other bloggers, making contacts in the blog community, and following other established modes of winning traffic. 

Of course, even if you are a marketing genius or have a really great idea for a blog, success is not going to happen overnight. Building the kind of readership that blogging for profit requires takes time, and in all likelihood it will be at least several months before you are able to turn much of a profit. Try to stay committed to your blogging project during this initial rough period. To stay motivated, set goals for how often you will update and how many readers you want to attract, and then reward yourself for sticking with your plan.