Let me start by saying this - I am not selling you anything.

Let me follow that with this - you don't need to spend ANY money on expensive e-books, online training lessons or other money-sucking products in order to make money from a blog.

All you need is:

1. A web host to host your account (should cost you no more than $10-$20 a month)

2. A domain name (less than $10 a year)

3. Dedication and hard work.

Everything you need to make money from a blog will be contained within this article. EVERYTHING.

It's not very complicated. Telling you how to make money from a blog is like telling you how to run a marathon. The steps that will take you to your goal are easy to lay out - the question is, do you have the dedication to push yourself to get there?

You could say - hey Dave, how do I run a marathon? And I would say - buy a great pair of running shoes, eat the right food and gradually increase your runs over the course of a year. By the end of that year, you should be in good enough shape to run the marathon. Sounds simple - there are really no additional steps.

The question is - do you have the intestinal fortitude to actually follow through on these steps? That's the big question.

You need to be patient. You need to be able to run a blog for a year without making ONE penny. Many people will quit after a few weeks. The blogosphere is littered with the corpses of long-forgotten blogs that started out with so much promise.

You think you have what it takes? Follow these steps, and you will be giving yourself a great chance of succeeding. I've followed this exact gameplan with nearly a dozen blogs now, and they are all successful in their own ways.

1. Pick a topic that you actually care about. If you pick a blog topic just because you think that it will make a lot of money, you are going to fail. If you think that you can stick with a blog for a year plus that is about a topic that completely bores you, then think again.

Write a list of things that interest you. Ask yourself this crucial question: could I think of an interesting topic to write about EVERY day within this niche? If the answer is no, then move on to the next topic. Maybe you have a love of cars. Maybe you love the stock market. Maybe you love playing poker. Stick with your strengths and your interest will shine through in your content.

2. Use Wordpress for your blog. Wordpress is extremely easy to use. Wordpress is a content management system that will allow you to easily publish a blog without having any knowledge of HTML, Javascript, etc. Find a web host that comes with Wordpress pre-installed for you. There are many out there. Google LOVES Wordpress - trust me. This is very important.

3. Write an article per day. Google (and other search engines) love sites with fresh content. Your readers will love the fact that you are going them something new to read every day. Don't post one article every three weeks whenever you feel like it, and expect to build a following. It just doesn't happen that way.

People will start linking to your content, your site will move up in the search engines and you will start to build your traffic. This takes time, but you are going to make your site into a powerhouse. I avoid reciprocal link exchanges - I think that Google devalues reciprocal exchanges anyways. If your content is half-decent, you will start to build links over time.

4. Avoid placing advertisements on your site when you are starting out. I know, I know - you have 25 visitors to your site per day and you are just dying to put Google Adsense on there. DON'T. Nothing turns me off of a site faster than if there are only 4-5 articles and advertisements everywhere. Once you have started to build a following, you can then incorporate advertisements into your site - not before though. This site gets 800-1k visitors per day and I still don't have advertisements. One day I will though.

5. Write some articles that will stand the test of time and continue to bring in traffic year after year. It is fine to write articles about recent events, but also be sure to write articles about topics that people will continue to search for five years from now. These articles will pick up links year-in and year-out, and will continue to strengthen your site over time.

6. Don't be afraid to link to other sites from your articles. I'm constantly linking to other sites. Other sites will notice that you are linking, and most often will look for a reason to link back to your site. I know that some people advocate preserving "link equity" by not linking out to other sites or "nofollow"ing the outbound links, but I don't agree with this one bit. There is nothing more valuable than winning friends throughout your niche and having similarly-themed sites linking back to you. Nothing.

7. Become an expert in your chosen topic. Don't stop researching. Put in the time and effort to come up with truly exciting and unique articles. If you continue to do this, Google will regard your site as an "authority" within the niche, and you will be off to the races.

8. Spend extra time on your titles. I can't stress this enough - eye-catching titles are SO important and will help you to drive SO much more traffic. Write catchy titles and your blog will benefit immensely as a result.

9. Don't give up. Keep working. Keep pumping out that content. Power through the "dip" that will inevitably come. Just don't give up.

You do these nine things, and you will almost definitely have a strong blog with a steady stream of content in a year. At that time, you can start to think about making money from the blog.

Those are my tips, and that is what has worked for me.

Filed under: Making Money Online | General Knowledge