Niche Blogging For Profit

Blogging is not only fun – you can make money with it too. In fact there are many different ways to make money with your blog. Here I talk about just four of the many.

Advertising

Ever since Google came out with their Adsense program, many companies have created similar contextual advertising systems. Simply put you insert a small bit of code on your blog that will display ads related to the content of your blog page. Each time a visitor to your blog clicks on one of these ads, you’ll get paid a certain amount. This amount usually isn’t a lot – between .01 and 2 or 3 dollars on average.

If you really want to make good money with advertising, you’re going to want to sell advertsiing space on your blog directly to advertisers. Once your blog has achieved a following, it should be easy to sell space on your blog. Many well know blogs make hundreds a month just by selling advertising.

Product Sales

Selling affiliate products is another way you can use your blog to make money. Search for your niche plus the words “affilliate product” to find products. Write a post or a page about the product to give your readers an idea of the benefits. If you sell quality items and don’t push by selling, selling, selling all the time – your readers will be more likely to buy.

Pay Per Review

There are companies online that will pay you to review their product, blog, site, etc. Of course how much you get paid depends on how much traffic your blog gets. Keep in mind that both the product’s creator and your readers want an honest review. Don’t feel that because you’re getting paid for the review that it has to be all positive. The review should be thorough and complete, perhaps with screenshots if appropriate.

Membership Blogs

If your blog is suited to a very specific niche and provides quality information, maybe that is unavailable elsewhere or teaches a valuable skill, you could consider running a membership blog where your readers pay a certain amount of money to become a member of your blog. This isn’t the easiest way to make money but if you can pull it off, you’re looking at a great source of residual income.

Every business has tools of the trade necessary to do the job right and niche blogging is no exception. Of course your need domains and hosting butwhat about other tols to make your job easier and your business run smoother? Here’s a list of 5 tools that every blogger should have in order to make the most of every niche site.

• FTP Software – in most cases, this is an absolute necessity for a blogger. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) programs allow you to upload files to your web host. For those you using WordPress, FTP is the way you upload themes and plugins for your blogs. SmartFTP used to be the best free FTP program but they have starting charging for it recently. If you don’t mind paying the $36.95 fee then I would still recommend SmartFTP. If you’re like me and you prefer to use freeware when possible, you can try Coffeecup FTP. Coffeecup FTP is a well-established and highly respected software development company. Their FTP program is less streamlined than SmartFTP but still quite easy to use.
• Site Statistic Tracker – The key to success in Internet Marketing is knowing what works and what doesn’t. The best way to know if your blogs are performing well or in need of some love is to track the traffic coming to the site. Google’s Analytics is a popular program used for this purpose but I’ve personally had bad luck with it. One thing I as from a statistics service is consistency. StatCounter is a terrific, not to mention completely free, service that tells you just about everything you’d ever need or want to know.
• Feed Aggregator – As an Internet Marketer it is important to stay on top of what’s happening in your niche. The easiest was to stay on top of what the buzz is is to keep all your fellow bloggers’ blogs organized in one place called a feed aggregator. There are tons to choose from…even google has a google reader for feeds. I personally use Bloglines and have never had any problem with them.
• Twitter Account – Internet presence is crucial to a niche blogger. Twitter is great because you can keep in touch with a bunch of people all at once, it only takes a couple of seconds to “twitter” what you’re doing, and last be not least, it i a great war to introduce your affiliate products and blogs. All in all, twitter is a free way to get traffic and hopefully make sales.
• Facebook Account – As I’ve said before, networking and a good Internet presence is important. Facebook allows you to create a personalized profile that you can share with professional contacts. It is vital to remember to stay profession on your Facebook account since that’s where your prospective customers will go to “check you out” before deciding to trust you. Avoid posting or uploading anything you wouldn’t want a future employer to see. I would also recommend not signing up for every add-on and group outthere, they just clutter up your profile which you should keep clean and streamlined. Use your account to post your projects, talk about affiliate products and flesh out your personality online.

While some of these tools may seem like unneccessary work, creating an online persona is vital to having a sucessful online business. People need to trust you and to trust you they need to know you.