Blogging for dollars – Brought to you by Blogging for beginners

I have not spent any time so far talking about “blogging for dollars”, or as some may call it “make money blogging”.  There is a really, really good reason for this.  This is the bottom line of this beginner blogging lesson:

YOU WILL NOT MAKE ANY MONEY BLOGGING – YOU WILL FAIL AND GIVE UP!

Yep, I said it, but let me preface that by saying, you can make money blogging, in fact, blogging for dollars is real and a viable way to make money online.  But, it’s just not gonna happen for you right now. 

There are lots and lots of things for you to learn still.  You have barely got the basics, and even if you understand the basics, if your blog is new, it’s not going to generate enough traffic in order to make any money. 

In the world of blogging for dollars, your primary goal is to generate focused and quality traffic.  Which is completely different than just random traffic.  Blogs can generate random traffic just by being.  It is almost a sure thing that you will have a few page views fairly quickly. But those page views will come from sources that are not prone to lend themselves to generating income.  

Search engine traffic is going to be your most productive source of traffic.  And search engine traffic builds with time.  It is organic and is a natural progression.  Some factors, like age cannot be manipulated.  Backlinking is a process that you should participate in, but the best forms of backlinks are going to come from other sources.  From visitors who find you and find you to be viable.  Those are the people who can create backlinks that pack a punch in your traffic and SERP results. 

So, when I say you will not make any money.  I am referring to initially.  Ten page views a day from Stumbleupon are not going to pay the bills.  Most of the page views that come from bookmarking or social networking sources are going to be quick bounces.  They will not even take the time to read what you have to say unless you somehow catch them within about 10 seconds.

Don’t get discouraged by what I say.  I don’t mean to turn you all off to the concept of blogging for dollars.  It is meant to warn you that this concept seems easy but reality is it can be very difficult to succeed. 

Many people will say that starting your blog right off the bat with monetizing it effects your search engine status.  Some people believe that search engines will index you and see your blog covered in ads or affiliate marketing and they will devalue your blog, considering it spam, and only there to generate quick income.  Personally, it is my belief that you might as well start right off the bat with your monetization.  This will lead to viewers expecting to see the ads on your blog.  If you wait till you develop a loyal and consistent stream of traffic, your regular readers will be put off by the fact that you are now trying to make a buck.  You don’t want to do that.  In my opinion, as long as you keep your form of advertising and marketing respectable, Readers will accept it, and search engines will come around when they realize you are not going anywhere. 

So, what forms of monetization are right for you?
Basically you have a few options here.  I am going to briefly cover all of them but will talk in more detail about each one in later posts.

1.)Ads
Ads are probably the most common way to monetize your blog.  Google adsense being the most popular form of ad advertising.  With this form of advertising you are paid by clicks and views.  Using google is a fine way to monetize your blog.  I use it.  Lots of bloggers use it.  But it is not the only form of ad advertising.  Another very popular form is text ads.  You see them all over the place. If your cursor passes over certain text you get a pop-up.  I don’t use it, mostly because it annoys me and I cannot use something that I find annoying.  There are two very popular companies for that form of advertising.  That being Kontera, and Infolinks.  Since I do not use them, I am not going to give you much insight on them, other than saying I do believe you have to meet minimums with kontera every month or you lose your earnings.  Infolinks I believe does not operate that way.

2.)Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is another very popular way to monetize your blog.  Clikbank is probably the most popular.  This form of advertisement is commission based, and you receive a percentage for items sold through your advertisement links.  Another company that operates much the same way is Amazon.  Amazon associates offer a widget in blogger that is easy to set up.  You can see that I use it.  I have little success with it, but I do not really sell to the products I have advertising within my blogs.  If I tried harder, I am sure it would perform much better.

3.)Your own Product
This is one thing I do not believe enough people take advantage of.  I am just as guilty as the next.  In fact, once I get this blog established, it is my goal that my next blog will be set up to sell my own product. (classified information, I am sure I will announce it when I release)  But blogs can be a perfect advertisement tool for selling your own products and information.

I am sure you can find other opportunities to make money with your blog.  Those are the real basic, bottom line ways to blog for dollars.  And those are the easiest ways to start blogging for dollars.  Most likely the easiest ways for beginner bloggers to start earning money online. 

Don’t worry.  There will be lots more to come about making money blogging.  I just want everyone to realize it should not be your primary focus right now.  Practice, learn how to blog effectively and the money will come with time. 

Thank you for reading blogging for beginners, please come back soon!