Video:How to Make Money by Blogging

Transcript:How to Make Money by Blogging

Hi this is Jaclyn Mullen from JaclynMullenMedia.com and you are watching About.com. Today we're going to be talking about a very hot topic: blogging; particularly how to make money from blogging.

What's a Blog, Anyway?

First allow me to define what a blog is. Blog actually stands for web blog. Blogs are series of posts that get updated in chronological order.

Attracting Advertisers to Your Blog

So first things first, what are you going to blog about? Who are you trying to reach? Pick who your ideal audience is and I would also suggest you pick a subject matter, whether you want to be a mom blogger, a sports blogger, that's totally up to you. But you do need to know who your audience is. Now blogging could be a lot of fun but let's face it we’re talking about how you can make money blogging today, right?

Making Money From Blogging

So how do you make money from blogging? It boils down to one thing: traffic. You definitely have to make sure that you have an audience that is coming to your blog and engaging with it on a frequent basis. And by traffic I mean unique visits, recurring visits, people actually sharing and distributing your posts. Traffic is such a key component because that audience is how you're going to make all your money. So let's get to one of our favorite topics: revenue. So one really important factor when creating your blog, you do in fact want to make sure that you have ad zones. Because down the line when the traffic comes up, advertising is a great way for you to make blog revenue. Now let's jump into that.

Making Revenue From a Blog

There are a couple of different ways that you can in fact make advertising revenue, whether you handle it yourself or you go to an ad network. Handling it yourself - probably the first and most easy step to take. You can approach local businesses within your area and create business to business ads that when people click on them or get redirected back to the other website, generate revenue for you. You can charge based upon impressions or you can even just charge a flat fee for somebody advertising in that particular space on your blog.

Think of your blogs as real estate. I think that makes it very, very helpful. With that said, the way you can crank it up a notch is by approaching an advertising network. It’s just another great way to make money for your blog. And the upsides are tremendous. For one, advertising networks tend to cater to much bigger retailers and brands, which is great exposure for you. Second, they take all the leg work out of you having to go out and find those advertisers themselves.

Notes About Income From Blogging

Thirdly, you can start to expect a little bit more consistent income, once you've got some ads in rotation. Lastly, if all this ad networking stuff sounds a little over your head, don't worry, you can also keep things simple with something I'm sure you've heard of: Amazon.com. And guess what they pay? Commissions. Yes if within your blog you link back to certain Amazon products and one of your readers actually clicks and makes a purchase, you get paid.

So if you want to keep things simple you can visit Amazon.com and learn how you in fact can become an affiliate, to make money for your blog. Here's a few other ways you can make money from blogging. Let's definitely think outside the box here. Getting paid to write other articles or write in general. If you have a successful blog you can actually leverage your writing skills for copywriting or guest posting on other sites. Another way bloggers make revenue is by going out and speaking in public. Yes some very successful bloggers make some pretty nice paychecks for public speaking. Hopefully you found these tips very helpful for starting your blog and making money from your blog.

This is Jaclyn Mullen signing off for About.com. Thanks so much for tuning in.