Blogs are a fantastic way to make money. They perform well in search engines, they’re easy to promote, and they can offer very sticky content. If you blog often, and you’re good at what you do, you could develop a pretty large following of readers who subscribe to your RSS feed and read your content on a daily basis.
One of the biggest keys to success with blogs is posting in them regularly. If you don’t post regularly, you probably won’t get much traffic, and people won’t return. Posting frequently also keeps your content fresh, and search engines love fresh content.
The more often you post, the more often the spiders will visit your site. And every time you post, you can ping your site at the various ping locations. This can also bring in more traffic. Another major key to blog success is creating sticky content. This means you have to write posts that people will actually be interested in reading.
Readers probably don’t care what you had for dinner, unless you’re John Chow or you’re running a food blog. They want to read about stuff related to your niche. If you’re running a blog about golfing, at least 75% of your posts should be related to golf. Preferably 100%.
You should talk about golf courses you’ve recently played on, tournaments you’ve watched, and clubs you’ve tried. You might occasionally post about family matters, or your dog, or your favorite restaurant as a way to connect on a more personal level with your readers, but most of your posts should be on target with your niche.
Blogs are great for people who sell services. If you’re a graphics designer or writer, having a blog is a good way to keep in touch with your clients. You can offer updates on your schedule and availability, current prices and special offers, and when you’ll be taking some time off.
You can also post samples of your latest work. If you have a number of clients subscribe to your RSS feed, you’ll be able to keep in contact with them so they’ll order from you more often. People also tend to follow blogs more carefully than websites.
Don’t start a blog with the intention of letting it sit dormant and earn money. It probably won’t work. If you’re going to start a blog, you need to be prepared to commit yourself to growing the blog, posting often, keeping it updated, and not giving up on it.
They offer multiple selling opportunities – from text links woven throughout the content to image ads like banners you strategically place in between blog posts. The sidebar can also be utilized as affiliate or direct sales revenue space.
Make sure you take the time to transfer your blog over to your own domain instead of hosting it within the blogging community. This makes it more professional to the person who lands on your website and lends credibility to your efforts as the go-to person in your niche.