If you are new to the internet and wondering what an earth this blogging craze is all about, or if you already have your own website and you’re wondering why everyone keeps advising you to start your own blog, read on. I’m going to explain to you what a blog is, why you need one, how to set it up, promote it and of course, make money from it.

Blog is short for “web log” and is similar to an online diary or journal. The craze of blogging began in the very late 1990s and has started to become more and more popular over the last couple of years. Almost everyone seems to have a blog these days, from CEOs of large companies to webmasters, from world travelers to teenagers. Even my Dad has his own blog now!  A blog allows you to communicate informally with people via an online journal, but it’s more personal and unstructured than a website and easier and cheaper to set up than a website.

If you have your own website, but haven’t yet started a blog you can easily start one using a free service such as Blogger or WordPress. Try to post to your blog at least once or twice a week on topics related to your website. Blogging will help your search engine rankings and open up the communication channels between you and your visitors or customers, encouraging them to interact with you and give them a reason to return to your site in future.

If you don’t have your own website and are looking to set up a blog quickly and easily I recommend opening a free account with Blogger. You can blog about anything you like, for example a hobby, a vacation, your home town, something political, a sport or your business. Just be sure to pick something that you are interested in and knowledgeable about. You can host your blog for free on Blogspot – all you need to do is pick a name that is relevant to the topic of your blog. Once you have set up your profile and chosen a template, blogging is as simple as sending an email to a friend.

There are many ways to make money from your blog, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

- Google Adsense – this is free to join and easy to set up. The ads will match the content of your blog and you will get paid every time a visitor clicks on an ad.

- Affiliate Programs – sign up for affiliate programs related to the topic of your blog and display links to related products on your blog. Clickbank, Trade Doubler and Commission Junction are good places to start, or do a Google search for “affiliate program” + the topic of your blog to find more affiliate programs. Whenever someone clicks through your affiliate link and buys a product, you will receive a commission. If you are knowledgeable about your topic you could also write product reviews to help increase your affiliate sales.

- Sell Advertising Space – if you have a popular blog you can charge people to advertise on your blog. This could be in the form of a text link, a banner or a graphic.

You are not going to make money with a blog unless people can find it. As soon as you have started to post to your blog it’s time to start promoting it. You can get your blog noticed by…

- Submitting your blog to blog directories – just search for “blog directories” in Google

- Asking other bloggers to exchange links with you – you put a link on your blog in exchange for a link from their blog.

- Writing an article related to the topic of your blog and posting it to article directories. Remember to include an author’s resource box with a link to your blog.

- Pinging blog ping services every time you make a new post – pingomatic.com and pingoat.com are two sites you can use to do this.

- Participating in forums related to the topic of your blog. Put a link to your blog in your forum signature.

Finally, once you have your blog monetized and you have started promoting it don’t forget to post regularly. The most important aspect of every successful blog is frequent posting, so be sure not to let the virtual dust gather over your blog!

ask friends to come and see your blog and ask them to ask their friends too ++++ make your blog interesting

Blogger is a nice one
I also use wordpress

If you want to get started there are tons of free blogs out there: wordpress.com, myspace.com, facebook.com, etc etc.

If you want to have your own blog free of advertising you may need to hire a web designer, prices can vary, some can customize and template (cheaper but too general) or make it from scratch (more expensive but more personalized). You can check below site.

Hey there..
I just launched a blog about a software called Firepow. It's amazing and has the features your want and a bunch of other ones too… That's why my blog is called Automate your blogging.. It's the first affiliate blog I ever made and it looks like a real professional did it.. It's using wordpress inside the program and they'll actually host 10 of them for you at no extra charge! YeeHaa!

The long awaited and much anticipated Firepow Blogging Software from Andrew Hansen has finally launched. I have been using this software for approximately 2 months.

What does seem good about Firepow so far is that it combines the functions of various pieces of software into one 'machine' so to speak – which if only for the sake of nothing else but convenience, makes it a good thing. Less programs on my computer, less to think about, and hopefully less to do.

The things it combines are the tasks of creating, marketing and managing your niche blog sites. You log in to a back office, where you have complete control. You can even log into wordpress from your back office.

It does these things with the use of wordpress plugins, and features inside a central software, from where you can view or edit any of your blog sites – another big convenience factor. The plugins are both a list compiled from existing plugins on the internet and those created specially by Andrew himself. It does everything from creating your site (content too) to showing you how to get traffic and beyond.

You can even import existing blogs into the system. You will become part of the BNet. This is a group of members blogs (soon to approach a thousand or more) who you can submit your articles and accept articles from them for great content.

Before I started using this software, I had never created a blog or website of any kind. Now I am working on my 3rd and plan to add 1 new niche blog per month, if possible.

Johnny B

Make your blog into an interesting story..but still make it seem like a blog. Send it in to a publishing company and who knows what will happen =)

Good Luck_*

Seo blogging software can be hard to find online.
Thankfully Firepow software has just been released.  I've been using it since it's launch.
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In the top 5 of google for 2 of my 3 blogs.
In the top 15 of google for my third blog (110,000 competition websites).
Number 1 on google for the keywords in all three domains.
Here's why Firepow seo blogging software is unique: 
Firstly, as soon as you create your blog you'll get instant backlinks from your rss feed submissions Secondly, when you write a blog post or a page you can create hidden or visible h1 and h2 tags without any messy html You can add relevant youtube videos straight to your posts or pages You can get trackbacks easily and quickly from relevant or authority sites Once you've submitted your blog post you can publish it straight to your blog (or time it for whenever you want) and then submit it straight to the hottest social bookmarking sites.  We all know how popular Yahoo Answers is.  Now straight within the Firepow seo blogging platform you can go straight to Yahoo answers, search for questions on relevant topics, add your blog posts straight to answers and get them published straight away or write new content You can add a news feed straight to your homepage so the blog is constantly updated in the eyes of the search engines. I truly can't say enough about Firepow seo blogging software.  Why?  Because I'm now making $10,000 per month in my spare time as a niche blogger.
As a special bonus for reading this information if you go to http://www.OrderFirepow.com and insert the word trackback you'll instantly save $30.00.
Email me your invoice after you've bought it from that site and I'll also send you $100s worth of exclusive bonuses PLUS will give you unlimited FREE internet marketing coaching to grow your business online.
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Hi BB

Just wanted to add my own two cents to what Matt has said.

I use article submission to get traffic to my sites. For this you can write articles on terms related to your site and promote them using article directories. The primary purpose of submitting articles is to get traffic to your sites. [and some links too]

Now comes the tricky part!

Write articles based on low paying-high traffic keywords. This will get a lot of traffic to your article pages (in some article directories) which in turn will bring a portion of it (the traffic) to a page of your site. On this page, create content based on high paying keywords that will get you more money per click.

Now, you have your low paying-high traffic keywords that attract traffic to your article pages (in some article directories) and your high paying-low traffic keywords better monetizing your own pages – The best of both worlds.

Hope that helps

Rakeshsgk
Got a question? Ask it at:
http://askrakesh.blogspot.com