When you start your blog, you know that there are certain people who you think can appreciate your topic. Some of these can be your friends, co-workers and relatives who, of course, will read anything you are going to put out. However, one cannot earn from a blog by having just a handful of readers. You need a big crowd of fans, or at the very least, interested people who will hang out for a while and listen to what you have to say about a certain product or service. For you to earn decently through your blog, you need visitors who are already interested in your site’s topic, will likely be interested in your topic and those who will most likely benefit from your tips or endorsements.

Where do you find these interested and highly excitable people?

Forums – Online communities have been around for a long time, and some have evolved out of one particular interest that thousands of people share. Joining a forum that directly attracts posters who are more than a bit interested in what you have to say about a certain subject area is powerful. These forums may provide signature space where you can place a link to your blog, or may even allow you to include your blog link or banner in your forum profile. Discussion of your interest in the forum will lead to curiosity. The people who will develop a keen interest in your opinions will probably visit your blog to know more about you and to read more about your thoughts. Developing a good relationship with some of these forum posters will increase your credibility, and subsequently, the amount of traffic going to your blog.

Your Competition – Using the search box at Google (particularly google blog search) and Yahoo will reveal several sites that already talk about your exact blog topic. Visit the most relevant ones and observe the interaction of the webmaster with his readers, check out how he has developed his topic and learn about the trend of his posts. When you have deemed this blog as a “kindred spirit” (someone who has the same level of authority in your field), you may opt to contact him to ask to advertise on his blog. If you are the shy type and wouldn’t approach another easily, you may opt to simply observe what advertising systems the blogger uses on his blog and find ways to place your banner there. Having an advertisement on another blogger’s site will increase your chances of attracting a part of his traffic. Most webmasters will appreciate your business because you represent a related site, which their readers will enjoy. There are some others, however, who will not allow you to advertise on their site because they don’t want the competition.

Remember that finding readers for your blog is easy if you work with the concept of relevance. Also, there are several offline ways of increasing traffic to your blog. One of these is by creating business cards with your blog logo and a short description of what you talk about. You can distribute these in related events that you yourself attend.

Your Sales Pages

One of the best ways to drive traffic to your blog is by making yourself known to other sites. For example, in places like facebook, people will be able to see your link and follow your bait to your blog. The exact place they first go to is called your landing page, which could be your main index (your blog’s front page) or another page that directly tells them what you are selling and why they need it. Some people get disappointed when they expect to see a product review and they get taken to a page that does not exactly tackle what they went there for. Sales pages are also the ones that you use for your Google Adwords campaigns, which you can consider when you have learned enough to use this powerful marketing tool.

The easiest way to introduce your sales page to your blog readers and visitors is to place a link to the sales page on the most visible part of your blog. Page creation is a no-brainer when using WordPress, as one of the features of a wordpress blog is the ability to create web pages that are outside the normal blog post cycle.

There are several ways of categorizing sales pages, and the most common way is to determine whether a sales page is ‘soft sell’ or ‘hard sell’. For people who are just starting out in their quest for online earnings, we will differentiate the types of sales pages by describing what’s ugly and what’s pretty.

The Ugly Sales Page – You might have seen some pages that have ugly yellow bands all over them, or bold letters in various fonts and colors. There are no photographs, not even a pretty icon to beautify things. The paragraphs are not aligned and don’t really qualify as good reading. While we would pass off these pages as “fugly”, there is no denying that they catch attention. Further analysis of the reasons behind the “fugliness” will tell us that these pages are designed to make the reader’s eyes widen at certain points, usually the ones that tell the most powerful messages of the page. Font play, colors and the overall layout of the page makes it a fugly but effective tool for driving profits.

These pages are meant to shock the mind of the reader, shaking him up with the strong message and the visual gimmicks, and eventually sending him to an excited frenzy (or panic), which will make him buy the product being offered.

The Pretty Sales Page – The anatomy of a pretty sales page comprises a nice header, well-aligned text in fonts in neutral color, and over-all, a good presentation of your sale. The nice environment that the page creates relaxes the reader and keeps him reading. Engaging text complemented with icons that directly appeal to the aesthetic tastes of the reader will drive your sales. The buy or “action” button is unobtrusive but inviting.

The goal of the pretty sales page is to make the reader bookmark the page. Skimming through the page, the reader could qualify it as a good resource and promptly tag it for reading afterwards. While he might not buy immediately, he will return often and will possibly buy in the future. The best part is, the exquisite quality of your sales page could just make the reader invite others to view it.

CashSherpa.com is not only about saving money it’s also about making money. One of the best ways to make money online is by starting a blog.

Now that you have a blog, you have quality posts and you have an audience that hangs on to your every article, the next logical step is to moneytize your blog. Moneytization is a term that was coined to describe each action that a blogger does to earn through blogging. The concept of selling through your blog is simple. Like in an outdoor activity where someone or something is attracting attention, the people who stand around watching you perform will need some refreshments, some souvenirs to re-live their experience with, and some useful stuff to take home.

Selling through your blog operates around the concept that “a good spectacle attracts a large crowd”. When your continuous supply of very good content keeps feeding your audience, the advertisers or those who will pay you to continue keeping the crown in thrall will start coming up with attractive offers. Although there’s a good possibility that your potential advertisers are among your fans, there are others who might still be in the dark about your blogging talent and so you need to introduce yourself to these people.

Joining Affiliate Networks

There are networks over the net that serve as venues for advertisers to meet potential sellers, more aptly called affiliates. An affiliate will have access to the merchant (advertiser) resources available to them and will put these on their blog sidebars, text body or in pop-ups. Every sale that the merchant makes through your blog will be counted and compensation will be given to the blogger in the form of commission.

What is Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is simply sharing of the sale between the webmaster (blogger) and the merchant. There are several ways to be compensated for your efforts at selling the merchant’s products. Merchants will have very strict rules that you have to follow for compensation to be awarded. Some will pay you when the people you send to the merchant’s site buy something (counted as a sale), while others will pay you when the people you send to their site sign up for an offer (counted as a lead).
There are merchants who will pay you just for the interest of your blog readers. This means that they pay you for the clicks that your site generates on their banners. Though undeniably the fastest way for a blog to earn, the merchants are very much aware of the scams that some unethical bloggers think up to game this marketing system. Thus, they employ the most advanced means to protect themselves from “click fraud”.

Help Them Help You

For online trading through affiliate marketing to succeed, both the merchants and the website owners (also called publishers) must work together to come up with the best solution for their business. Affiliate managers will be assigned to a blogger or publisher when approved for a product campaign. There are the people bloggers communicate with via email, and if you have questions about their product, banners or marketing tools, they are the ones to approach. A blogger must also read through every single document that the merchant provides to ensure that whatever marketing schemes he thinks up is in line with the goals of the merchant or advertiser.

CashSherpa.com is not only about saving money it’s also about making money. One of the best ways to make money online is by starting a blog.

Your new job as an affiliate to a merchant and a blogger to a crowd who loves you already may take up most of your time. What you have to know is that affiliate marketing may also take up some of your own resources. Like any other successful business, most of the successful affiliates you will meet will tell you that they have had to shell out some cash for a very worthy campaign. In fact, you are already shelling out some cash by building a blog and paying for hosting.

Money coming in vs. Money coming out

Every now and then, you will find a merchant who is more than willing to give you the lion’s share of the profit. With that in mind, you go in a flurry of activity and try your best to get the product out there. The problem is, while you know that a product is useful, you can be sure that several more people know of this fact too, and have been recruited by the same merchant. A successful campaign is only successful when your efforts convert, i.e. you make a sale. If a product is hot, and there are other people aiming for the massive crowd that would love to buy the product, your main ally in making the campaign (which you are spending your own money on) work in your favor will have to be the affiliate manager in charge of your account. He can enlighten or clarify some regulations, as well as provide you with banners that you need.

Working with Affiliate Managers

A good relationship with your affiliate manager means keeping in constant touch, learning about which campaigns or products are expiring soon, and requesting for better banners.  Affiliate managers are also the ones who will help you when your clicks are not being counted, or if there are discrepancies in the computation of your commission.

Always start your letters to your affiliate manager with pleasantries, no matter how distraught you are (e.g. you have been keeping the campaign going, bleeding cash and still, your leads are not being counted). Set the mood to professional and explain your side calmly. Getting in a word war with an affiliate manager could endanger your investment and make your efforts seem pointless. Of course, you know quite well that they need your efforts for them to earn, but making yourself a liability by being difficult could just exasperate the most patient affiliate manager.

First of all, choose a program that has the best reputation for customer or affiliate service. How do you know which ones are good? Ask around, check out the sites that are promoting the products and politely ask for feedback. The easiest way to find programs with very good affiliate communication is to analyze how their campaigns are doing inside an affiliate network. Some questions to ask include:
1. Does it feel like the affiliate manager is offline all the time?
2. Do they send you newsletters to inform you of the new products that need promoting?
3. Do they have banners that fit your campaign? If not, are they willing to craft some new banners just for you?

From the moment you start posting on your blog, you should court people to subscribe. Why? Subscribers are a blog’s best friend, these are the people who are waiting for you to post, and waiting to comment on something you tell them through your blog.

How to Attract Subscribers

As soon as you start your blog, the first thing you need to do is to get rid of the “Hello World” that is the default post of a WordPress blog (if you’re using the WordPress platform). Your first post should be an introduction of who you are and why you are blogging about a certain topic. Take the opportunity to highlight your interests, your background (in relation to your blog topic) and why they should listen to what you have to say. Your first blog post will set the tone of your blog, so write it with your signature style.

1.    The ‘About’ link or page – As soon as you write your succeeding posts and your first one goes to the “older posts” place, the next thing you have to do is to make sure that anyone who visits your main page will get a feel of the exact topic of your blog. Your header image could be the central thing that will tell them about your blog, or you can simply make your blog title and description compelling enough for visitors to continue browsing through your categories or tags. Alternatively, you can post a small “About Me” snippet on your side bar. Those who are content with just writing an about me page should place the link to that page.

2.    A series of posts – Some blog writers have devised a way to keep their subscribers and regular visitors coming back on a daily basis. Posting everyday is not particularly difficult if your posts for each day of the week have themes. Browsing through the blogosphere could familiarize you with phrases such as “Meme Monday”, “Trendy Tuesday” and “Wordless Wednesday”. These correspond to the kind of posts that the author comes up with during a particular day of the week.

Make Your Series Unique

Your series shouldn’t exactly follow those of other blogs. Yours could be something different, such as a weekly debate which runs from Monday to Wednesday. The first blog post should contain an open ended question, which the commenters could answer. When comments on the post reach a certain number, you could write your reaction to the comments via another post. This cycle goes on until you post your conclusion and recap of the discussion.

3.    Disclose a Planned Event

If you’re planning a trip around the state or around the country to look for ways to improve your knowledge in your area of expertise, tell your readers about it. Ask them to stick around and “subscribe” to immediately receive your updates on how the event is going, or if you encounter something interesting during your trip.
This concept may also be applied to blog contests you will be joining and contests that you are planning on your blog.

One of the biggest hurdles someone will go through as soon as he purchases a web hosting account is finding a good topic to talk about; one that won’t dry up and will last for the long term.

Your blog must be about a topic that you have a wealth of knowledge on. Or at the very least, something you are extremely interested about.

Have you ever talked to someone who is an expert in a particular field? Throw him a few questions about his niche and he will talk to you all day about it. He will compare and contrast several points, pausing long enough to wait for you to ask another question or at the very least, nod to express that you’re still with him. This is how you will be when your blog is about something you love, breath and live with every day. It could be a hobby, your line of work or your lifestyle.

Your blog can also be about something that you don’t know, but would like to know more about. For example, you have this burning obsession to know everything there is to know about surfing and water sports. You can start a blog reviewing the different sites that teach about water sports, and add your own thoughts about the lessons you learned from these sites. The main bulk of your posts will be related to your increasing experience in these sports and your travel experiences as you pursue your hobby.

People who wish to learn more about your topic will subscribe and communicate with you. They will also trust your authority in the topic and avail of the products and sites you recommend.

It’s tempting to start a blog with a hot trend in mind, one that you may also be interested in, albeit not as much as other topics. However, with a topic like this, your blog might not last long. Remember that your hosting is for a year (or two, if you availed of some hosts’ two-year hosting promotions), and for that period your website should be live and constantly updated to make a difference in the blogosphere. Building a blog that you yourself will fall in love with is the key to being a successful, long term blogger.

Be the Authority in Your Niche

While a lot of other sites may offer the same information that you offer, you have your unique style of writing and your own way of tackling a sensitive or a mundane issue related with your general blog topic. If you know what you are talking about, people will start noticing and start ‘hanging out’ at your blog. They would anticipate each post and subscribe so as not to miss anything.

Be original, and be interesting. Draw graphs and post photos to complement your text. Present scenarios of what you think could be the future of your topic. Have a healthy debate with those who comment and remember to always respect your audience by not going off topic.

Want to make money online? One of easiest ways to break into the world of making a living online is by starting a blog. There is nothing that gets indexed faster in the major search engines than articles you write for a blog. To get started you must first use the Web’s premiere blogging platform, WordPress. It’s easy to install with a web hosting company I recommend called HostGator.com. Host Gator automactically uploads WordPress for you when registering a web hosting package. Next, find a niche and write quality content on that subject. Be consistent and write daily. What if your English isn’t all that polished? Not to fear there’s a company called White Smoke that acts as a virtual editor. White Smoke isn’t just a basic spellchecker it’s a powerful software tool that improves and edits your English writing automatically. With White Smoke you will receive: Advanced grammar checking, community based spell checking, patented text enrichment, dictionary and thesaurus, and an auto correct feature. I can’t afford an expensive editor for this blog, but with White Smoke I don’t need one. CNN business 2.0 named White Smoke #5 out of 31 top business ideas in the world. There are several different versions of White Smoke including general writing, business writing, creative writing, legal writing, biotech writing, and the complete executive package. White Smoke is good for business writing, letter writing, essay writing, creative writing, e-mail, instant messaging, social media, and blogging. Whatever niche you decide to blog about, writing quality, polished, and grammatically correct content is the key to making money and succeeding long term online. Check out WhiteSmoke.com for a demo.