How to Make Real Money Blogging Using a few Basic Steps.

If you have ever wondered if it is possible to make money from blogging then the quick answer is yes. But it does take time to build up just like most things. Blogs have the advantage of being free to set up and fairly easy to maintain, of course, you can pay for blogs and get more ambitious but I have found it’s best to start simply.

Pick a subject that you are familiar with, something you are interested in. You will find it much easier to continue blogging if you are writing something you would want to read.

Food blogs seem to work well, including recipes, easy to follow instructions, pictures of the ingredients and the finished product. If you are good at making unusual birthday cakes, then blog about that.

You can blog about just about anything. Whatever you chose to blog about trying to set an informal tone and inject something of yourself into the blog.

If a reader feels like he knows you a little he is much more likely to keep coming back to check out your blog. It helps to build regular traffic to your blog, which in turn helps to bring in revenue. The more people viewing your blog the more likely it is that some of those people will check out the adverts.

It is better to blog about one topic, that way you will be using the same keywords each time you blog, for example, if like me, you have a blog about vegetarian food and a healthy vegetarian lifestyle then those are your keywords. The repeated keywords help with your ranking on search engines.

If you love to travel then you can easily build a regular blog around that subject. Include plenty of varied content, not just words but pictures and maps too. Let people see where you have been and how to get to it.Try to include pictures that are unusual, For example, if you blog about York try to pick pictures that other people might not have, everyone will have pictures of the Minster. But not everyone will have something unusual like a picture of the stocks.

But the trouble is that there is quite a bit of competition out there using those keywords, which doesn’t worry me that much as that particular blog isn’t just for making money, it’s a labour of love. But if you want to earn from your blog then you have to try to find a way of making it a bit more specific.

Pick something a little more obscure and you will have less competition. But be careful it isn’t so obscure that no one will want to read it.

Update your blog frequently, daily is best, at least for the first three months. That is about the time I have found it takes to build up a few regular readers. I always like to have a few spare posts ready, something that I can go to and post without any effort. Just for those days when I am not feeling up to thinking of something or just don’t have the time.

Don’t forget to promote your blog, tell people about it. It's no good knowing that you have a well written, interesting blog if no one else knows about it. Don't expect people to find your blog, tell them about it, guide them to it, if you want to get real traffic and have the chance of making real money. On forums, on information sharing sites and through links on your hubs if you have any.

And, of course, through your other blogs if you have more than one. And to make any real money from blogs you are going to need more than one. The more blogs you have the better your chances of making money. Blog on a wide variety of subjects, to begin with, you can always cut down when you see which ones are the most viewed and the most profitable. Don't overstretch yourself it's much better to have two or three good blogs than ten mediocre ones.

The easiest way to make money is through pay per click ads. Google AdSense is the most popular and is free and easy to set up. Once you are registered the ads will appear automatically on your blog, all you need to do is click on the monetise your blog link and follow the instructions.

You can also choose to display Amazon ads but you will need to pick appropriate ads from a drop-down box. I would never place more than three Amazon ads on a blog, too many can turn the reader off and create a kind of ad blindness where they just don’t see the ads anymore.

Don’t get disheartened if you don’t start making money from day one, that isn’t how it works. Try to resist the temptation of checking your account each day, once a week is best. You will never forget the feeling when you see your first earnings, it is all the encouragement you’ll need to continue blogging. Try to enjoy your blog and other people will too, don't look upon it as just a chore.

Make it fun and interesting and you will find that you can make some money from it, I am not saying that a blog will make you rich, although that has happened, that is the exception. But it can bring in some much needed extra money each month, so stick with it.

Whatever you do, don't get caught up buying into a scam or a con, there are lots of them out there.

If you are using Amazon as a means of making money from your blog then make sure you have personal experience of the goods you are advertising. Simply put If you are running an ad for wooden spoons make sure they are the wooden spoons you use. Try to include your own picture and description of the spoons on your blog. You need to build trust, let your readers know that you wouldn't advertise stuff on your blog that you know nothing about or wouldn't use yourself. Engage with your readers wherever possible, through comments and by answering questions.

The most important thing to remember is to make your blog interesting and useful, all the rest will come in time. Have fun blogging and I hope you end up making some extra money.