Make Money Blogging

How you can make good money blogging

Two of the best things about blogging are:

• Blogging requires almost no technical or computer expertise.
• Blogging costs very little money - you can even do it for free!

What exactly is a blog anyway?

A blog is, in the simplest terms, a website that is updated regularly (daily or at least weekly, usually). Pages of a blog are usually organized according to date posted, and the latest post is usually the blog's home page.

In contrast, a traditional website (like this one!) tends to be organized around topics, and the home page is not necessarily the latest page but instead the page containing the introduction and the broadest topical discussion.

But there is something else that distinguishes blogs, and this distinction makes them particularly useful for anyone looking to build inbound links (backlinks) and drive traffic to their site.

What is this distinction?

Blogs are social at heart!

Most blogs allow readers to leave responses to the blogger's posts. These responses are called comments.

Bog comments also allow readers to include links back to their own sites.

In addition, many blog posts contain links referring readers to posts on other blogs.

And blogs also contain "blog rolls", lists of links to other blogs, usually ones dealing with the same or similar topics.

All these social aspects of blogs make it much easier to gain links from other bogs and to naturally link out to quality content you find on blogs other than your own.

Since quality, on-topic links are what cause a site or blog to move up in the search engine results, this natural linking pattern allows bloggers to gain many great links without needing to beg for links or engage in shady link exchanges.

This, in my view, is the major advantage of blogging over traditional websites.

Of course traditional websites have advantages of their own - they tend to be easier for a user to navigate, so they work better as sources of more static content (content that doesn't change frequently), whereas blogs work better for more dynamic content - news, gossip, updates, and the like.

So if you want to build a website that deals with a topic which is constantly changing or evolving, consider building a blog.

One of the best low cost blog hosts (the company that stores your blog and "broadcasts" it over the net) is Dreamhost. Dreamhost will help you install the free blog software from Wordpress - the most commonly used and arguably the best blog management software out there.

Dreamhost installs Wordpress in one click. Then, you simply must choose a Wordpress "theme", which determines the layout and look of your blog.

Once you have done this, you are ready to start blogging. But first, of course, you need to decide what you will be blogging about.

Picking your blog's topic

It all starts with finding a profitable niche, one in which there is not too much competition, but enough demand to give your blog traffic.

Most importantly, you should pick a blog topic that you are passionate about, one that you will be excited about posting to every day (or close to it).

As with a website, your passion will shine through in your blog's posts.

So let's begin brainstorming some topics for your blog or website, and get started on building your profitable business!