Can you make money blogging? Part 2

In case you didn't read the first segment, click here>>> Can you make money blogging? Part 1

       By Adrian B- In the first segment we discussed the basics of blogging, picking topics, the importance of keeping up with your blog. In this segment we will discuss getting ads on your site and getting other peripherals on your blog. First let's discuss peripherals, add-ons and gadgets. Along with articles, a blog should have other interactive "stuff", for lack of a better word. It should have something like polls, click-able icons, games, free downloads, job opportunities, sports updates, stock updates, picture slide-shows or other things that will provide daily interactivity. People like to go on sites where there is good information, interaction and where they can voice there opinion...everyone likes to say what they think. There are tons of apps that you can place on your site for free...some will even make you money, and money is always a good thing. Next, you should always make it easy for others to share your articles or to email it to a friend, all of that should be able to be done right from your blog. Now let's get into placing ads on your blog. The most popular and maybe the most lucrative, in my opinion, is the Google's Adsense...not to be confused with Adwords. They are totally separate. Adsense does all the ad placement on your site. I know what you're thinking. How does Adsense choose what ads to put on my site? Adsense basically scans your blog and based on keywords within the articles or titles and then places relevant ads accordingly. For instance, if you post an article about a awesome sports car you liked, ads such as "custom tint" or "buy a 2011 Camaro" or "Autozone" might appear on your page. Google Adsense does have some stipulations that you will need to comply with so you don't get banned from Adsense. There are other companies out there that offer free advertising: Clicksor, Adbrite, Bidvertiser and others. Google's is the most well known of all the ad options and can definitely be trusted. I caution you not to go too crazy on the amount of ads on your page...an overwhelming barrage of ads may deter people from coming back and may slow your site down considerably.
     So what are the cons of blogging and does it cost anything? There is one potentially big con...it takes a lot of time, especially at first because you are trying to get a lot on your blog to attract viewers and keep them on your site for more than 30 seconds. However, your Google blog can be synced with your cell phone so you can text articles and they will post on your web page (not recommended too often). The other con is that the ratio of time to income is horrible at first until you can get a consistent, high volume of traffic. Regarding cost...it's totally free. Google Blogger is completely free. So you can breathe a sigh of relief. Oh, and on top of that, you can be completely "web design illiterate" and still succeed at blogging. Back to the cost subject, I would recommend eventually switching to a real website later once you have too many people visiting the site and it's severely lagging, then and only then would there be costs for web hosting and domain name purchase. Don't worry, even then it's not much per month...maybe $5-$15 per month. It's very affordable to most anyone. The downside is that things to get a little more complex when you do that, but don't let that scare you from starting a blog.
    I hope this has helped anyone interested in potentially blogging.  

Please check back for "Part 3" and feel free to comment or email any questions you may have.

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