Ever since the Internet and home computers have been attainable by the majority of people in the United States, people have been nearly obsessed with working from home and earning a decent income from the Net.
While there are many moneymaking opportunities online, some of them are too competitive, too complicated or are downright scams.
It can be hard to sort through the good, the bad, and the ugly online even for people who are very smart and experienced.
Keeping a blog, or online journal, started to gain popularity in the early 2000s.
Originally it was mostly used for expressing personal opinions or venting frustrations.
At some point people began to realize that blogs could be used to make money through advertising, selling products or services, and even as a service in itself.
Before you knew it, blogging was considered one of the best ways to earn an income online.
So, how can you make money from a blog? First you have to start a blog.
I recommend sticking to a topic you know a lot about at least for your first blog.
Once you have a topic, you need to find a server to host your blog.
Blogger and Wordpress are two very popular and easy to use hosting sites.
One thing to keep in mind when using Wordpress is that if you want to advertise on your blog, you will need to pay for hosting to install the Wordpress software on because their free hosting doesn't allow advertising.
Shop around for a reliable hosting company since prices can vary widely.
Blogger is completely free and you are allowed to advertise however you can't customize the blog as much as you can with Wordpress.
Still it's a good service to start with.
Once you have the blog set up and you've written a couple of posts, you can start to think about way to monetize (make money from) your blog.
Here are four of the most common and most profitable ways to make money from blogging.
Ad Networks Over the past few years, many companies have set up advertising networks to take advantage of the number of blogs being created.
The most popular of these is Google AdSense.
Google allows you to put a bit of code on your blog that shows ads based on the contents of your site.
These types of advertisements are known as contextual.
Other companies have created similar ad networks, changing only the way ads are chosen, the minimum payouts and the blog requirements necessary to get added to the network.
Aside from Google I would recommend checking out Crispads or Bidvertiser as they have similar programs that are free registration.
Eventually, as your blog grows more popular, you will want to offer advertisers a way to buy space on your blog.
Direct advertising will likely be the most profitable part of your blog's income.
Be sure to do your research before offering ad space so you don't inadvertently set your price too high.
You want to be sure that you are both offering a reasonable deal and making the most of every profitable bit of space on your blog.
Affiliate Products Selling affiliate products probably won't ever make you rich but it is a good way to make extra money from your niche market.
Finding affiliate programs to join is as easy as typing your niche and the word "affiliate" (no quote) into a search engine.
If your niche is a profitable one, you'll find dozens of products people will pay you to sell.
Two affiliate networks worth joining if you are serious about making money from affiliate products are Clickbank and Commission Junction.
The search engine on their sites will link you to many products designed specifically for your niche and they will collect and track all of your payments and send you payment once a month provided you have met their minimum requirements.
Selling Memberships For many years, blogs were a free-for-all way of finding information.
Lately some bloggers have been charging people a "membership fee" for access to their blog.
Some blogs lend themselves to this very well but if you are blogging about something very popular that lots of other people are blogging about, a membership site may be dead in the water.
Nobody is going to pay for something they can find for free somewhere else.
There are some versions of the membership idea that may work nicely for your blog though.
One is to charge people for an ads-free version of your site.
This is likely to attract a demographic of people who detest advertisements while not alienating your readers that don't mind ads.
Another idea is to charge for early access to your blog posts.
This also allows readers to post comments before anyone else (important for people looking to network and get noticed in your niche) and participate in discussions earlier than others.
Some readers just like the "eliteness" of this option.
Your Own Products And Services Eventually, as you become an expert in your niche, you will want to develop and create your own products or services.
One person I know started a blog talking about ways to earn money online and about ten months into it started offering personal mentoring.
This was an ingenious way to may extra money from the blogging business.
You can also create reports or ebooks and sell them to your readers.
There are free software available to help you create an eBook but the word processing program that came with your computer will probably work just find.
You can even branch out to make ebooks, create complete niche-related programs, publish ezines, offer mentoring, and give reviews of niche related products, all for a price of course.
In short, there is no limit to the number of ways you can blog for profit.