The NetPreneurs

The answer is: yes, you can make money blogging. But the amount will depend largely on the effort and time that you are willing to invest in. You don't expect to put in minimum effort and time to get maximum profit right? The internet may have tools to aid you but that doesn't mean it can replace genuine effort and time into it too. Be real about the expectations to make money online for free.

Effort: The amount of work needed in running a good blog takes more than just writing original content (the emphasis here i your own content), but also the need to consistently decorate your blog repositioning your ads, banners, links and test out what works and what don't. This is a lot a lot of work. Because if you do not have much marketing experience be it offline or online, you will need to go thru some learning curves.

For example, if you are targeting female readers to purchase your accessories then perhaps a website or a blog with some light pastel colors and designs that blend well with your products than to have something too dark and make your products seem out of place.

Time: You need to spend time to research (not copy from others) in the internet and out of the internet too. Why? If your target customers are say, local then it be best to know what's the trend now. Say, everyone is hype up about WiMax then perhaps instead of writing lots of articles about Wifi 802.11b (older technology), it be best to push forward your WiMax content earlier than later.

Also, the blog needs to grow and need a lot of time to do so too. Let your blog grow don't rush into it hoping to make it overnight and even think of a steady income to replace your day job salary. It doesn't work this work to most of the people.

Relax and enjoy the process: If just by setting up a blog can make you rich (more than what you can earn on a day job) then you must be dreaming. Be realistic about it. You are bound to make a lot of mistakes along the way, learning from others can only help you to be more alert but that doesn't mean you wont make mistake. Hit the wall a bit, smash onto the ground a bit and you will come out a better blogger. :)

There have been some debates as to whether Page Rank is more important than traffic, or is it the other way around. I say, they are both equally important, although you don't really have to work on them at the same time. If you hate multitasking as much as I do, that is.

Getting a high PR does not necessarily mean that you get tons of traffic. It does help you to get more traffic, though, if you optimize it carefully.

Now, let's start with increasing your PR first.

When you're just starting a blog, you might only be able to exchange links with other new PR 0 blogs. It won't do you much good in terms of PR because those are definitely not quality inbound links. But that's okay, just don't overdo it. If those new blogs are good and develop fast, they will automatically increase your PR quite significantly. Have at least five exchanges. Eight is maximum.

You'll want to submit your blog to directories. Some people still believe that submitting their blogs to as many directories as they can will increase their PR rapidly. I only submitted mine to some blog directories and my blog made it to PR 4 in three months. I say, submitting your blog to directories won't really help you by much. Even if they're PR 7 directories, they'll have thousands of outbound links, which means that they are just as trashy as a link from a PR 0 blog.

Make friends with people who have great blogs. Visit them regularly and introduce yourself. Don't ask for a link back yet, though. Just make yourself noticed. If you're lucky, they might write something about the new blogs in the niche and who knows that yours might also get mentioned. That's one really good quality inbound link for you.

Try joining Digital Point Forum and hang around the Link Exchange section. There are people sometimes just looking for links and they don't care what PR your blog/website is, as long as it has the same theme. That's jackpot.

Finally, the best way to get backlinks is by writing great articles and post them to as many ezines as you can find! And don't just stop there, you can also optimize forums to promote your best article by having its title as your signature.

However, having lots of backlinks by way of articles might not bring you in more traffic. Your links will just be footnotes of your article posted in their blogs. And next week that post will no longer be in the front page. The inbound links you get are permanent, but very few will see or click on them.

You'll rank high in terms of PR, but not in traffic. Now, the next thing to do is to take advantage of your high PR. First, take a look back at your outbound links (from the exchanges you did with other related blogs) and check them one by one. Are those blogs still active? Also, check your Google Analytics stat to see which blogs are not giving you any traffic at all. Get rid of them. Don't be afraid to do a little clean up. Tell those other blogs that you've taken off their links and that they can take off yours, too.

So, now that you've got only a few outbound links, you'll have plenty of room for quality link exchange.

Browse around for some blogs that have the same high PR as yours, or blogs with a slightly lower PR but is looking really popular and getting lots of traffic. Contact the owners and state your offer.

• Participating in forums. Whatever your niche is, there are always online forums to join. Be active there, and don't forget to put a link to your blog in your signature.
• Joining MyBlogLog. It's probably the largest community of bloggers there is. Visit other blogs there and join their communities. They'll do the same for you. Plus, MyBlogLog got this cool recent readers widget you can set up in your blog. It's definitely a must join.
• Commenting on other blogs. I know someone who comments at least 60 times a day. The result? Thousands of extra traffic per month! One thing to remember is to always leave a link back to your blog in every comment.

5. Always be alert for opportunities to make money from outside your blog. I got lucky myself once to spot such an opportunity with GoldPoster, where they paid you for posting in their forum, and it was payable via e-gold, which is good because my country is not listed in PayPal. Lots of spammers joined in very soon after, though, so they decided to stop paying. That's why it's always important to stay alert and be among the first to grab the paychecks.

6. If you have a Google Plus or Facebook account and lots of friends, they're really great for promoting your blog or even your affiliate programs. For example, every once in a while, post a bulletin inviting them to join your affiliate program. If you got friends who are still in college or high school, try looking for a scholarship affiliate program and post an invite to this one too in your bulletin. They're your friends, and chances are they'll trust you and click without questioning.

7. Give your blog some time to grow. At the beginning maybe you set up goals that are a little too hard to reach, but that's only because by then you have not yet realized how hard blogging actually is. Give it time. It'll get easier.

• Have a little "Something of the Week" stuff. It could be a fun quiz you found from some websites. It could be a poll. Or it could be your own wisdom, one smart line to summarize what you've learned during the week.
• Simplify your posts. Write in short sentences. If possible, include a drawing or a diagram under your every post to sum up what your post is about.

So that's it, then. I'll be keeping my eyes open for more reasons to bookmark your blogs.

• Most people blog simply for fun. They don't monetize their blogs like you and me. They might not even care that their blogs are forever at PR 0 or that they should be pinging every time they post something new. What this means is that if you could identify these unexplored niches, you will undoubtedly be able to conquer them right away, because you have the weapons and knowledge to do that!
• People visiting those unexplored lands might know even less. They could be surfers who've never even been blogging in their entire life! It would be a lot less difficult to guide those readers to click on your ads or fill in forms offering free stuff.
• You can use more general forums to advertise your blogs, and no one would mind! Again here, most forum members are simply there for fun. They have absolutely no idea that you're trying to make money out of them.

Now, just what kind of niches are they? I'll give you six here, you figure out the rest that will suit your own interest.

1. Art

You don't have to be a painter or a photographer to blog about art. You could just browse the web for great pieces of modern art or whatever and post them in your blog. Promise your readers that you'd be posting daily for more great pictures, and that's it! You don't even have to worry about writing articles at all!

With this kind of blog, it is highly possible to make money from: selling posters from an affiliate program you've joined, promoting your own stuff on ebay, selling tutorial DVDs from Amazon, and of course AdSense. If your blog is starting to look really good and more people start giving you compliments, you might even consider asking for donations.

2. Fitness and Bodybuilding

I'm quite surprised to find out that not so many people blog about this. If you happen to know quite much, even theoretically, about fitness and bodybuilding, then why not give it a try? Daily tips you recompose from some magazines would do it. Or, if you're feeling a bit adventurous, why don't you blog about your journey to lose fat and gain muscle?

It is indeed one of the most lucrative niches that are not yet widely monetized in blogs. Here you can sell: muscle enhancing products that hard-gainers often find too tempting to resist, ebooks about the kind of new training that's guaranteed to work, training videos and DVDs, and even subscriptions to magazines.

3. Book Discussions

Write reviews about your favorite books using your own point of view. Then, join Amazon's affiliate program and put up the ads in a catchy display. Most people who like to read might also like to learn about new languages, so why not have an ad that goes something like "Learn Spanish In 30 Days".

4. Dating Tips

If you believe yourself to be a dating expert, then this could be a real money making opportunity for you. With this kind of blogs, it should be easy to earn money from: online dating sites (such as Friend Finder that pays you high), affiliating ebooks and DVDs about dating, and affiliating sites that require memberships.

5. Scholarship Info

Do a little research on the web, quote a little here and there from this and that program, and that's pretty much it! Some companies pay their affiliate partners everytime a visitor fills in a form.

6. Anything that's for women only

It could be a Chicken Soup kind of blog, it could be about make up tips, it could be about things you can do at home when you're bored, it could be about the truths of men, and it could be about how to raise a child on your own.

The money making opportunity here comes from affiliating e-stores that cater for women's needs. They could be dresses, jewelry, perfume, and home decoration ornaments.

Those are just six possible niches. There are probably hundreds of others left unexplored. Find your own passion, blog about it, and conquer your own niche.

Traffic exchange programs have been around for longer than I can remember (admittedly that’s not long...). Over the last month or so I have been playing around with a few of them to see it they are worth all the attention they get. For those of you who are unfamiliar with traffic exchange programs, they are very simple. You sign up, create an account and enter the URL of your site/s. Normally there is an option to 'surf for credits', which involves browsing the other sites listed in their database. After a given time on one site (e.g. 30 seconds) you can click a button that takes you to the next one. You earn 'credits' for each site you surf which are converted into hits for your site. There are usually other ways to acquire credits but these depend on which site you use and vary from buying credits to earning them by making referrals.

With what I have said to far you probably think they sound great, but there must be a reason why we don't do them all the time. Here are a few pros and cons of traffic exchange programs.


Pros of Traffic Exchange Program


- Bring targeted traffic to your site at no cost to you apart from your time. (Unless you chose the paid option).

- Expose you to more websites, some of which may be interesting/useful.

- Can be fairly effective for gaining referrals for online schemes, because the users of the traffic exchange program will be web users and possibly affiliate marketers.

- You don't actually have to read the page you are surfing to earn the credits. I confess I often have a traffic exchange programs running while I am doing something else and I just check back occasionally and click the button to earn the credits.


Cons of Traffic Exchange Program


- It is against many advertising programs TOS, namely Google AdSense to have a site on a traffic exchange program. In my opinion this is the single biggest con.

- The traffic may be targeted, but as I said you don't have to read the page to earn the credits so many people won't even read anything of what you have written.

- People learn to filter out the crap AND its BORING!. Meaning that on the rare occasions I surf 'properly' and read what I am browsing, I cannot help but be sickened by all the crap and spammy worthless pages that are floating around on these programs. This normally results in me switching off and just mindlessly clicking the button. If you want to know what its like to be a robot performing mindless repetitive takes you will love traffic exchanges.

- The presence of so many worthless sites shows that lots of the people using them are worthless as well lol. i.e. they couldn’t build a site of value if they tried so do you really want them to be your referral?

- Some of the sites are 'dodgy' and do who knows what to your computer. Many of the sites I have surfed using these programs have made my computer go REALLY slow for a while and do other nasty things to it, I have reported the sites that did this but there are still a lot out there, so beware.