There are a couple of reasons to blog and a couple of types of blogs.
You can do a 'diary style' blog - write about your day, your interests, etc.
You can choose a topic, a theme - something you know well and can write many articles about, or even a topic you know little about but are good at researching.
The third type of blog is a random page of thoughts.
I have done all three of these and will show you links to them all.
Let me explain:
I used to have a typical livejournal blog. The only people permitted to read it were my trusted friends. I wouldn't have an open-ended type blog about my personal life, even to make money. If you're already doing a diary type blog anyway, it's so easy to monetize it. I can show you how to spruce it up with all kinds of gadgets, designs and different things, to look professional. I was stunned how user-friendly Blogger has become, enabling even the smallest tech wizard to set up a neat, professional-looking blog.
One of my children has special needs, and I realized that there is a need for a well-written blog about parenting special needs children. In addition, I learned about affiliate marketing thanks to my good friend Ellen at www.Help Ellen.com. That gave me a fantastic idea: to combine my writing talent and will to help people by reviewing products and items that have helped me manage my special needs child. Thus www.autism-parenting.com was born. Take a look at that site. It has a bunch of interesting elements on it and is aesthetically pleasing. It has 6000 views to date and provides me with a therapeutic way to talk about my special needs child and make a little money on the side.
However, since I haven't really started reviewing products there, for some reason it hasn't been a great moneymaker. Marketing a blog is the hardest part of being successful at a blog, and I havenn't had much time to market it.
Then I had another idea; to share my favorite family recipes with my friends and the general kosher foodie. I set up Kosherdelish.blogspot.com.To my shock, on its first day it generated 400+ views and I made as much money in Google Ads in one day as I made the entire last month on the autism parenting site. Apparently, food blogs are a big hit. So this is the second type of blog.
An example of the third type of blog is one that I set up during Hurricane Sandy. This was before the hurricane became really damaging; I set it up on the day of the storm when people were still jokingn around about it and sending each other inane text forwards. I hit a brainstorm: Why don't I collect all the jokes on one page and monetize it? It took me 10 minutes to set up Hurricane Sandyjokes.blogspot.com.. I forwarded the link to a well known frum comedian on twitter and I had 100s of hits in one day. So this is an idea of combining something into blog page, monetizing it, and capitalizing on its popularity, even temporarily.
You can do such a type of blog on book reviews, magazine reviews, anyting that can generate an audience. Another brilliant example of such a blog I found at www.RebbeClips.com This person apparently trawls youtube for video clips of Chassidic events and embeds them. It's so simple and generates hits from people who want a clearinghouse of clips instead of combing through youtube. This great idea can be utilized by anyone - you can create a blog of music videos, children's videos - ANYTHING! The possibilities are endless, and blogger is so user friendly.
So your first 'homework' assignment is to decide what kind of blog you want. Do you want a journal type blog? Do you want to choose a theme, a topic, with relevant products you can review from different affiliates? Do you want your blog to be a collection area of different media you liked? If you're already a blogger, consider that any random page of stuff that you throw together can potentially be a moneymaker - albeit small - with the right ads and marketing.
Blogging is not a massive moneymaker, unless it's your sole occupation and you're really good at it. Sometimes a really good blog just doesn't seem to bring in the cash. Sometimes it's total random luck, as I saw today with the recipe blog, which didn't even have much content yet, but drew in a lot of readers who clicked through on the google ads. But it's fun, it has potential, and it's not hard.
So decide what kind of blog you want to create, and I'll walk you through it step by step: creating it, setting it up, monetizing it, making it look professional, marketing it, and maintaining it. I will explain the elements that made my other 2 blogs look so pretty, and I will also set up a dummy blog along the way so I can post pictures of every step. No matter how little technical and technological knowledge you have, it's doable.
Feel free to leave any questions or comments.
