I’ve had domains that I have had for more than one renewal and still weren’t being used, just sitting collect that virtual dust.

I think I will find time but the more I collect the less time I have for them but it sucked not earning from them so it was a bit of a sore spot until Google Adsense for Domains.

I am not alone at all when it comes to collecting domains that don’t get used. Maybe you are one of those who seems to collect a new domain every time a good name pops in your head well now you too can be earning some extra money with those domains you have parked.

First Things First

You have to be accepted into the Google Adsense program before you can make money with Adsense for Domains and not all sites are accepted. So, rather be one that’s disappointed at being rejected you need to be sure the site you tell Google is your site is ready.

Don’t put crap on your site and then ads everywhere so that it looks spammy because that is spammy and you’ll get rejected. Take the time to put quality content on your site that’s not duplicate content either and leave those ads off until you’ve been accepted by Google Adsense.

Personally GoDaddy.com is the only place I need to go to get domains. They have earned that right with me as they have been there when I needed help, always pleasant and their domains are affordable.

What you will need to do is change the Domain Name Servers or DNS to those given to you by Google when you are accepted and go to the Domain section. I know it can be a little tense getting these things done so here is a helpful video you can follow along with.

Now you see how easy it is what are you waiting for. Be sure to come back and let me know how you did and happy Adsense earnings.

I dreamed of being able to work from home for years, long before becoming a work at home blogger was ever a possibility.

The Long Daily Commute, NOT

Like I said it has been a dream to work from home and to set my own work schedule. I love getting up long before dawn and have my work day done by noon. So for me it’s not about being able to sleep in. Life’s too short to waste it in bed, well sleeping anyways.

I love the idea that my commute is short and doesn’t involve leaving the house. I’d say it’s about a 10 second commute to my work from home office. Maybe a few minutes because I like to stop off and pick up a coffee on my commute, but it’s not all the far from the kitchen to my office.

Time To Dump All The Spam In My Email Accounts

I like using the first hour on the job to clean up my email accounts. I don’t get a lot of email spam these days as my email software helps me there but there are still some that get through. This I can do while still waking up so it’s the first task of the day, while sucking back a nice hot coffee.

Once I’ve gotten rid of the spam I can start going through emails for more important things. Now I get to see who has a guest post ready and who is requesting to send a guest post. It sure helps with my article marketing efforts.

Review Guest Blog Posts In Email

I save each of the guest post from my email to a temp folder so that I have them all in one place before I check to be sure each person has followed the rules and guidelines for getting articles published on my blogs.

Not all posts meet my expectations so this is when I send the author an email explaining where they messed things up and give them the opportunity to correct things. Of course there are times that articles are spam and they just get rejected and the author doesn’t get a second chance.

On an average day I usually go through at least two cups of java by this point and take a break for breakfast or a snack.

Guests Post Are Then Scheduled For Publishing

I don’t always publish the articles I get immediately. Sometimes I get 3 or 4 articles for the same blog and like to schedule them to appear every day or two. What this means to me is I have an opportunity to go fishing for the day. Gotta make hay while the sun shines.

Scheduling posts is one of the options I really love when using WordPress.

Note: I use Windows Live Writer to write my blog posts and can publish them right from my desktop when they are ready, or I can schedule them. They are then uploaded to the server and wait until it’s time to publish, even when I’m not here.

Articles Always Need To Be Keyword Focused

I see so many people today who claim to be article marketers but when I see their content they have spun the keywords out of it. This makes it tough for search engines to determine the niche focus and they lose potential traffic and earnings.

As a work from home article marketer it’s so important to publish keyword focused articles and to vary the link text used for backlinks.

I Use Article Directories To Publish My Articles

Article directories are a great place to publish your keyworded articles but don’t waste your time publishing to hundreds, just pick those with the top pagerank and forget about the others.

When I am publishing to article directories I always publish to EzineArticles.com before any others. The reason behind this is that they are the best and they also are the toughest directory to get your content published at.

I write articles, buy articles and have articles written for me. I also take these articles and spin them into many other articles. I always send off the original to EzineArticles first and wait for approval before publishing to other top pagerank directories.

Being The First To Comment On Relevant Blogs

Blog commenting is a big part of my work from home business because it brings a lot of traffic that is targeted my way. I do this because it works but I have rules I follow that make it work for me.

First I never ever spam, period. If I can’t come up with a good comment I don’t do it. I will work on something else and go back later, but I never leave useless comments.

What I do is to leave a comment that adds more value to the article or blog post. If a person is still pretty green in their niche it’s a good thing to read the post and then ask a valid question, get a discussion going.

Note: This does work best if you can be the first to leave a comment. I use a feed reader so I can see at a glance which blogs have new posts. The fact that I’m an early riser sometimes works in my favour when commenting.

I Hire Writers To Create Extra Content

Even though I get a lot of guest bloggers sending content my way the fact I have more than a dozen blogs means I don’t always have the amount of content I want or need. To handle these situations I like to hire a writer or two who can produce great content for me.

I don’t want to spend a lot of money having articles written for me so for my purposes I have found that Iwriter.com works great and content is very affordable and unique as each article is checked through CopyScape.com to check uniqueness.

Then I take these articles and either publish them as is or use The Best Spinner to create multiple unique articles I can publish around the web with my links in them.

A Strong Focus on My Rank Building

I don’t always remember who shared what but someone shared a site with me called BuildMyRank.com where I can pay to have articles I’ve either written or hire someone to write published on blogs with PR1 or higher. My articles can have a link for every 150 words so I have no problem with 2 links for each article, which point to my money pages.

Okay it’s time I took a break so that’s it for today. Hope it has been of use to you and I would appreciate a comment. Heck you could even request a guest post here.

With all the competition in niches today it’s even more important to have fresh unique content and not really an option for those in it for the money.

Each of your articles could have the potential to earn money for your work from home online business but it’s not likely to happen by accident. There are too many others in the same niche who have done their homework and know how to make money.

3 Things I Do To Come Up With Fresh Content

1. Use A Notepad To Write Down Ideas

Isn’t it annoying to have a great idea pop into your head only to forget it before you can write it down. It happens to me all the time and even more the older I get. Today, because I work at home to make money online I can’t afford to let ideas slip away.

So, now I tend to bring something to write on, like a pen and small pad, I can fit in my back pocket. Then when I have a good idea I just need to remember the notepad in my pocket. Oh yeah, it’s that bad.

2. Get Hold of Niche Focused Magazines

When I am out shopping with my wife, something I don’t care to do, but for love I do. Anyways, when I am there and bored stiff I like to browse the magazine section for ideas to write about. I can get a dozen or so in the time it takes my wife to finish shopping.

Now I ask family and friends to get me magazines for my birthday and for Christmas. They are worth so much more than socks and underwear anyways.

Note: I don’t steal their content, just their ideas and then I make them my own by rewriting and mixing things up a bit. I end up with unique content that’s keyword focused.

3. Visit Forums Relevant To Your Niche

Forums in my niches are full of knowledgeable people that have a similar focus as myself making forums ideal places to come up with fresh new ideas for my blogs. Just like magazines I can scan for unique ideas.

However the difference between magazines and forums is that in the forums you can take part and even ask questions. Great for getting ideas clear in my head. But another difference between the two is that forums can be very addictive.

My suggestion is that you put work first. Go to the forum but don’t hang around to chat too much, stick to business and leave the chatting for the hours after your day’s work is complete. I speak for experience and may lost hours I should have been working my work from home business.

This is even more important if you have multiple sites in a variety of niches. Time really becomes a huge factor, don’t waste it my friend.

Don’t get caught up in the duplicate content battle going one as Google really does not like it much at all and it’s not really going to help your site all the much. Instead use a great tool like The Best Spinner. It’s my favourite article spinner and helps me spin my articles into multiple articles, just like this one, which I created for 5 different domains.

I use affiliate products, which are products owned by others who are willing to let me sell their products for then for a percentage of the sale or a commission. This give so many of us the option to earn money with other people’s products.

Affiliate Products To Promote

Today you’ll find affiliate marketing has limitless potential as there are so many products and services one can choose from. If you were to start promoting and selling a new product every day, say in the home gardening niche and you would never sell all the available affiliate products in just that one niche.

Home gardening is one of my favourite hobbies and interests today. It something we can do, save money on the grocery bill, eat better and actually make money talking about it. However this particular niche is so big that there are many sub niches within the main gardening niche. For this reason you will see many affiliate programs available and it’s the same for a lot of markets, niches and even sub-niches.

Digital Affiliate Products

I use the Clickbank marketplace to find and promote gardening related digital products called ebooks, which are books in digital form so you can read them on your laptop, computer or ipad or Kindle.

Clickbank isn’t the only game in town for digital products like ebooks, graphics and software you can also checkout PayDotCom.com and eJunkie.com. As you can see not even all the ebooks are listed in the same affiliate program.

It was at Clickbank that I found Rosalind Gardner’s Super Affiliate Handbook and my online marketing life changed. She’s probably about the best source to learn about affiliate marketing and making money working from home.

Physical Affiliate Products

However if it’s more than digital products you’re looking for on the Internet not to worry as there are more affiliate networks than you’ll ever need. This is perfect for my work from home business as I have a variety of markets or niches I work in.

Sticking with my idea about gardening related products I use more than one network to make money as they don’t all carry the same products or services.

Some of the affiliate networks I use to promote gardening related products are:

• Amazon Associates
• Commission Junction
• LinkShare Affiliate Network
• ShareASale
• PepperJam Network

Those are just a few affiliate networks I use and they carry a lot more than just garden related affiliate programs. I use a lot of the same affiliate networks for my other niches like fishing and acoustic guitar.

I really doesn’t matter what you niche is there will be an affiliate program you could make money with, unless you pick a niche that is so out there that there is little to choose from but for the normal things there are often multiple programs to choose from.

When you’re starting out with affiliate marketing you will find that some affiliate networks are hard to please when joining. Make sure your site is targeted to your niche and has quality as well as unique content and you should find your site accepted more readily.

Blogging today isn’t the web log of years ago. Blogs are used today for sharing experiences with others through storytelling and pictures. Many monetize their blogs as well because there is so much potential in blogging.

Using my self as an example. I have about a dozen blogs on the go at any one time. It’s great because I can have a blog in each of the niches I enjoy. I make money blogging about fishing, gardening and even blogging about how to work from home and make money online. I try to have one blog for each hobby I spend money on, which for me is all of them.

There are many ways you can make money blogging and I have written a few ways I use myself.

Adsense Advertising – Google’s Adsense program is an excellent way to make some extra money. It just takes some quality content to get started. People visiting your blog will see your Google Adsense ads, which should be set to contextual, and may see something worth clicking and you earn a little money.

I even have domains I am not using for anything right now and have them pointed toward Google and make Adsense money from those sites. I don’t even have content on those sites, Google takes care of it all.

Google Adsense is a good reason to have quality niche focused content as you will make more money from targeted traffic.

Review Products On Your Blog – I make the most income from affiliate marketing or selling products and services that are not my own. It’s great. I write product reviews that are informative and helpful and when my readers take action I make more money with my work from home blog.

Some things I promote only make a little bit of money but some other things earn me some really good income. It just depends on what I am promoting.

Text Link Ads – I joined a number of text link ad services where I listed all my websites so that advertisers can see what I have. They then request links on my site through the service and each month I earn money from those text link ads.

Paid Text Links – This is an excellent way to make money just for writing quality content people want to link to. I have link services contact me on behalf of their publishers and buy text links within my blog posts, while others contact me themselves. Either way I charge them for a year at a time and I make more income.

Sell Products That Are Yours – I have a couple of friends who work from home and sell their own products online. One friends bakes doggy treats and sells them from their website. However I write ebooks and reports that I sell through the Clickbank marketplace.

After a short time others were promoting my ebooks and reports for 60% commission and sales went up as well as my bank account.

Those are just 5 ways you can start to make money blogging. So what are you waiting for??

Knowing something and gaining from it are two completely different things as the majority of online marketing newbies have learned.

I have a few friends that tried article marketing at the same time as I started and they made nothing, even went into debt trying to make it work without any work. Glad I didn’t follow their example.

Start By Learning How To Market Articles

Both buddies who failed miserably can write circles around me but weren’t willing to learn how to write articles for successful article marketing and soon found their writing skills weren’t enough to put food on the table. It takes more than just writing.

So what does it take?

Make Your Niche Research A Priority

If you aren’t willing to research the niches you’re interested in you aren’t ready to start marketing, unless you enjoy spinning your wheels without making any income. You need to know where the money is in the niche you want to work and that takes the right keyword focus.

Find Keywords That Will Get Your Targeted Traffic

It’s pretty simple. If you can’t get target traffic to your articles and pages you aren’t going to make a lot of money, as a rule. Example: If you decide your keyword phrase is going to be ‘work from home’ you’re in for a rude awakening.

Many keywords have been tied up for years and if you don’t find keywords that aren’t tied up you will go hungry for traffic, targeted traffic that is.

I still use the top keywords but only as my secondary keywords. I have found the keywords that I can get target traffic with to make money but I am thinking ahead and using tougher keywords.

It has actually worked for a number of my blogs that I have been working for a few years. My garden site went from a couple of hundred visitors a day, mostly targeted, to over a thousand unique visitors each and every day. It works that well, but it took me more than a year to start ranking for the top keywords.

Keep Content And Hyperlinking Relevant

I keep a strong keyword focus in the articles I write so that I can publish them to article directories, once I spin them into multiple unique articles. I also keep my links relevant to the article.

I don’t like writing articles that talk about one topic while the resource box points out non relevant links. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Beware of Article Networks With Non Ranking Blogs

I gave a few article networks a try and they seemed to do the job for about a year and then they just stopped producing results. I have conducted searches using my keywords to find sites that have published my articles and found that almost all of them have no page rank at all.

After months of frustration on those networks I gave up and started looking for better networks. Then I was reading an article and learned about BuildMyRanks.com. Of course I was more than a little sceptical at the beginning, after the nightmare I’ve had with the other article networks.

The first thing that caught my attention was NO SPUN ARTICLE ALLOWED. That makes me so happy as it was the biggest problem on those other networks. I would get article daily I had rejected over and over but just keep getting a different spin copy every day.

Why in the world would I want that same article on my site over and over. DUH!!

I can write short articles to put on BuildMyRanks.com and keep my longer articles for my own blogs. This way, because I can have a link for every 150 words, I can have many more backlinks. I can even take my rather long articles and break them into two or three smaller articles with links pointing to my important pages. So cool.

Article Marketing Makes My Business Money

So in conclusion I would suggest you avoid most of the article networks out there today until you learn about the blogs your content is going to be on. Do they have pagerank?

Check out BuildMyRanks.com today and learn what power you could be getting that you won’t get on other networks. And for your article spinning needs give The Best Spinner a try, you won’t regret it and both have a trial period. BMR is a free 2 week trial while TBS is just $7 for 7 days. I was sold in just a couple of hours though.

I am just one of millions making money online today and you could be earning an income as well. All it takes is some learning and a willingness to work for your money.

Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking it’s easy and automated. Too many self proclaimed gurus have said that in past years and newbies will believe it today and still give them money. The following heading says it all…

Work From Home Ideas

Just saying work from home implies work is involved.

If you step into work from home blogging knowing that you need to learn how first and that there is work involved you’re less likely to be shocked later. Plus you will have learned the required things that make blogging work today.

The best advice I can give anyone starting out today is to run when someone claims there is no work involved.

I know people personally who have blown their entire life savings and more because they listened to fast talking sales letters with all kinds of promises of riches. Not a single one of those people made any money. They actually ended spending more and still got nowhere.

Blogging for profit doesn’t take thousands of dollars to be successful. However it does take some specific focus and doing the right things. Some of which are listed below:

Five Things You Can Do To Succeed With A Work From Home Blog

1. Purchase A Domain Name That’s Keyworded To Your Niche: Not only do you want to have your own domain but it should also be a DOT com. Why? You tell me. What comes to mind anytime someone starts telling you their domain name? Do you automatically think it’s going to be a DOT com?

Well most people do. I have tried a few extensions other than DOT com, did the same optimizing I do for all my domains and they just didn’t produce much compared to my DOT com sites. That’s all I needed to convince me.

Do proper keyword research for the niche you like so you know what keywords will make you earn and then get the main phrase in your domain name. The research you do and the domain you start with is a huge part of your success.

Today I trust all my domain purchases to GoDaddy.com and for that reason I highly recommend them to you.

2. Provide Your Visitor With What They Expect, Quality. It’s just that simple. If you don’t give me what I came to your site expecting I’m not likely to hang around. I’m a busy guy and there are plenty of other sites that will give me what I expect.

3. Keep Content Fresh. Try not saying the same thing everyone else is saying, however if you need to say it try to say it like it’s not been said before, meaning keep it unique.

4. Evergreen Content Works Great. Try writing content that will apply tomorrow, next month and even years to come so that it’s always current. The content I have that is evergreen grows in popularity over time while some that aren’t fade into nothing.

5. Your Readers Are Human. Don’t write for the search engines as those are sites I tend to leave as they don’t always read right to a human and I am considered a human.

6. Be Yourself. Not only write for humans but just be yourself. I can’t stay on a page where the author talks over my head using big words you don’t hear in normal conversation. Just imagine you are having a face to face conversation.

Bonus Work From Home Tips

Bonus Work From Home Tip #1

Non Truths Destroys Credibility. Some truths are expected to be exaggerated, like ‘How big was that fish?”. But seriously there is no room for lies on a blog that is meant to make money.

Example: You are reading this articles. I am trying to give you information that could help you make money. If you find one thing in this article that’s a non truth what does it do for the rest of this article? I would immediately lose credibility. How much will depend on the non truth and if it effects the out come.

So if I lied about my age, well maybe that can be overlooked however lying about what really works, well that reason to leave the page in my books.

Bonus Work From Home Tip #2

Do Your Best To Bring Your Reader Into The Discussion. Comments can really help your blog, as long as they are value added and not just an attempt to spam a link. So write your content so that it gets your reader involved.

Making friends can bring a lot of business your way, so be a friend.

Speaking of getting my readers involved do take the time to comment. Let me know what you think. Do you have a question or wish to add something, please do. Just know I moderate every comment so spamming doesn’t work here.

As a work from home blogger with too many blogs to write for I wish I was a talented writer, but I’m not. I have however learned to work around it using an awesome little tool called The Best Spinner. It helps me produce the quantity of articles I need.

I was paying people to write articles for me and rewriting articles over and over until The Best Spinner became part of my business. I love their rather large user generated database of synonyms. I don’t have to use my thesaurus much at all these days.

Coming up with a dozen articles a day was beginning to stress me out and I think I was paying too much to have articles written, so The Best Spinner has not only saved me tons of time but also money as I don’t pay for nearly as many articles as I was paying.

Now I can spin content that’s unique without messing up the thought process and keyword focus, however it doesn’t happen by automating the process. I pick each word or phrase replacement using The Best Spinner much quicker than I could write a new article.

The cool thing is that when I am done spinning my article it’s not just another article. I can get many articles, that remain unique, from one single article.

I started my love affair with The Best Spinner using their 7 day trial for $7 and you can as well. The Best Spinner Trial Offer

While some use The Best Spinner to spin hundreds of articles from just one article I don’t. Instead I prefer to create just a few articles that are as close to 100% unique as I can, without destroying my thought process or keywords of course and that takes a little extra planning, but is so worth it.

Some Features of The Best Spinner

• Big user generated thesaurus
• Can check article uniqueness with CopyScape.com
• Converts Spin Formats
• Multiple nested spin levels with colour coding
• One click copies spun article to clipboard
• Can rewrite entire sentences, a feature I dearly love
• Build your own word replacement favourites
• Supports multiple languages including French, Italian, German and Spanish

You can see that The Best Spinner is a perfect way to create a multitude of spun articles for your needs. So, take a few minutes and check this awesome article spinning software for yourself with The Best Spinner 7 days for just $7 trial offer.

Yes, even old hippies can make money blogging for profit like this old art to the left. That was me in my work from home office just 5 years ago.

It’s funny, kind of, how most of my friends complain about their jobs yet do nothing about it. Every one of my friends has more education than I do but think blogging for profit is way to hard. I just laugh at them and shake my head.

Now Jamie, on the other hand, a good fishing buddy, has asked me how I am doing with my blog and wanted to know how to get started himself. The thing is Jamie has never complained about his job. He just wants to be able to have extra money to pay for his hobbies, like I do.

Why You Should Choose Blogging?

I have been down the static website road and today I much prefer to blog. One big reason is that blog are really accepted by search engines, which is where I get my traffic, because most blogs are constantly being updated.

With blogging I can even use my email to send a post if I am away from home without browser access.

I can also schedule content to be published on my blog a head of time so I can be out having a great day on the water with buddies and still have content appearing on my blog. This option is a great thing when Jenny and I go on vacation.

With my blogs I can write blog posts or articles as long or short as I wish and by inserting a few key words in the right places, that match my niche of course, I earn money.

Note: When you first start your blog you will want blog posts that are very focused on just one or two keywords and for starters I usually go with no less than 500 word articles or posts. Once your site has gained ranking for your keywords you can write shorter articles as long as you keep them focused and keyworded.

Blogging Is Continual Work

Writing a blog post every so often isn’t good enough if you goal is to earn money. I like to publish at least 5 days a week. Now this doesn’t mean you have to be at it 5 days away. You just need content that appears 5 times a week.

So remember scheduling blog posts like I do on a regular basis so I don’t have to be tied to my work from home office.

I can write 5 posts in day, usually in one morning.

I pick the keywords I plan to write about first. I like to have at least two keyword phrases per post. So I would write each article with a main keyword focus and then sprinkle in my second keyword, which is usually a keyword I am working to get ranked.

Example: I might write an article about ‘make money typing’. I would of course include this phrase in my article title, first paragraph, middle of the article and again at the end of the article. I would also use the key phrase as link text for a link that leads to a relevant page.

However as part of my keyword strategy I include a secondary keyword phrase that might be ‘make money with data entry’. Doing this I will eventually start ranking for term I couldn’t rank for previously.

This is part of blogging for success and really is continual work so go with a niche you can work continually without losing interest.

Keeping Them Coming Back

You want your visitors returning over and over making this a good reason to keep blogging regularly, like I said. Posting content 5 days a week is what will do it for you, as long as you are providing quality content.

Never Go For Quantity Over Quality!!

Put the time and effort into creating content your visitors will want to read. You can use your stats to see how long your visitors are staying on your pages. If you see that the average time is only a few seconds you are doing something wrong.

Be Yourself

I like to write the same way I talk and I’m not a very educated man so I talk in a simple straightforward way. I don’t use fancy words and phrases. I prefer to just be natural and it works for me, plus I can write articles really fast.

Never Stretch The Truth

I get really annoyed when I read content that is unbelievable. I have even stepped in and questioned the honesty of others. When I visit a site looking for information and find a site that’s not being truthful make a mental note to NOT come back.

Don’t Fake It ‘til You Make It

This used to be a common saying in the MLM world but it’s not good advise when doing business. If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t pretend you do, learn what you need to first and then share what you’ve learned.

Give your readers real reasons to trust you and it is important to let them see the real and true you. When you allow your fear to keep the real you from shining through and into your content you won’t ever see the success or reach that you want to see.

The World Is Full of Scanners

People today are busy, busier than any other time in history, so make it easy for those of us who keep on the go, constantly. We want to find what we want on your page, quickly. So make your content easily scannable.

Use heading, bullets and numbering to make it easy for your visitors to find exactly what they are looking for and you will likely have a return visitor. Return visitors are great because after a few visits to your quality content they may just make a purchase.

So in conclusion, blogging takes research to find the right niche and keywords and take work to create quality content but is so worth it.

I do suggest you learn about affiliate marketing if you are looking to make good money blogging. The potential is there, all you need to do is learn how to get your share of it.

I personally recommend the Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner as she helped me reach heights I didn’t think I would ever reach. Learn affiliate marketing strategies that work and then start blogging for profit.

My first blogs were on free blogging platforms like Blogger and WordPress but I didn’t have a good experience and didn’t have the control I wanted and soon stopped blogging there. They may have improved since way back then but today I only blog on blogs I host myself.

Try Hosting Your Own Blogs

By hosting your own blog I don’t mean investing thousands to have your own server, not at all. I wouldn’t have lasted the first day if that was the case. No, what I mean is that you should purchase your own domain and have it hosted at an affordable place like HostGator.com.

Blogging Success Takes Visitors

The thing about websites and blogs is that they don’t make a lot of income for their owners when they receive no traffic. This means you need to learn how to get traffic, preferably traffic that’s targeted to your nice. There sooner the better.

I’m sure you’ve heard that if you build it they will come. Well that may happen in the movies but it’s unlikely to work in the real world without taking some action to get those visitors.

If it makes you feel any better you are not alone. At any time there are thousands of others trying to make a little extra income. The economy is sucking in most places today making it tough to make ends meet. Blogging is a great way to pick up the slack.

An example would be my gardening site which now gets more than 1000 unique visitors every single day. Until I learned how to get traffic I was not found but once I learned how to get targeted traffic I moved from being hundreds of pages deep in the search engines all the way to the first page and passed millions of others on the way, because most haven’t learned what it takes to get traffic and start ranking in the search engines.

Start With Gaining Relevant Backlinks

As I write articles aka write blog posts I immediately start a backlinking campaign to get attention to that page. The goal is to get as many backlinks pointing to each of my blog pages as I can.

The results of a good backlink campaign can be increased traffic and ranking for your pages which when done right magically turns into money.

How I Gain Backlinks

1. First I write quality content for my blog so my visitors will stay. That’s important as a first step. Why bother getting traffic if they leave immediately.
2. Your blog content must be keyword focused before starting an article marketing campaign for best results.
3. Write articles that match the keywords of your blog post and publish to article directories.
4. Make each article you publish unique. Don’t publish duplicate content.
5. Keyword the links pointing to your blog post with similar phrases but make sure you vary the link text for each article so it looks natural to search engines.
6. Guest blogging is another awesome way to gain backlinks that are powerful. Never spam or use duplicate content.
7. Blog commenting can be very powerful if you keep to relevant sites and leave value added comments. Try to be the first to comment works wonders as well.

Getting your backlinking campaign going properly will put your blog in the virtual map and you should start seeing positive results.

Note: Backlink building is not something you do and then forget it. It’s an ongoing process and needs to be continued over time.

Deep Linking To Your Internal Pages

For the longest time I only linked to my main page. That was before I understood the power of link juice. It’s like taking vitamins, they don’t do much good until you consume them. Rubbing them on the outside doesn’t usually work.

When I am including links in my articles I link to the page that a relevant blog post is on. It will have a specific page name you can link to but I also link to the main page with a phrase that matches my niche of course. So my internal page has a specific keyworded file name and I use that same keyword phrase as the link text in my article.

I really only started this six years after I started my web business and the difference it made to my sites completely blew me away, to say the least. Traffic started to increase, links were getting more clicks and my Paypal account started growing.

Using Relevant Forums To Gain Blog Traffic

Today I am far more careful when I go to a forum as I used to spend a ridiculous amount of time on forums and didn’t get nearly as much done for my business as I should have. Now I pay close attention and have goals now.

Forums are a good place to visit, make new friends and share what you know to help others or ask questions that will get other helping you. Stay focused and never spam a forum, or anything else for that matter.

Invest Your Time And Money

When I say invest your time and money I am quite serious. You likely won’t do well if you only plan to blog once a week. If you want to make money you need to invest more time than once a week. Personally I like to have blog posts every day or at least every couple of days.

This does not mean I spend all my time on the computer. Nope, instead I write a number of articles at one time, while I’m in the writing mood. Then I can schedule each post to be published at a specified time and day. Even while I’m out fishing with my buddies.

As for investing your money, well I suggested you don’t go with free hosting or even a free blog, although that’s your choice. The key to success in blogging is to keep the content coming so your visitors will become regulars. So I invest in a different domain for each niche I work.

In conclusion I would like to say that blogging is powerful when some thought is put into it before hand. It takes a lot longer to fix a problem sometimes than it is to learn how to do it correctly before you start.