Blogging For Dollars - 5 Ways to Get Paid

By Charles Boustany 

Blogging for dollars is one of those phrases that sound good. The thought that you could get paid to write comments and articles in a blog is extremely exciting. There are many ways you can make money with your blog and were going to talk about five ways you can do it in this article.

1. A common way that bloggers earn money is to put Google AdSense ads on their blog. You can add these to the header or footer and have them automatically show up in each blog post. You can also place them in the sidebar and they will make it in every blog article too.

Google owns Blogger and they make it very easy to add to the Blogger.com platform. WordPress offers excellent plug-ins to easily install Google AdSense ads.

If you are not an approved affiliate you will need to join the program first. It's worth the effort to get approved for because this is easy money and can add up to several hundred dollars or even thousands of dollars a month in income to you.

2. Another common blogging for dollars approach is to join affiliate programs and place banners on your website. The nice thing about the banners is they contain your affiliate ID number.

Every time someone makes a purchase you earn a commission. There are millions of affiliate programs online so finding something that relates to the theme of your blog is easy to do.

3. There are bloggers earning six and seven-figure incomes a year with their blogs. When you achieve this level you are selling advertising to corporations or other Internet marketers with large advertising budgets.

At this point the majority of your time is spent on creating useful content and keeping your traffic numbers up to justify the fees your advertisers are paying you.

4. Text link advertising is done by smaller bloggers. This is pretty easy money because the advertisers pay you to place their text link on your sidebar.

5. Some bloggers will insert affiliate links into the text of the body of the blog article they are writing. This is a natural way to drive traffic to your affiliate sales pages because as people are reading the blog article they will automatically click on the link in front of them.

There certainly are more blogging for dollar tips we could add to this article. However this is five ways that bloggers commonly get paid every day for maintaining a quality blog with good traffic to it.

Charles C. Boustany invites you to visit his affiliate marketing website -http://www.godoitrightnow.com/ where you will find  more ideas and resources needed to start your own online money making business, using  Blogging Strategies without having your own product or website. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charles_Boustany

Start a Blog Or Build a Website? Which is a Better Way to Start an Online Business?

By Julie Onofrio 

There are two ways to create an online business. You can either create a blog and use it as a content management system or you can build a full website. Which is better? It depends on your goals.

A blog is really just a software system. It has been equated with a personal journal but people are now using blogs to create online businesses. Wordpress is my favorite blogging system because you can set it up and optimize it just like a website. The best plugins to use are the xml sitemap and the SEO pack along with one of the spam filters. These plugins will give your blog/website the best chance of getting found by the search engines.

The one problem with blogs in general is that most of the layouts are very busy with too much information for a reader. The general way a person reads a webpage is from left to right and the left column is usually a nav bar in most websites because people are used to reading this way. If you are going to start a blog find a 2 column template and one that also does not go full width of the window to control where the readers eyes fall and want to move to naturally.

When you build a basic website with a tool like Site Build it!'s blockbuilder it will automatically set up the nav bar on the left and when you choose to center the page, your readers will be more interested in your content and ads or promotions.

I do both blogging and building sites with Site Build it! and SBI! gets me much better results even if I set up the blog just like the optimized pages on SBI! If you aren't familiar with Site Build it! Site build it! is a website and business development system. You can find out more on my website below.

Julie Onofrio a massage therapist turned infopreneur (website geek) specializes in creating optimized sites using Site Build it and has learned most everything about being successful online from their website and business building system that includes an xml sitemap and seo analyzer so your pages will be the best that they can be. You can find out more on her website - http://www.workless-playmore.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Julie_Onofrio

Ideas For Your Creative New Blog Header

By Cassandra Germsheid 

Creating a header for your blog is one of the best ways to make it unique and stand out from the crowd. When you're trying to come up with an idea for your new header, you may be drawing a blank. I've got a few ideas that will help kickstart those creative gears in your head.

Just Text - I've seen a lot of great blog headers that are simply text. Using typography to make your blog stand out is gutsy but can result in a beautiful header. Find a snazzy font - there are tons of free fonts available on the web to download - and use your favorite image editing program to create a cool graphic with your blog title.

Add some text effects to make it anything but generic. You can even make it look like it's 3D, shiny, or glowing. Try using different colors for certain letters, add a copy of the text flipped upside down to create a mirror effect, or create text using other images. There are lots of ways to get creative with text.

Photography - Some headers are nothing but a photo. A scenic landscape, a city skyline, or a row of cute babies smiling for the camera can make a memorable image for your blog readers.

If you want to get even more creative, design multiple headers and have them rotate each time the page is refreshed. This is a great idea for people with photoblogs who like to showcase their own work.

Minimal - If you have a busy theme or you want to direct the focus on something in particular, you may want to choose a header that doesn't attract a lot of attention.

A simple blog title may suffice, or a small logo. This works well for blogs that already have a brand that is recognizable.

Grunge - There are lots of grunge images and textures that you can download for free. Grab a few, splice them together, and create your own unique header with them.

While you're looking for some grunge textures, find some grunge fonts to go with it. A dark grunge background with a white grungy text over top would look great on a personal blog.

Color - Using bright, vibrant colors for your header is extremely eye-catching. It could be something really abstract (in which case many examples can be found on free stock photography and images sites) or you can use a mixture of images that add a lot of color contrast.

In one blog header I designed, I took one image of an apple, duplicated it twice, and changed the color of the second two images resulting in a row of three colorful apples. It was simple and eye-catching at the same time and the same idea could be implemented for any niche blog using different images.

If you can't decide on one idea, why not try more than one? Some blogs are known to change their headers regularly. In some cases this could confuse your readers, but if done properly, it could end up being something that makes your blog unique. Your readers will expect the change and look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

Cassandra Germsheid is the owner of http://mamasontheweb.com where she helps moms and dads earn money online. Visit her site to learn more about how to make your blog unique. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cassandra_Germsheid