Internet Marketing 101 - Blogging

How to Set Up a Blog and Start Making Money Online

Are you overwhelmed by the online money making business? It's ok! Most people are and it's not uncommon to be at a total loss as to where to begin. I know! I have been there!

One of the biggest challenges is finding someone willing to help. Most online marketers keep their secrets closely guarded but I am here to help you. There are potentially several billion buyers out there and estimates of about 150,000 online marketers. There is definitely room for every one.

If you are just starting out, you probably don't know how to go about setting up an online business.

I know that you have lots of questions:

• Do I need a website?
• Do I buy one or build my own?
• How do I build my own?
• What do I put on my site?
• How do I find a niche market?
• What is a niche market?
• How do I sell stuff?
• How do I set up adsense?
• What is adsense?
• What is adwords?
• What tools do I need?
• How do I generate traffic (visitors) to my site?
• What's the secret behind making money?

The list goes on and on. Boy, do I remember the paralysis of analysis!

The point is most of you want to know where and how to start an online money making venture. The trouble is that all the online marketers are only too happy to tell you what to do... as long as you buy the product(s) that they offer. A guaranteed way to get rich! You have heard this enough I'm sure. But who do you trust?

I know you are itching to get started so.....Let's get down to the basics!! Before you start spending money left and right, forget about websites, forget affiliate marketing, forget adwords, forget MLM and JV's, forget everything and start from scratch.

Let's start off with Google Adsense...

Blogging is the cheapest and fastest way to get started making money online. Here's why...

• You can set up a blog for free.
• Google will provide advertisements for your blog for free.
• You will earn an immediate commission from Google each time some one clicks an advertisement on your blog.
• Once you get your blog up and running you can diversify with affiliate marketing and other methods of making money.
• A blog is very simple to manage.
• The new Blogger (just out of Beta) program (owned by Google) is a beginners dream as a complete computer illiterate can set up a blog just following the onscreen directions.
• Once you have a blog you will then learn how to market it - get traffic to your site.
• When you have learned how to do this you can transfer this knowledge to websites and other online ventures.
• A blog will teach you the basics and you can learn without spending gobs of cash in the process.

How cool is that??

I'm sure you have visited sites with screenshots of people who are making gobs of money everyday day from adsense. Are they lying about their income from these sites? No they aren't. They earn what they say but it's entirely possible that they are not telling you the entire story.

There are several different ways to make money with Google Adsense but let's take a look at the two most common ways.

1. Using Adwords or other paid advertising to generate traffic to your Adsense sites and hence generating Adsense clicks.
2. Getting free traffic using SEO techniques and harnessing the power of multiple Blogs to generate Adsense revenue.

LET'S GET STARTED.....

The Secret Behind the Claims of Internet Marketer's Profit

This is what most of the Internet Marketer's don't tell you.

A lot of the screenshots that Internet Marketer's show on their sites is just the money they brought in.....GROSS PROFIT. They don;t reveal how much they have spent to earn that income. Sure, they may make $5,000-$20,000 a day but if they are using adwords to generate their traffic then they most likely spent several hundred (or even thousands) a day advertising, as well.

This doesn't mean that they aren't making a profit. They are definitely making a profit (a fairly nice one I can only assume ) or they wouldn't continue in the business.

They do this in order to make you believe that the product they are selling will help you generate outrageous profits each day. If they were to tell the complete and unbiased truth, they would tell you that it might generate SALES in X amount of dollars a day - but not clear PROFITS.

How to use FREE TRAFFIC

This is the single best way for a beginner to start out. You simply need to build a blog on a particular niche (topic), create good quality content for it, have Google index and rank your page high for your keyword (topic) and sit back as Google sends hordes of visitors to your site. Finally, count your money from all the Adsense clicks. Right? Well, that's not the whole picture.

This is the basic idea but what they don't tell you is in order to make serious money at this you will need to create hundreds or even thousands of blogs. Yes, you heard me right.

Your main blogs will be good pages addressing the needs of your visitors and suitable for marketing products. Most blogs however, will be set up to simply generate Adsense clicks. The articles will be unique but crappy and visitors that end up on these blogs will quickly leave - hopefully by clicking an ad that will take them to where they were trying to go in the first place.

This is called spam blogging and as unethical as it seems, it is how you make a lot of money with Adsense. No one talks about this aspect of making adsense profits. No one wants to admit that they use this tactic and yet this is the only way to generate a lot of money with Adsense with out spending money to get traffic.

This may surprise you but this is exactly the system I recommend to all beginners. It's the cheapest way to start earning cash, it will teach you all the main aspects of Internet marketing and you can start immediately. The question you need to ask yourself is....is ethics or making money going to be your top priority.

Have you decided?

Ok, Let's Dig In....

To begin, we will keep it fairly simple. In future posts I will explain more and more techniques as we advance through this process. For now your main objective is to get a few blogs set up

Go to Blogger.com and set up your account. Once you have this setup we can begin setting up your very first blog. HOw exciting is this??! You are taking your very first step to making money online!!

Now.....

Before creating your blog you will have to determine your topic. This is called a niche. I'm sure, if you have been studying internet marketing at all that you have heard this commandment many, many times already. There is a lot to learn about finding the right niche for you but for now just pick a topic you like. Let's learn how to set up a blog before we worry about what kind of blog will make money.

Ok....Ready??

In blogger, select "Create Account".

Select a name. Try and use your keyword in the name and the blog address. (Use Capitals in your name but only lower-case in blog address.)

Example: I want to call my blog "Internet Marketing Guru Explains It All" using the following address "http://internetmarketingguru.blogspot.com". When I checked the availability I was told this address was already taken.

So next I tried;
"http://internetmarketing-guru.blogspot.com" - see the dash? This is a very useful way to still use your main keyword by adding a dash between them. Unfortunately, this address is also taken.

Next I try this;

"http://internet-marketinggur.blogspot.com" - SUCCESS! This address is available and I am still able to use my keyword in the address and my title which is "Internet Marketing Guru Explains It All".

Please Note: The more popular the niche/keyword is the harder it will be to acquire an address for your keyword.

IMPORTANT NOTE: It is very, very important to use your keyword in your Blog's Title and Address. This will greatly improve your search engine rankings and indexing. I could write several blogs on this one topic alone but I'm not going to overwhelm you with it right now. I will address it at a later date! In the meantime, don't worry about it. We will cover it in due time. Focus on this tutorial for right now.

Now.....Fill in the word verification and hit continue.

Note: The reason for the word verification is to stop automated programs from setting up thousands of blogs. Basically it is there to stop you from doing what I am going to show you how to do anyway.

Another Note: With the new updates that Blogger.com has recently implemented, you should only be creating 3-4 blogs per account. Do not use the same keywords in each blog. ie. Don't create related blogs in each account. If you want ten blogs targeted to 1 niche then put each blog on a separate account.

Now let's select your blog template.....

Once you get your feet under you, you can experiment with all the different templates available but for now just choose the Minima template so it will be easier to follow along with me. (Blogger.com automatically defaults to this template) I have found this to be the most professional looking template and I use it frequently. You are reading this post on a Minima template. It is also perfectly optimized for SEO without having to tweak it.

Hit continue to select the Minima Template.

Congratulations! You should now see...."Your Blog has been created".

Simple, huh? That's all there is to it.

Hit "Start Posting" and we will begin the next step.

Now before you actually start posting, let's go into "Settings" and make a few customizations.

Fill in your description. Make sure you use your keyword at least once and preferably twice in your description.

Use mine for example.....

See mine up top? It reads...

"Internet Marketing for Beginners|Internet Marketing Techniques|Make Money Online|Affiliate Marketing|How to Make Money with Blogs"

Here, I have used my main Keyword(s) "Internet Marketing" and I have also used secondary keywords "affiliate marketing", "blogs" and "Make Money Online". I used the pipe sign between them to eliminate words that the search engine doesn't use. You can make the pipe line by holding down your shift key and the key above your right hand "enter" key. It actually looks like a vertical dash line on the key itself.

After you enter your description, scroll down the page and hit "Save Settings". Don't change any of the yes/no settings. Leave them on default.

Next, select the "Publishing" tab.

You will not do anything on this page but I wanted you to see it and become familiar with it.

Next, select the "Formatting" tab.

Change "Show" to 1 posts on the main page. (Default is 7)

Now, select your time zone.

Set "Show Link Field" to Yes.

Leave everything else as is and hit "Save Settings".

Next, select the "Comments" tab.

Select "Show" for Backlinks.

Scroll down and select "Yes" for Pop up Window.

Scroll down and select "Yes" for Word Verification.

Enter your email for comment notification. Double check your email address to make sure you have entered it correctly.

Now hit "Save Settings", and leave the rest of the options on default.

Next, select the "Archiving" tab.

Make sure the frequency is set to "Monthly" and the "Enable Post Pages?" is set to "Yes".

Now hit "Save Settings"

Select "Posting" and you are now ready for your first post.

You will notice that you have a Title Field, a Link Field, and a big box where you will type in your post.

It is VERY important that each and every title you use has your keyword in the Title. (Again, this relates to SEO)

In the link field you always want to type in your blog address so that the post links back to your blog (your home page).

My link is typed as follows; http://internet-marketingguru.blogspot.com/ - this is the URL of my homepage.

Replace internet-marketingguru with your own unique address.

My first post is mainly a "Welcome" post but you will notice that I mention my keywords at least twice. This is very important!

It begins like this....

Welcome to Internet Marketing Guru's Blog! This site will provide tips and techniques for beginning bloggers and affiliate marketers in order to make money online. If you have questions not covered here or wish to have a specific topic covered, please feel free to email your question to cayjen@comporium.net

Make your first post the same way. Use your keywords a couple of times and then hit "Publish".

Then hit "View Blog"

Congratulations!!! You are now a certified blogger. Simple wasn't it?

Now you can customize your blog. You will notice that your title is a hypertext link pointing to your site. On the right hand side of the page is a section called "Blog Archive" and below that is an "About Me" section.

You can add and remove elements to your blog by selecting "Customize" from the top right corner of your screen. See it??

I am going to remove the "About Me" section and add a new section for Adsense. Always leave the "Blog Archives" so that visitors can find your previous posts.

Select "Customize"

Click the edit link on the "About Me" box. I am going to select the "Remove Page Element" option to get rid of this but if you want to keep the "About Me" section just fill in the info boxes and click "Save Changes".

Let's Add a Page Element. From the main customization screen click the link that says "Add a Page Element" (Use the right hand column box - not the one on the bottom of the page.)

You will get a pop-up screen with a lot of Page Elements listed on it.

Let's add Adsense to our blogs. Click the Adsense "Add to Blog" button. If you don't have an Adsense account follow the instructions to get one. You will get a publisher ID from Google that will enable you to post adsense ads on your blog. Once you have this pick a Format and use the Blend Template option regarding colors. (it's the default).

IMPORTANT NOTE: As of February 2008, Google requires all blogs using Adsense to post a Privacy Policy on their blogs. Just go to any website and scroll down to the bottom of the page. You should see a link there entitled "Privacy Policy". Now copy and paste into a Word document, edit to fit your needs and to personalize it and add it to your blog if you will be using Adsense and I assume that you will be since you are interested in making money online.

Click "Save Changes" and you will notice that an Adsense box has been added to your right hand column at the top.

Click "View Blog" and see the results.

REMEMBER... It may take a day or so for Google to recognize your content and place relevant ads on your site. At first you may only see public service ads until Google figures out your keywords. Just be patient, they will come. Having said that, I was given ads related to Blogs/Make Money immediately and you may have got appropriate ads as well if you followed my instructions. Why? Remember I told you to use your keywords several times in setting up your blog. I did this so that Google will have no problem figuring out what your blog is about.

Ok...that's enough for this training. I'm sure your head is probably swimming with enthusiasm and ideas. But first....your homework assignment!

I want you to sit down and write one decent article about your keyword. Later we will get into how to get unique content without writing your own and even how to hire a "Ghost Writer" at very reasonable rates but for now you will have to bite the bullet and do a little thinking and typing.

P.S. Don't be afraid to experiment with your blog. Go ahead and add or delete some elements. Feel free to play around with your blog and learn how to use the Page Elements feature. Just don;t delete your blog!

Have fun, experiment and do your homework!!

~ Melanie, the Internet Marketing Guru

Please Note: There have been many changes with Blogger. Although most of the instructionsabove are still applicable, I just wanted to make you aware that there have been some changes made to Blogger.com. Instead of re-writing this entire blog, I have made some notes throughout that brings everything up to date. If I have missed anything or you find something that just doesn't mesh, please let me know and I will fix it. Thanks and if at anytime you don't understand something please leave a comment.