From the simple avenue for expressing oneself, blogging has gone a long way over the years. Now, blogging is being considered as one of the effective tools in promoting a business as well as in generating money through advertisements.

However, with the millions of people around the globe maintaining their blogs, it is quite a challenge to make yours stand out and get noticed by the chance readers, advertisers and search engines. If you want to make a good amount of money from blogging, here are the ten most basic things that you must bear in mind:

Choose your niche. There is a wide array of topics that you could write about in your blog—from serious topics such as politics, economy, social issues, health, environment, sports, music, fashion, movies, cuisines, hobbies, or more personal ones like relationships, family life, the daily grinds at work at school or at home, in short anything that you can think of! However, it is very important to choose only a topic that you are most interested and knowledgeable of, as your knowledge will be reflected in your writings.  First, ask yourself: What specific topic am I most interested in? It is important to narrow down your choices. You may want to write about health for example, but certainly you cannot cover everything about health, so it is important to choose a specific health issue, obesity and weight management perhaps, from there you can think of almost a hundred topics about obesity and weight management to write about. In short, choose you niche and stick to it.

Buy a domain. Although it may cost you some money, buying your own domain will enable your site to be easily picked up by search engines. And also, you do not have to worry because most domain sites are being sold at much affordable prices.  You can buy a domain name for as little as $10.00.  You will need to purchase your own name for example if your name is Annetta Powell it should be annettapowell.com or annettapowellonline.com.  The key is to brand you on your blog.  To purchase a domain for less than $10.00 go to http://www.godaddy.com/search/domains.aspx?isc=IAPdom26 .

Write well. The greatest factor that can make an occasional reader a regular visitor is the well-written, entertaining, informative and helpful articles that can be found on your web blog.  Remember, majority of the people are using the internet in order to find relevant information about their areas of interest, if you can supply just that, there is a great possibly for these chance readers to be your loyal followers and they might even recommend your site to others. When it comes to length, the ideal blog post is about 500 to 700 in words.

Allow subscribers. To secure readership, it would also be wise to include a widget that allows the visitors to subscribe to your blog. This way, you can send them regular updates and perhaps newsletters. It is imperative that you build a list to market back to your subscribers so that you can generate a cash flow.  In order for you to generate a cash flow you will need to purchase a software that allows you to store your contacts from your blog.  The software I use is from GetResponse and it’s a awesome tool to have go to: http://www.getresponse.com/index/annettapowell for more information.

Keep your blog updated. By frequently updating and posting entries on your web blog you are increasing the chance for your site to be included in the search engine results, such as Google and Yahoo!. The more your articles appear in search engines, the more likely that they will be visited by the internet users and when your site is being frequently visited, the more likely that advertisers will be interested to place ads on your website!

Keep a simple format and layout. A simple, fuss-free layout, will enable the readers to focus on your articles. Avoid too bright colors and unnecessary or repetitive animations. Although it is important to place ads on your site as it can generate money every time it get hit by your visitors, cramming too much ads may also annoy the reader and may all at once lose interest in reading your posts, so it is important to strike a balance when it comes to placing ads on your blog site.

Respond to comments. Always make it a point to respond politely to the comments from your visitors. Whether positive or negative responding to comments, send a message to your readers that you value their opinion.

Market your blog. What can be more frustrating than maintaining a good blog that nobody is able to read? This commonly happens due to poor marketing. Aside from maintaining a good blog, it is equally important to learn how to market it. One way of marketing your blog is by using key words in your header and within your blog post. By regularly using keywords you are increasing the chance for your blog to appear in search engine results, such as Google and Yahoo! You can also sign up at social networking sites like as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace to promote your web blog.

Comment on other's blog. Visit as many blogs of the same niche as possible and take time to leave comments on each blog post. This way, you are attracting the blogger as well as his/her readers to visit your page as well. Always include the URL address of your blog when you leave a comment on someone else’s page so that readers can easily click on your website.

Join forums. Do not be shy and be an active member of various forums. By posting intelligent comments on forum discussions, you are actually attracting the forum members to visit your blog, like I said earlier, always include the URL address of your blog when you leave a comment in forum discussion.

For additional information on how to make money through blogging, please visit http://annettapowellonline.com.

Yours sincerely,

Annetta Powell

Your Professional Success Coach