Set up a blog and earn money from it!

If you're wondering how to set up a blog, you've got to start to think hard about what to base your blog about, and whether or not your passionate enough, and committed to be able to post frequently. This is your first step. Once you have thought of something, think of a good name relevant to what the blog may be. Make sure it sounds genuine, and not as if it's a scam website, for example, if you want to help people earn extra income the same way as me, don't call your website or blog something like 'Free Money 4 U'. First of all, if somebody approached that, it will indicate some sort of scam website - even if that's not your intention. Also, if you want to maximize the potential of your website or blog, using abbreviations such as '4' and 'U' may come across as unprofessional.

Afterwards, you've got to decide whether your intentions to make this blog, is purely based on passion and potential income, or just passion! If you make this blog just to earn money, you seriously will have a lot of trouble committing to it. If you're doing it because you want to, thats the best way to go, and why not earn money at the same time? There are methods in which your blog could possibly earn you money.

The next step, is choosing a blog platform, in where you are to organize and set up your blog.

- I have chosen Blogger.com (Blogspot), because it's free first of all (great for beginners) and extremely easy to sign up to, navigate around, customize your blog, and edit your posts. You have up to 300MB of storage, and can create many blogs on one email address!

- Another good website that could get you a set income, is Today.com. I've personally tried it, but found it a bit tricky to customize, edit and navigate. The great thing about this website though, is that they reward you with $1 per post (only once per day though) which unlike Blogger.com, you'll get a guaranteed amount. It all depends on how your planning to earn some money.

- WordPress is a very popular blogging platform, but doesn't allow as much storage as Blogger (50MB). Still, it doesn't change the fact that millions use it, because of it's usability and good quality templates.

These three are the top blogging platforms I would recommend to you, but of course there are others. Don't go for one that you have to pay for if you are only a beginner.

After you have chosen which platform you are going to be blogging in, the best thing to do is to gradually post until you have enough content to get a reasonable amount of traffic. Don't rush it, the content will suffer and as a result you will get less traffic.

Next thing to do, is to sign up to Google Adsense, no question about it. It's free first of all, and it basically allows you to earn money for the amount of views you get in exchange for allowing Google advertisements on your website. You have to get your blog approved, but that shouldn't prove much of a challenge, and you'll most likely be accepted in this program. This is good for beginners.

Afterwards, once your blog gets a reasonable amount of traffic, you can sign up to Sponsored Review website, to get paid for reviewing certain websites or products. The bad thing, is that most of these websites, require for your blog to be at least 3months old (some longer), have certain amounts of posts and high traffic. Until you get there, you can sign up to PayingPost.com which from my experience doesn't expect these much requirements, just for a genuine blog. Once you have reached these requirements, websites such as PayPerPost, SponsoredReviews and ReviewMe are great and you can earn a good amount of income from these.

Once you have completed all these steps, you should find yourself having a very succesful blog, with a steady income as a result. Remember you don't have to sign up to these if you're not interested in the money. Blogging and earning money has never been easier, so embrace it!