The first place to start for a beginner, is what is a blog? Well a blog is really short for web log (web log). So that means you are logging information on a continuous basis over time, and putting this on a website with a specific time and date associated with that information.

The information you or your business write on your blog can be anything from stories about what you are doing, for example a travel blog (like a travel diary), or just information such as the type of information I put up on my blog. Or it could even be a blog where you just share your views and could even result in you starting an entire online community around your blog.

Interesting thing is that many news sites like SMH.com.au run on a blog like setup, because new information on the latest news is always being added to the site.

Ok – now you know what a blog is, how can we use them to make money. Well, firstly blogs are very easy to setup and manage. There are some very popular blogging platforms, like Wordpress, Blogger and Myspace that allow you to easily create your own blog. You can then start putting up your own content and information on whatever topic you want to write about. Why not register for a blog right now and see how easy it is. I am running this blog off Wordpress – but remember, the site is wordpress.org not wordpress.com.

How to Make Money Blogging?
Now that you know how to blog, it’s time to make money blogging. Here are a few easy ways in which you can generate blog income:

1. Advertise yourself and your own products:
   Use your blog to market and sell your own products, like ebooks, tutorials or premium content (through a suscription). This is obviously the best option for you in terms of generating the highest profit margin, because you are selling your own product or services.
2. Advertising: You can sell space on your blog. Since initially your blog will not be well known, you can establish ad programs through Google’s AdSense (puts Google Adverts on your site), YPN and BlogAds.

   The more traffic your blog generates, the more likely people will be to click on the adverts. A system like Google Adsense will pay you for every click on their ad – nice way to make money right?

3. Affiliate programs: This refers to placing links of various companies on your blog. You can get paid in one of three ways – pay per click (you get paid every time someone clicks on an ad on your blog), pay per lead (you get paid every time someone visiting your blog clicks a link, goes to another website and registers there) and pay per sale (you get paid every time a visitor to your blog clicks a link, goes to another website and purchases something there).

   You could go to Amazon.com or Linkshare.com or clickbank.com (see my video on clickbank on another post) to find affiliate websites to monetize this concept.You will notice some links to Generator Software on the right of my blog – these are affiliate links.

4. Donation: If you have a loyal readership, you can ask for donations to support various causes. You could set up an online collection of donations trough PayPal.
5. Blog networks: You could think of joining a blog network and receive an income for writing content.
6. Sell subscriptions: You could make your blog a “subscription-only” or “membership-only” one, provided you have premium or exclusive content. You can use membership management software like amember.com to manage this for you – and then you just charge people to get access to your content.  Even easier, is just charge people through Paypal, and then password protect your blog.  Only give the password to those that have paid to get access.
7. Sell your blog: Once your blog is well established, you can make money by selling your blog to a larger, reputed Internet company. 

So there you go, a great way to create a website using a blog and then 7 ways you could make money from it.

HOT TIP:  Use your blog to build a list of people interested in your website, business or products or services.  This means you can market to these people every time you update your blog, have a new product or service to sell… but also, if you have a large database of interested people, makes your blog fetch a higher price if you decide to sell : )

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How have you been going.   Today I wanted to share with you a great way to getting extra leads from your website. 

People visiting your website are really wanting to be engaged.  They are there to find out more about what you have to offer them.  And to be honest, simply reading some text on a website it not really that engaging.  Imagine yourself, if you visited a website and there was a short video introducing someone at the company or even a product video demonstrating how the product can help YOU and the benefits.

Now, there is a simple and low cost way of getting video on your website and there is the more expensive way.  If you are just setting up, let us go with the low cost option.  If you can get yourself a web cam from your local electronics shop.  Set this up and hit record.  You can record a welcome video for your website, or even use show of your product if it is hard product.  REmember, you are, at this stage just trying to put video on a website, so you don’t need to make it too professional.

Once you have recorded your video, you can use a free service called Youtube.com to upload your video.  It is completely free, you just need to create an account.  Use the upload video button to upload your video.  Once you have uploaded the video, you will be given a link to be able to implement this on your website. 

Simply Copy and Paste the link information on to your website or blog, and then save the page and make it live on the web.  There you have it your video is done and up on your website. 

Wow… How easy was that, and you can have as many videos as you like on Youtube. 
Here is one of my own:

For a bit of fun, why not watch my video from my trip to New Zealand which was uploaded to Youtube.  It is not what I would call a “lead generating” video, but you will see how much more engaging this is than me basically typing a message into my blog about how awesome that trip was and how amazing it was to see a light aircraft swoop over us while we were up on the mountain peak!  You have to see it to believe it!

So, try think of some creative ways that you can implement videos on your website to generate leads.  At the end of the video that you record simply add something like “Hey, if you like what you see here, click on the link below (point down if the link on your website is below the video) and order now!”

To your success!