Blogging can be great for some extra money. I still get around $300-$500 a month off of my blog, which I work on 30 minutes twice a week! To monetize your blog, there are a few things you will need to do to maximize the revenue you will make. Here are a few tips I can give you:

• Use Google AdSense! AdSense is great for easy money. People click and you get paid, as easy as that! Google automatically puts up ads that are relative to the content on your website.
• Use WordPress on your own host and buy a .com domain! This will make your website look a lot more professional, plus, you have no limits on how much you want to monetize your blog.
• Register for Clickbank and find some products that are relative to the content on your blog and would appeal to your target demographic.
• Connect with similar blogs, leave comments and encourage them to leave comments on your blog. This will encourage discussions, resulting in more traffic, and more money for you.
• Once your traffic is high and steady, approach companies that sell products in your target demographic. Tell them you are willing to offer private ad space. This is the most lucrative method of making money on your blog.
• Offer companies reviews of their products for a fee. This is an easy couple hundred dollars you can make.
• Sign up for Amazon Associates and place relative products on your blog’s sidebar, and within posts.
• Sign up for Aweber or GetResponse and build a mailing list. Mailing lists look great to private advertisers and provide you with another potential source of revenue.

Blogging is fun. I am a blogger, so trust me, it’s fun! People blog for a variety of reasons; some do it to promote a product, some do it to promote themselves, some do it for the love of writing, some do it to make money. There are a million reasons to blog, all you got to do is find yours! I personally blog for two reasons; because I enjoy it, and because I want to promote myself as a writer. When I started blogging, I used some free platforms, but eventually moved on to buying my own host and server and began to use another platform. Here are three popular blogging platforms:

1. Blogger. Blogger is popular because Google made it popular. This free service is great for the aspiring blogger who wants to start building a fan base without risking anything. Blogger provides you with a subdomain (yourname.blogger.com) and a bunch of different templates to customize your blog. You can add a couple of ad revenue sources if you want to make money, but essentially, it’s for bloggers who are just starting.
2. MySpace. MySpace is great to blog on: it’s easy to network with a community and you can post a whole bunch of stuff on your page! Although MySpace is associated with artists, it is also great for the aspiring writer looking to network.
3. WordPress. WordPress is my weapon of choice. Whether you choose the free version, or download the source code and put it on your host, it is one of the most powerful and easiest to use blogging platforms available. This site is actually running off of WordPress and it’s not even a blog, put it that way! WordPress has a ton of plug ins available, and I personally recommend downloading the source code, putting it on your own host and buying a domain to use it to its maximum potential.

These are just three blogging platforms available, there are literally hundreds out there. So, look around, choose a platform, and start blogging!