If you want to make money from your blog, then you should write original, unique and great content. Don’t expect your blog to become popular if you write the same thing that everyone else have already written. The resources mentioned below will help you get started in the right direction.

How to choose a niche topic for your blog?

How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog – This article from ProBlogger talks about various things to keep in mind when choosing a niche topic for your blog. It’s a must read article for beginners.

How to Choose the Right Blog Niche: A Simple Three-Step Method – An article from DoshDosh that will help you pick a niche topic for your blog in an hour or less using his simple and straightforward three step method.

How to Select the Right Niche Topic for your Blog – This article lists some of the important factors such as Popularity of the topic, Whether it is profitable or not, Unique an your knowledge in the respective Topic. etc that should be considered while choosing a topic for your blog.

How to Choose the Right Topic for Your Blog? – This article talks about how to choose a topic for your blog that will also help you make a lot of money from your blog.

How to Choose a Profitable Blog Niche – The author of this article mentions 4 important factors that you should consider while choosing a topic. How much money will you be able to make from your blog will depend on these 4 factors.

Mentioned below are the resources that will help you find the top blogs by topic. You can then explore these top blogs and find out what the author of those blogs have been doing to stay at the top of the blogosphere.

Top 100 Blogs: Technorati – Technorati Top 100 as ranked by Technorati Authority. The Top 100 is updated once per day.

25 Best Blogs 2009 – TIME – TIME makes its second annual list of the best blogs in the world, spanning politics, housekeeping, astronomy and everything in between.

Comparing Six Ways to Identify Top Blogs in Any Niche – The article features a comparison of the pros and cons of six different services that you can use to identify top blogs in your niche.

Here are some of the best resources on the web from where you can download free wordpress themes, templates for your website and themes for other blogging platforms such as Blogger. Some of these are high quality Premium wordpress themes which are available for discounted prices and we recommend them because they come with support and you could change almost every aspect of the theme because they are customizable.

1. The Thesis Theme for WordPress – The Thesis Theme for WordPress is a high-quality template system that you can use to improve your site immediately. It’s already search engine optimized. Thesis theme also contains additional options that will allow you to fine-tune each and every page of your site. It would be worthwhile to at least explore the various features that Thesis theme has to offer.

2. ThemeForest – Themeforest has one of the largest collection of themes for both Wordpress and Blogger platforms. The themes are available for as low as $20. You should at the least give ThemeForest a try before you decide your blog’s theme.

3. Template Monster – I have been buying templates from Template Monster since last couple of years now. They are affordable and you have plenty of themes to choose from.

4. DreamTemplate – DreamTemplate has over 6000 templates and offers unlimited downloads for $60. If you have multiple websites, you can signup for a single subscription and download templates for all of your websites.

5. Wordpress templates – The official WordPress themes directory that offers free WordPress themes.

Additional resources for WordPress themes

100 Amazing Free Wordpress Themes for 2009 – High quality free Wordpress Themes have become harder and harder to find in the past year, with the influx of premium themes, more and more designers and developers are selling themes. Smashing magazine has put up a list of 100 amazing free wordpress themes for 2009.

Top WP Themes – Best themes for Wordpress powered blogs. Download quality and professionally designed Wordpress templates for free at TopWPThemes.com

100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes – Another great list of 100 free high-quality WordPress themes from Smashing Magazine.

ThemeLab – Free WordPress themes and WordPress tutorials at theme lab

60+ Latest High-Quality Free WordPress Themes – Excellent Collection of Fresh High-Quality Free WordPress Themes Around.

40 Free High-Quality WordPress Themes – Free high quality wordpress themes to suit your blog’s niche.

140+ Brilliant Free Wordpress Themes – As the name suggests, the link contains over 140 free wordpress themes that you can choose from and download for your blog.

I would like to recommend the following strategies to make money from your blog and then also mention some of the best advertising programs for your blog and I have personally tried and have worked for me.

1. Sell advertising space – If your blog receives descent amount of traffic and is well established, consider selling ad space on your own. You could make a lot of money when you sell ad space on your own rather than using other publisher advertising programs.

If your blog is new and is yet to establish itself, we recommend Google AdSense and Infolinks advertisement programs for your blog. Google AdSense is a contextual advertising program that shows ads based on the content you write in your blog. Infolinks on the other hand is an In-Text advertising solution that integrates ads with your content. We found both of those programs to be the best in their class and you should be able to easily make money from your blog with them.

Other than Google AdSense, there are quite a few advertising programs that a vast majority of bloggers have been using. Some of the good ones are Intelli Txt, DoubleClick, Tribal Fusion, Clicksor, AdHearUs, Kanoodle, Pheedo, TextAds, AzoogleAds, Value Click, TTZ Media, BlogAds, BidVertiser and Chitika.

One ad program that has been working very well with my websites is Infolinks and we highly recommend it to be amongst the first ad programs which you should try on your blog.

2. Sell products of others as an affiliate – Affiliate programs can help you make a lot of money from your blog. With the help of various affiliate programs on Internet, you can sell products on your website by writing product reviews or by simply linking to the products using your affiliate link. Whenever a visitor buys a product using your affiliate link, you get paid.

Some of the most popular affiliate programs that we highly recommend are Amazon, Linkshare, Clickbank and Commission Junction.

3. Sell your own services – If you are an expert in any subject, you can offer your services for a charge through your blog. I have seen people offering marketing consultation services through their blog.

4. Sponsorship – Companies sponsor blogs that are established and receive good traffic. It’s an advantage for the company and the blog as well, primarily because companies can directly reach the end users and bloggers can make some extra cash. This form of advertisement can be highly targeted and works well for the companies.

There are several other ways to make money from your blog. What we mentioned above are the most common ways of making money that a vast majority of bloggers, including me, follow.

Which ad programs should I start with?

If your blog is new, we recommend that you start with Google AdSense, Infolinks and Chitika.

In case you are an experienced blogger and looking to experiment with more ad networks, we recommend TTZ Media, Linkshare and Clickbank.

Here are some simple ways to promote your blog for free. I have been following these sure shot ways for more than four years and they have been of a great help to promote my blog. But at the same time, it takes time to see the results of the promotional activities that you take up, so please be patient while you begin to publicize your blog.

1. Submit your website to search engines – The first thing you should do, as soon as you launch your blog, is to submit your blog to search engines. This will ensure that your blog is indexed and people find your blog in the search results. Refer to submit your website to search engine for free article which will walk you through some simple steps of search engine submission process.

2. Setup your blog to send pings – Blog pinging is a mechanism by which you can notify various online services that your blog has updated. Pinging is free and it’s very easy to setup your blog to automatically ping different blog search engines and services when you update your blog. Some of the free services that you can use to ping search engines are Ping-O-Matic, Blog Ping and PingMyBlog.

3. Install ‘Email this post’ feature – You must have seen this feature on many popular websites that lets you email the article to your friend on your own mailbox. Once installed, this feature will let people send your articles to their friends and indirectly publicize your blog for free.

4. Setup social bookmarking icons – People often want to bookmark your articles for future reference and even to share your content with their friends. Therefore, it’s very important that you setup social bookmarking buttons of popular social networking websites in your blog to let people share your articles with their friends and others. You may find a lot of plugins for your blog that once installed will automatically setup the popular bookmarking icons in your posts. See ShareThis service that will let your visitors share and save your content with the most used sharing services.

5. Put your blog URL in your email signature – Though it may not sound like a promising way of publicizing your blog, in helps in long term. I use it in my Gmail account and have taken my friends by surprise who didn’t knew that I blogged.

6. Submit your blog to blog directories – If submitting your blog to search engines is important, submitting it to blog directories is also equally important. See best blog directories to list your blogs and submit your blog to them right away.

7. Link to other blogs and authority websites – Linking to other blogs is one of the most simplest ways to attract attention of fellow bloggers. When you write articles, link to fellow blogger’s content which are similar to your topic and they might link back to you. This is one of the simplest ways to get quality links from good websites which will help your blog rank higher in search engines.

8. Comment on other blogs – Whenever you visit a blog and find an article interesting, leave a comment. Most blogs allow you to use your blog’s URL in the comments section, so it’s an effective way of getting links and visits to your blog.

9. Write guest articles – By submitting guest articles in popular blogs, you not only get attention but it also helps you get visitors who will go on to become loyal visitors.

10. Run contests and give away free stuff – It’s a great idea for a newly launched blog to run contests and give away free stuff. Such contests creates buzz about your blog in the blogosphere and you get a lot of traffic. It does not need to be laptops and expensive gifts, you could give books, free hosting accounts etc.

Recommended resources on how to publicize your blog

Promote your blog – Official tips from Blogger.com on how to promote your blog. This is in no way a science or guarantee; it’s simply a few suggestions with which many bloggers have found success.

Ways to Get Your Blog Noticed – An article that talks about some ways of getting attention for your blog.

How to get your blog indexed? – This articles shows you various ways to get your blog indexed in search engines in less than a month. A must read if you want to get your blog indexed for sure.

Best blog directories – A list consisting of some of the best blog directories that you should consider for listing your blog. Most of them accept free submission.

A Complete Guide to Writing Guest Articles – This articles lists a lot of reasons for anyone to consider writing guest articles. A must read on the subject.

7 Reasons Why Guest Posting is Integral to Any Linkbuilding Campaign – An in-depth article on why guest writing is so important and how it helps your website.

Mentioned below are some of the important points that you should follow while launching your blog for it to enjoy higher chances of being successful than those thousands of blogs that are going to be launched at the same time.

Points to consider before you launch your blog

1. Have a title for your blog – Before launching your blog make sure that your blog has a nice and catchy title. As soon as your blog is launched, the first thing that your visitors will most likely see is your blog’s title. Other bloggers who will write about your blog will also mostly use the title of your blog to provide a link to your blog from theirs. So, it’s important that you select a title of your blog in such a way that it’s not only catchy but also contains keywords for which you want to rank in search engines.

2. Create ‘About Me’ and ‘Contact’ pages – Whenever I visit a new or an interesting blog I check the ‘about me’ or the ‘about’ page’ to find out more about the blogger. There are a lot of reasons because of which people navigate to the ‘about’ page. It helps your visitors know more about you and help them establish trust in the content you are writing. I often come across blogs that make recommendations about some products or write about some topic but when I check their ‘about’ page, I find that it is either missing or has not been updated with any information. In such cases, I don’t know who is writing the content and what kind of relevant experience the blogger has because of which I would follow his advices on the products and topics that he/she is writing about.

On many occasions I came across blogs that were authored by bloggers who had similar experience and interests as that of mine. I sent them an email for possible networking and since then I know a lot of bloggers and help each other with both blogging and other technical stuff.

I hope you are understanding the essence of what I am trying to tell you. Spend some quality time on your ‘about’ page and write something interesting about yourself. Without the ‘about’ page, there is a lot that you could miss and your blog will remain incomplete.

3. Write at least 10 draft posts before you launch – Don’t start your blog with just one of two articles. In the first few days of your blog, you get some attention that you must take to your advantage. As soon as you launch your blog, fellow bloggers from your niche are going to visit your blog and see what you have got in terms of content. The same is with visitors who will find your newly launched blog and then follow you if they find your articles interesting. With just one or two articles, you can’t really impress your visitors.

4. Link to other blogs in your niche – At the time of launching your blog make sure that you link out to the top blogs in your niche. This will help you get some extra attention and some bloggers may even mention about you and link to your blog in their next article thus giving free publicity to your blog.

5. Setup RSS feeds and social bookmarking icons – You have got some great quality content already written and your blog is ready to be launched. I am sure a lot of people are going to visit your blog very soon and will the content you have written. They will then want to follow your blog and bookmark your website. But how are they going to follow your website and bookmark your articles?

You need to setup social bookmarking icons in your blog for your visitors to be able to follow you and bookmark your content and also recommend your blog to their friends. You can’t really miss on this one. I still remember, when I had launched my first blog, I had put up a Digg icon below the content and somebody had actually submitted it to Digg. My article was on the first page and it fetched me more than 500 links from various blogs and websites. It’s very important for your blog to be linked from quality websites for it to rank higher in search engines.

Additional resources to help you launch your blog successfully:-

Blueprint for a Brilliant Blog Launch – A three point strategy from Copyblogger can be used by anyone starting a blog and doesn’t need existing audience to use as a springboard.

How to Launch a Blog and Have Fresh Content for Weeks – If you are thinking whether to first write a lot of articles and then launch your blog or write few initially and then keep writing for some weeks, this article from ProBlogger will help you with a launch strategy that will leave your blog with fresh content for weeks.

Launching a Blog — What Type of Posts are Best? – If you starting a blog, this articles will tell you what types of posts are best for you to start with.

21 Surefire Tips for a Successful Blog Launch – The 21 points included in this checklist will cover the basics of what you need to do during those all-important first two weeks of your blog’s life.

A Step-By-Step Blog Launch Plan and Roadmap – The article provides you with a roadmap that covers the most crucial steps that you should not miss.

How To Launch A Successful Blog In The First 90 Days – Here are some tips for new bloggers on what you may want to focus on in your first 90 days of blogging.

How to launch a blog on blogger platform? – If you have decided to start your blog on the free Blogger platform, this article is what you should read first. It contains some very simple steps to get you started in minutes.

Additional resources – some of the best ‘About Me’ pages of popular bloggers:

About Problogger – ProBlogger author Darren Rowse writes about his journey from those days when blogging was just his hobby to present day when he is a full time professional blogger and author of a book.

About Digital Inspiration – Check out the about page of Amit, the blogger at Digital Inspiration and you will certainly get inspired.

Copyblogger – This is another great example of how the about page should be written. Brian Clark, the founder of Copyblogger first introduces his blog and them himself.

About SEO Book.com – Take some inspiration from Aaron Wall’s about page. The about page is not the same as it used to be two years ago but nevertheless, it’s worth reading and followed as an example.

Shown below is a table that highlights the most important differences between the two major blogging platforms, Blogger (free) and WordPress (your blog hosted on your own domain name).

Conclusion: If you are not serious about blogging and just want to get a feel of it, we recommend that you start with a free blog on Blogger.

But, if you want to have your own identity on the Internet, customize every aspect of your blog, aim at becoming a full time professional blogger then we highly recommend of registering a domain name for your blog and use a shared hosting account to host it yourself. The advantages of hosting your blog on your own domain are numerous and presents a lot of opportunities for you to make money on Internet. Check out the blog hosting page for our list of recommended web hosting providers whom we have tried and trust them to provide quality hosting services.

1. Niche topic of your blog

Topic of your blog is the most important thing. It can make or break your blog in long term. A lot of bloggers choose a topic that they are unable to write about for very long and as a result their blog fails. Don’t do this mistake. If a lot of bloggers are writing about a particular topic or if a topic is very popular on Internet, you should think twice before choosing such topics for your blog. For more information on this subject, read – how to choose a niche topic for your blog.

2. Choosing the blogging platform

After deciding the topic(s) of your blog, the next crucial step is to decide which blogging platform you will use for your blog. You have two choices – either start with a free blogging platform or setup your own hosting account and then register a domain for your blog. It is very important for you to have a complete knowledge about the difference between these two, otherwise there is a lot that you could lose in long term. See choosing the blogging platform for your blog to make a right and wise decision.

3. Launch your blog

Now that you have choosen your blogging platform, it’s time to launch your blog and let the world know about it. Launching a blog is not an easy task. You need to be ready with some initial quality content in your blog when you launch it so when people visit your blog during its initial days, they get to read some quality content and then keep coming back to your blog for more. Read more about how to launch your blog.

4. Publicize your blog

How to publicize my blog? That’s one question which is so difficult to answer because there is no sure shot way of publicizing your blog. What works for me may not work for you. If releasing an advertisement in newspaper worked for somebody, it may not work for your blog. Depending on the topic of your blog and where your target audience is, you have to come up with various strategies to publicize your blog. Read more on how to publicize your blog and find out what will work best for your blog.

5. Make money from blogging

How to make money on Internet? One of the thousand ways to make money on Internet is by blogging and then there are hundreds of ways to make money from blogging too. This is the most interesting side of blogging and the main reason for which a lot of people actually start a blog. It’s not so easy to make money from your blog and at the same time it’s also not so difficult. If you are under the impression that you can make money just by setting up a blog and putting ads all over it, you are wrong.

Lastly, read more on how to make money from blogging and learn about various ways to make money from your blog.

What is a blog?

By definition, a blog is a website which is more than just static pages and much more like an online diary. Imagine that you maintain a diary and everyday write in it about events, your experiences, your learnings etc. This is an example of an offline diary which is available to only yourself and no one else knows about it. A blog is similar to your diary but it’s available on Internet for people to find it, read it and follow it. It’s like a public website where you write about your thoughts, ideas and a lot of other things.

What topics do people write about in their blogs?

People use blogs not only to publish their personal thoughts but also to write about a wide variety of topics. Most common examples of such topics are gadgets blog, travel, business, software, hardware, Internet, Search Engine Optimization etc.

How to setup your own blog?

It’s quite easy to setup your own blog on Internet. There are two options for you. Either choose a free blogging service provider such as Blogger or register your own domain name, use blogging software such as WordPress and host it on a server which is going to cost you money but has its own advantages. See this comparison between free blogging service and hosted blogging platform and you decide which platform you want to go ahead with.

Next: 5 Steps of blogging you should know about.

Further reading on this topic:

What is a Blog? – Easy to understand definition of what a blog is with the help of several definitions from other sources as well. Give it a read if you are still not clear about the what a blog is all about.

Blogging Tips for Beginners – If you are about to get started with blogging, this is a must to read article for beginners.