Blogging is more popular than ever. Many blog as a way to journal their thoughts but you can make a decent income too. Just from blogging. Don’t start thinking easy money or get-rich-quick. Yet, all you need is the right guidance, plus a little research to get started.

I’ll give you some help and head you in the right direction.     

#1 Choose your subject wisely

Your subject should be a large audience of people that spend money. Makes sense because you are doing this for income.

The topic should be something that you are knowledgeable about and, preferably something that you are passionate about, so you’ll remain interested in blogging about the topic for years to come. Before making a final decision on the subject of your blog, do some research to make sure the topic is one that is searched on the internet. If there are forums or messageboards where people are discussing the topic, even better.

Whatever subject you decide on, you should enjoy writing about it or have access to people who do. The success of a blog depends on its interest to readers. If you do not enjoy writing about the subject and you don’t have writers who are passionate about the topic, you can almost be guaranteed that your readers will not enjoy reading about it either, so choose wisely.

 #2 Plan Your Blogging

One mistake bloggers make is blogging when they feel like it – whatever is in their heads at that moment in time. This is fine if you are just journaling for your own benefit but if you would like to gain an audience and an income, a bit of planning is key.

When you plan your blog you should consider the categories, pages, and what you want to include in each of your posts. It would also be beneficial to make a posting schedule and stick to it, whether that is once a day, once a week or a few times each month.  Your schedule may need a tweaking as time goes on but starting with one from the beginning will lay a good foundation for your blog success.

Remember to carefully select your keywords if you are trying to rank high in the search engines. Newer bloggers will find it easiest to choose long tail keyword phrases related to the niche that have less competition in the search engines than single words. (Ex: “how to get more followers on Twitter” would be easier to rank for than “Twitter” would be.)

 #3 Create Interactive Elements

Your blog may provide a place where you sound off on your thoughts and offer valuable advice, but it a good tip would also be to offer some interactive elements. Part of what makes blogs so fascinating is that they hold the possibility of developing a loyal readership. If there is nothing on your blog that people can “do” other than read, it’s going to be hard to develop a relationship with your readers. If the trust and the relationship don’t develop, your success with it may be hindered.

Examples of interactive elements would include a comments section and a poll section. Comments are generally included in the set up of your blog. This is where people can comment on the things you write, and communicate with you and other readers. Polls are available as a blog “widget” and they are beneficial to have in the sidebar of your blog. You can ask a question and have visitors choose their response.

Including these interactive elements will allow you to provide readers with what they are seeking, making them loyal readers for what hopefully be a long time to come.

 #4 Optimize Your Monetization

Once your site is up and running, you’ll need to make sure your site is set up to make money. What this is referring to is placing and positioning ads on your blog to increase your income. It’s also important to make sure you are serving your readers with ads that interest them and are related to your blogging niche.

As your visitors increase this will be easier to track and then tweak for ultimate success. That is why taking time to plan your site and work hard at getting steady traffic is of the utmost importance. That way you can split test and figure out where the best possible positions for your ads are. This may include having to try different banners, text links, etc. and see what is working and what’s not.

If you want someone to lead you through the steps to set up your blog and take you literally baby step by baby step to create your online business — check out Affiliatenaire where Jimmy D. Brown takes you from the beginning. I don’t know of an easier way to get started.