YouTube

For me, YouTube is my favorite tool for generating traffic. Videos on YouTube have the potential to go viral, and can be seen by millions. The videos you post don't necessarily have to relate to the content of your site, although it's much better if they do. YouTube allows you to place links in the description box of your videos. You can also add handy annotations to prompt viewers to click your link.

YouTube is great for building a fan base, as people can subscribe to your channel to be notified when you release a new video. Subscribers are extremely useful for traffic generation.

Here is an example of one of my videos, that went viral. It doesn't relate to the content of my website, but drives a high percentage of my traffic. I would rather have an extra 100 un-targeted viewers per day, than none. The percentage of viewers that click the link is around 2%, so if you have 1000 views per day, you have an extra 20 blog visitors per day. Which is better than a kick in the teeth.

However don't get disheartened if your video isn't doing so well. Be patient, it took a couple of months before I got to 100 views per day. After a while your video has the potential to explode and go viral. You just have to be creative.

If you need some extra help with YouTube view my post: How to Get More YouTube Views

If you are doing well with YouTube you can earn extra money from YouTube alone, view my guide: Becoming a YouTube Partner

Blog Commenting

Blog commenting is seen as a first step toward gaining traffic. It can work in two ways. You should allow users to comment on your posts, and you should comment on other blogs.

Allowing users to comment on your posts can spark a discussion. This works especially well on a controversial post. If users have extremely differing opinions, they will keep revisiting your blog to argue their side. While controversy can be good, try not to offend anyone, otherwise they may not revisit your blog. There is a very thin line between controversy and hate. Be wise.

Commenting on other blogs is the greater way to increase traffic, if you leave a link back to your site. Some blogs do not allow links, yet some do. Find the right sites and leave an informative comment. Don't go around spamming as moderators will probably not authorize your comment. Try to leave a comment that will have readers wanting to visit your site, and of course, read the post you are commenting on.

Getting the first comment on a post is the goal here. More readers view the first comment, therefore more readers will click the link back to your site. Dedicating half an hour each day to commenting will contribute to your traffic flow.

Blog commenting is a reliable way to build up links to your site, while bringing quality, targeted traffic.

The Beginners Guide to Traffic

Traffic - Visitors viewing your site.

You may have heard the phrase 'Content is King'. This is correct. The content of your site is one of the ultimate factors determining your potential earnings. However if 'Content is King' then 'Traffic is God'. You could have vast amounts of quality content, but with no viewers, you have no earnings. The traffic your site receives is the penultimate factor affecting your earnings, assuming everything else is in place.

Whilst many people pay for traffic, there are plenty of ways to get traffic for free, a better quality of traffic too. When I say a better 'quality' of traffic, I mean targeted traffic. If your site is about cooking, and you have traffic coming from a car fanatic site, chances are they won't be interested in your home made chicken korma. This means they are less likely to stick around, therefore less likely to click an Ad.

So how do we get traffic?

There are hundreds of ways to get traffic, so which ones are the best?

The best method is to employ a tactic the army use. A tactic called 'Overpowering Force'.  This involves doing everything in your power to benefit the outcome. So my advice is to use every single legitimate way of gaining traffic. Never ever use black hat techniques, or you are risking your Adsense account.

By now you should have got the general idea of how it is possible to make money online. If you have made it through this beginners section then you are well on your way to getting your first payment.

The most important thing to remember is to stick at it, it may take around 2-3 months to get your first payment, so don't expect anything to happen instantly. However I promise you, if you use all the techniques on my site you can take your earnings as far as you want, even into the 1000's per month. It will be a hard road, but if you are willing to invest your time you will build up a passive income, which you will continue to receive for the rest of your life.

I have made an extensive list of ways to generate traffic, you should employ them all. You are no longer in the 'Beginners Section'. Congratulations!

Head on over to the Traffic Page.

Enabling Your blog For Monetization

Click on the earnings tab on the blogger dashboard. If you already have an adsense account then enter your details, if not you will have to create a new one. It should be relatively easy to follow the instructions google set out for you to integrate blogger with adsense.

So the basic idea is people will view your site, see an interesting ad and click it. For every click you get paid,  google takes a small commission for using their program.

NEVER click your own ads, as google can easily track your IP address and will ban you from Adsense. If this happens you are pretty much doomed. If you happen to accidentally click your own ad, there is a handy tool on the adsense website with which you can inform google of a fraudulent click. I have used this in the past where I've accidentally clicked an ad, and have not received a ban. However from what I hear, Google shows mercy to few. They obviously will subtract that click from your earnings.

If all the jargon sounds a bit off-putting, then the resources center on the adsense website is a big help.

Of course, if no one is viewing your site, then you will earn nothing. Which brings us nicely into the next step.

The Beginners Guide to Traffic

Getting Started

By this point you should have thought of a name and niche, and already created your Google account. The next step is to actually create your blog. You should see a box which says 'New Blog'. Upon clicking this box you will be prompted to enter the name and address of your site. For example my name was 'Money Relic', and the address was 'moneyrelic.blogspot.com'. The template you choose is up to you, it can always be changed at a later date. If the address is already taken, I would recommend choosing a new name so that it matches your new address.

Your First Post

You are now well on your way to making money online. I would familiarise yourself with the different tools blogger has, then click the pencil in the orange box to write your first article. Writing the content for your blog is the thing which will make or break you. If you can think of useful, interesting and valuable content which people will share, then you will succeed. If you are talking about how you made breakfast for your mother, you are likely to fail. This is why it's important to know enough about your niche so you can write plenty of content.  The effort you put into your content will reflect how much traffic you receive, which will ultimately determine your payments. I advise you to take your time in thinking of new content. Good spelling and grammar goes without saying. After all: whu won 2 reed sumat lyk dis. It's no good for anybody.

Another important thing to consider is what to title your post. the title can make a big difference traffic wise. When thinking of your title, put yourself in the readers shoes. If your post is about how to make a paper airplane, don't title it 'Boeing 747'. Think what the reader would search for, a good title for example would be: 'How to Make a Paper Airplane'. This is another example of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) which we will look at more closely later.

A useful tool blogger provides are labels. You can add labels to your posts when writing them on the right hand side of the screen. The idea of labels is to tell the reader what your post is about. So for your paper airplane post you could give it a label saying origami. You can attach more than one label, with the idea being eventually you have a list of labels on your homepage so users can quickly get to the content they want to read.

After you have written your first post, it is time to Enable Your Blog For Monetization.

Choosing Niche and Name

The first thing to consider when starting your blog is what you are going to write about. The niche you choose could be the difference between success and failure. A niche is a specific topic which you will write about. For example my niche on this website is Making Money Online Using Blogger with Adsense.

Things To Consider When Choosing a Niche

• Make sure your niche will bring in traffic. The term traffic means the people viewing your site. If your niche is about teacups, you will have a grand total of 100 people interested worldwide. Try to think of something that will interest people, my first website was about new technologies, which brought quite a lot of traffic.
• Make sure the niche is not over-saturated. By over-saturated I mean lots of competition. If you decide to make a site about Personal Finance and/or Saving Money, you will be competing with the likes of moneysavingexpert, who have been around for millenia and will crush you like an ant. If your heart is set on personal finance, then try to find something more specific to write about such as comparing supermarkets for prices, then expand as your fan base grows.
• Make sure you know a lot about your niche. This is probably the most important point when choosing your niche. If you are a 62 year old grandmother of 16, then you may want to consider entering the childcare niche. If you are a 20 year old virgin, I wouldn't recommend childcare as a niche to enter. This may seem obvious, but it's surprising how many people do not realise how much you need to know about your niche to be successful. 

So when you have thought carefully about where your natural talents lie, and have chose your niche, you will now need to think of a name for your site. Naming your site can be a difficult process, so I advise you to take your time.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Name

• The most important factor when choosing a name is for it to be original. Never use a name that somebody else has already coined. You may get penalised by Google for doing so. If you have an idea in your head I advise you to run a quick Google search to check if your name is original.
• Try to make your name abstract and catchy, yet let it say something about your niche. If you can hit both these points, then I take my hat off to you and you are on your way to success. For example the name moonpig, is very catchy and abstract, yet the name says nothing about their niche. Their niche is creating custom greetings cards. So if someone ran a Google search for 'online card maker', moonpig may not be at the top of the results. The site 'my card maker' however, is top of the results for this search term. This is because part of what was searched, was in the name and domain name of the website. This is an example of clever SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) which we will learn about later. However moonpig wins on the front of being memorable and catchy. As I said if you can hit both these points then well done! 

Once you've finally reached your choice, and you are ready for the next step head on over to:
Getting Started

The Easiest Way to Make Money Online

The easiest and most reliable way to make money online, is by far blogging. Blogging requires you to write about a certain topic/genre, that you feel confident talking about. Your job is to engage readers, and employ various methods to bring traffic to your blog. Once you get your head round the basics, you can take it as far as you like, with some bloggers earning 3-figure incomes.




Do I Need to Pay Anything?

No. The method I use requires you to pay nothing.

So why isn't everyone doing this?

The truth is blogging is a long hard road. If your heart isn't in it, you won't make it. That aside however, if your heart is in it, and you have a passion for your topic, you can make it, and people do. What many people don't understand is that with blogging, you are building a passive income. In the first 6 months you may be making £10 per week. However you will continue to receive that payment FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. If you keep building this passive income, you will be able to quit your day job within the next 2-3 years. So if you have decided this is the path for you, continue reading, as everything you need to know can be found on this site, and we will walk you through every step of the process.

So How Does It Work?

So you may be asking who pays me? Well my 'employer' of choice is Google. Google is the biggest site on the internet, and going without them is like washing pots with no water. They run a handy little scheme called 'Google Adsense'. Google Adsense allows anyone with a website or blog to show advertisements on their site. Each time a reader clicks an Ad, you get paid. It really is that simple. While Google Adsense will provide a huge chunk of your revenue, later we will look at 'Making Money without Google Adsense'. You can then effectively build up more streams of passive income, and as I said earlier, take it as far as you like.

How Can I Start?

If you are worried that you don't know the first thing about creating a website, don't worry. Google also run a handy extension of their company called Blogger. Making your own site has never been easier, and since both Adsense and Blogger are run by Google, they work together seamlessly. Before we get started I suggest you favorite this page so you can return easily. Your first step is to make a blogger account. You will probably be prompted to create a google account at this stage anyway, which is a good thing, as you can access Adsense through your google account. Type your information in then press next at the bottom of the page. You now have a Google account. Next press the box which says 'Back To Blogger'

Once you have created your account head on over to the next step:
Choosing Niche and Name