Blogs are also becoming more and more popular due to their versatility as a platform for marketing intent. A WordPress blog besides being a conventional blog can also be customize to become an e-commerce store, landing site, membership site and a conventional content website and more. Now you can understand why I advocate using WordPress as a blogging platform compared to other blogging platforms.

I have listed down below some of the best ways to monetize a blog for a beginner blogger.

Affiliate Marketing
This is one of the best ways to monetize a blog especially if your blog is in a niche market that always used to purchasing stuff. Once you build up a loyal list of readers, promoting and recommending products and services becomes a breeze. The key is not to abuse your list and only recommend and promote products and services that are giving real value to your list. You can check out my post on “The Best Affiliate Networks For Newbie Affiliate Marketers” for a list affiliate networks that you can join and start making money.

Contextual Advertisements
There are many contextual advertising programs out there; most notable are Google Adsense, Yahoo! Publisher Network and Mircrosoft Adcenter. Adbrite, Kontera and ItelliTxt are others that spring to mind. Ever since Google has lift the restriction on other types of contextual ads, webmasters has more selection when it comes to monetization through contextual advertisements. The key is to find out which type of contextual ads works best for your blog.

Google Adsense
Google Adsense is a form of contextual advertisements but I have choose to separate Google Adsense because Google Adsense is in a class of its own when it comes to generating revenue for webmasters. Application to the Google Adsense program is very simple and best of all sticking up Adsense ads on your site is so straightforward and easy. The best thing about the Google Adsense program is that Google serves targeted ads that are highly relevant to your site as compared to other contextual advertising programs making it easier for you make money.

Own Products And Services
If you have a skill or product that is not readily available elsewhere or you can provide it at a very competitive rate, then offering your own products and services is the way to go. For example, if you are a freelance graphic designer, what you can do with a WordPress blog is to offer tips and tricks through your blog to showcase your skill and knowledge and also at the same time offer graphic web design services through your blog. Many bloggers are in fact going along this route to make a full time income online.

Paid Reviews
Paid reviews are still one of the easiest ways to monetize a blog. How much you earn is dependent on a number of factors such as the niche your blog is in, page rank, Alexa ranking etc. The higher your traffic level and Page Rank, the higher amount you can get for each paid review. The highest amount I get for a single review is USD $140 for a review written in half an hour. You can check out my previous post on “Paid Reviews Programs” to find a list of paid reviews networks to sign up with.

Text Links
Selling text links is another way for bloggers to monetize their blogs. Similarly, the higher your Page Rank and Alexa ranking, the more money you can make off selling of text links. You can either sell text links by yourself or through a text link network. I highly recommend signing up for TextLinkAds. Another network that you can check out is TNX.net. However, please note that Google frown upon blogs that sell text links and you may find your blogs being penalize by Google down the road.

There are probably more ways to monetize such as a membership site which is more applicable for someone who has clocked some experiences using WordPress. You can either choose to focus on one monetization method first or use a variety of methods to monetize your blog initially. The key is to test and track which monetization method is best suit for your blog and earn you the most income. Remember to diversify your income channels and do not put all your eggs in one basket.

Otherwise, if you will to make changes later in the future, you will waste a lot of time and effort building links that are no longer valid when you change your URLs. While this tutorial is not a complete guide to optimizing a WordPress blog, the few tips listed below will ensure that you will go on a good footing in the SEO game initially.

Change permalink structure
It is important to change your permalink structure as the default WordPress permalink structure is not search engine friendly. Check out a previous post that I have written on “Search engine Friendly WordPress URLs” to learn how to change your Worpress permalink structure.

Add a sitemap
A sitemap is basically a page to all your internal pages, all from one location. Having a sitemap makes it easier for the search engines to locate and index your blog. I use this plugin called “Google XML Sitemaps Generator” from Arne Brachhold to create sitemaps for search engines.

Add tags to your posts
Using tags to organize your content is another good way to ensure goodwill from the search engines and sites like Technocrati. It also allows your blog visitors to easily identify what your blog is and also searches for content more easily.

Use ‘alt’ attributes to describe your tags
Search engine spiders and robots do not know how to read images, so it helps if you can help them to identify what a image is all about by using the ‘alt’ attributes to put in descriptions. A simple tip is to put in keywords that you want to rank for inside the description. Just make sure you don’t overdo it.

Write unique and quality content
Unique and quality content will ensure your site will be well loved by the search engines. Important point to take note is to write content that gives people value rather than for the search engines only. Ultimately, sites with unique and quality content will fare better and lasted longer than sites using pure PLR materials or scraping content off other sites.

These few tips will get your WordPress blog started on the right track to attract more traffic. As you move along and become more experience using WordPress, you will find more advance tips and strategies to optimize your WordPress blog. Just remember to check out my blog from time to time.

Now, to use Fantastico to install your WordPress blogs automatically, first of all you need a web hosting account with Fantastico. After you have log into your hosting account, you have to click on the Fantastico icon shown below.

Once you have click on the Fantastico icon, you will be direct to the next screen below.

Click on the “WordPress” link at the side navigation menu. You will be direct to the next screen shown below.

Click on the highlighted in blue “New Installation” link to start a new WordPress Installation. You will be direct to the next screen shown below.

Installation Location

Under the “Installation On Domain” box, if you have more than one domain on your hosting account, you will have to scroll down and choose the domain that you want to install the WordPress blog on. Otherwise, the default domain will be shown. Leave the “Install in Directory” box blank.

Admin Access Data

As for the “Administrator Username” and “Password” boxes, just type in your preferred username and password.

Base Configuration

In the boxes under this section, type in a nickname for your admin nickname box, as for the email part, type in your domain email such as admin@profitablepoint or john@profitablepoint etc. Remember to create a administrator email or general email for your domain inside your hosting account before installing WordPress. The next two boxes require you to type in your site name and a short description of your site. You can change this site name and description later in your WordPress control panel, so there’s no need to get stressed out over this part.

When you are done, just click on the “Install WordPress” button at the bottom of the page to go to the next screen shown below.

Click on the “Finish Installation” button to complete your WordPress installation.

Over at this screen, you will see the details of your WordPress installation. You have the option to email the details of this WordPress installation to your email by filling in the box shown above and then click on the “Send E-Mail” button.

Now that you have complete your WordPress installation, you can visit your site by clicking on the “Visit Site” link to visit your newly set up WordPress blog over at the WordPress overview screen.

As you can see, installing WordPress using Fantastico is very straightforward and easy. If you are looking for more information on web hosting with Fantastico, you can check out my section on “Web Hosting Reviews” to find a suitable web host with Fantastico.

Do not fret out if your current web host does not support Fantastico or automatic installation of WordPress. Manual installation is quite easy and once you get the hang out of it, you will be able to manual install a WordPress blog in minutes. Basically, manual installation of WordPress involves the following few steps as follows:

1. Download the latest version of WordPress in zip format and save it to your desktop.
2. FTP the latest version of WordPress to your domain directory inside your hosting account.
3. Set up a MySQL database for your new WordPress blog.
4. Unzip or extract the WordPress zip file into your domain directory folder.
5. Run WordPress installation.
6. Start posting.

I’m not going to go in depth into manual installation of WordPress as there is a good guide from WordPress to guide you along. You can check out “Installing WordPress” for a more comprehensive guide on how to install WordPress manually on your own hosting account.

There are many blogging platforms around, and the best of them have to be WordPress currently. Although I may be biased in saying that but having used WordPress for quite a period of time, I find that no other blogging platforms offer the same power and flexibility that WordPress offers.

I have previously written a post on “6 Reasons To Use WordPress” and you should check it out to know why WordPress remains the choice of blogging platform for many bloggers and online marketers.

TypePad is another popular blogging platform for many bloggers. I have no prior experience using TypePad so I do not have any comments to make about this blogging platform. But judging from TypePad popularity, you can be sure that TypePad will be another viable option for bloggers.

Alright, before I drifted off topic, here are the blogging platforms that you can look into in the event that you want to start a blog:

1. Blogsmith
2. Expression Engine
3. Movable Type
4. Typepad
5. Wordpress

And for those of you who prefer the free option, here is a list of sites that you can host your blog for free:
1. Blogger
2. LiveJournal
3. Multiply
4. Wordpress
5. Xanga

For those of you who are unsure of which blogging platform to go for, go for WordPress. You will never go wrong with Worpress just like me.

This simple tutorial is to guide those who are new online to sign up for an account with WordPress.com and set up their very first free hosted WordPress blog. Just follow these simple steps and you will be well on your way to your first WordPress blog.

To sign up for you’re a free hosted WordPress blog, just click on the big blue “SIGN UP NOW” button. It will then take you to the next screen.

You have a choice of straightaway having a blog of your choice or just signing up for an account. Remember to tick on the “Legal Flotsam” box after reading the terms of services first. Fill up all the necessary information and proceed to clicking on the “NEXT” button to go to the next screen.

Over this screen, you can choose the blog domain name to be hosted at WordPress.com. Please note that this domain name must be unique. If the domain name that you have chosen is not available, you must select another. As for the blog title, you can choose any name as you like. Once you have filled up all the information, click on the “Signup” button.

At this point, an activation email will be send to the email address that you have used for registration. You need to click on the link inside the email to activate your account or else you will be required to register again. Once you have activated your account, you can then log in to your blog’s account to write your first post.

Inside your WordPress blog control panel, you can choose a different theme for your blog. There are many plugins and themes to make your wordpress blog a complete CMS. However to take advantage of the full benefits and features of WordPress, it is better to have your own hosting and domain. Take your time to play with the functions and settings inside WordPress and when you are ready, get your own domain and hosting to make some money blogging.

As Blogger is owned by Google, you can use your existing Gmail account to log in to Blogger and create your blog. Although you can use your Yahoo! Or Hotmail accounts to register for a Blogger’s account; I find it best to use my Gmail account for accessing my Blogger’s account.

Alright, here’s to the first step. If you have an existing Google account, just sign in using your email and password in the boxes on the top right corner. Otherwise if you do not have any exiting Google account, just click on the “CREATE A BLOG” orange button.

Once you click on that button, you will be direct to the next screen below. Fill up all the necessary information indicate in the boxes.

When you have finish, just click on the “CONTINUE” button to go to the next screen.

At this stage, your account is already registered and it is time to name your blog. Choose a suitable name for your blog. You can choose anything as the name need not be unique. However, it is a different issue when it comes to the blog address or blog URL. You need select one that has not yet been selected by others. For example if you type “ProfitablePoint” into the empty box, you will find that it is already taken up by yours truly.

To check for the availability of each blog URL, just click on the underlined “Check Availability” link. As for the part on the advance options, just ignore it for the time being. Once you finish filling up all the boxes, just click on the “CONTINUE” button to go to the next screen to select a template for your blog.

Now it is time to select a template for your blog. Go through the available templates and choose one that you like. When ready, click on the “CONTINUE” button to go to the next screen.

Now that you have finished setting up your blog, it is time to start blogging. Just click on the “START BLOGGING” button to start writing your very first post for your blog.

As you can see, getting started on blogging is not as technical or difficult as it seems. Once you got your Blogger’s blog started, start playing around and familiarized yourself with the functions and settings inside. You will find yourself mastering blogging basics in no time.

As a newbie, it is important for you to understand that even though traffic is important, if you do not have any idea how to monetize them, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. Therefore, besides knowing how to drive traffic to your site, you also need to learn how to monetize your traffic which will be discussed in another post.

Here are some tips and free methods which will help you to generate and drive traffic to your website.

Article submission
Submitting articles to article directories is a good way to drive targeted and quality traffic to your website. The key is to write articles with enticing titles and a good author bio to boot. These two points will help to increase CTR (click through rate) to your website.

Blog Comments
Be the first or first few people to comment on high traffic blogs in your niche. This ensures a high degree of visibility for your comments and if your comments are well written, you can be sure that more people will find their way to you through your blog comments.

Forum Signatures
Forums are a great way to drive large volume of targeted traffic. Similar to commenting on blogs, you can also make suitable postings to hot threads to drive traffic to your website.

Quality Content
It is important to retain existing visitors rather than keep on driving new visitors to your website. Therefore, quality content is the single most important element in making sure people keep coming back to your website.

Regular Updates
It is especially important for bloggers to keep their blogs updated regularly. A blog or website without regular updates is definitely not going to have any repeat visitors much less new visitors. Stick to a regular updating of your sites to keep people coming back. This comes hand in hand with having quality content.

Social Bookmarking
Submitting articles and content to social bookmarking sites is another good and effective way to drive targeted traffic to your website. There are probably hundreds of social bookmarking sites around but you do not need to go to the extent of submitting to all of them. Just choose a few such as Digg, Propeller and StumpleUpon to focus on will do.

Social Networking
Many marketers and webmasters are leveraging on social networking sites such as FaceBook, Friendster and MySpace to build large networks of friends and market their products, services and websites to their networks. This is a highly effective method to generate and drive traffic and one which you should adopt as soon as possible.

There are more ways to generate and drive traffic to your website but these tips and methods will go a long way to helping you score your first visitors. Some of the methods such as PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising requires a certain amount of investment and is more suitable for experienced webmasters than newbies. Therefore, it is better to go for the free route first before venturing into paid methods. For more information on generating and driving traffic to your website, you can check out my section on “Traffic Generation”.

If you are new to link building, just understand that a link coming from a quality site is deem more useful than a few links coming from inferior sites. For example, a link coming from a PR4 (Page Rank) site will be considered by Google to be better than 10 links coming from 10 PR1 sites. Having quality incoming links will give a quick boost to your SERPS (Search Engine Results Page) placement, especially in Google.

However, even though quality links are very important, it is also difficult to get a lot of quality links initially. This is why it is important for you to build links of all sorts and types, regardless of page rank. There are many ways to build links and I have listed down some common methods which you can start building links for a start.

Article Submission
Submitting articles to article directories is one way of building one way links and driving traffic to your site at the same time. Many articles directories are highly placed in the search engines. When your articles are approved and published, most likely your article will get indexed within 24 hours or less, giving you another quality link to boot.

Blog Comments
Commenting on blogs is also another good way to get more links and also drive traffic to your site. Just make sure your not spamming other people’s blog just for the sake of getting some links. The trick is to provide decent comments on the posts.

Directory Submission
Submitting to quality website directories will provide you with quality incoming links for a start. This should be your initial link building method when you are starting a new site. There are both paid and free directory submissions but the frankly for me, the free directory submission will be more than enough for a start.

Forum Signatures
This is another popular method to build links and drive traffic at the same time. Most forums will allow registered users to include links in their signatures and when you make a post; your signature together with your links will appear underneath your posting, giving you another link. The more you post, the more links you will have pointing back to your site. Same as blog comments, the key is not to spam the forum but make intelligent postings.

Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is a relative new way to build links by bookmarking or submitting your content or web pages to social bookmarking sites. This is a good way to boost traffic and build quality links at the same time as a lot of social bookmarking sites have high PR.

As you can see, the methods listed above are more than enough to get you busy for an extended period of time. There are some tools and software that can give you a head-start and save you much time in building links. I have used Article Post Robot, Auto Social Poster and Directory Submitter for my link building efforts and I can say that these are the few tools and software that can really help you a lot. There are some other advance methods of building links which I will talk about another day in another post but for now, these methods will be good enough for you.

• Research and gathering information
• Organizing your content
• Writing
• Editing
• Publishing

Research and gathering information for developing content is probably the easiest of the lot, besides publishing. You will probably be able to find everything that has ever been written or published on the internet. Also, you can check out competing websites and take a look at what they have written for a particular topic. From there, you can gather and extract all the important points to include and rewrite in your own style. You can also to go forums in your niche to do research and find materials to write for your website.

After you have done your research and gathering of information, it is time to organize the materials that you have. There are many ways to organize the information. One way is to organize the points in order of importance. Organizing the information that you have is very important to how efficient you can write and the quality of the content that you produce.

After organizing, it is time for you to sit down and write your content. When you are finished with your content, it is not done yet, you have to view and read it a couple of times to make sure at the very minimum you do not have any grammatical or spelling errors. This is part of the editing process which you will fine tune and weed out any errors. When you have done with the editing, you can then publish the content to your website.

Now, for those of you who are not keen on developing content themselves and you have some resources to spare, you can choose to either outsource your content development to others or purchase PLR contents for use on your websites. Just bear in mind that PLR content will probably be found on tens if not hundreds and thousands of similar websites on the internet. Outsourcing is probably the way to go if you have resources; otherwise PLR content is also a good choice for webmasters who hate the idea of developing content themselves.