Blogging - Ten or So Sites You Need To Know

Whether you are already part of the blogging phenomenom that has spread across the World, or if you simply aspire to learn something about the online community, there is plenty of assistance available to you online to help you create or expand your online presence.

To get started online your could try hosting your site on Xanga or Blogger or the very popular Wordpress . All of these sites offer free blogging that can be set up quick and easily and are worldwide communities offering great blog exposure.

Myspace and Facebook are online social networking giants. As such, Google and other search engines love these sites offering great exposure for your blog. Just create your personal page and add links to your blog.

If you are reading this blog you are probably interested in making money online. Well there are numerous sites that help you do this. The first two I want to tell you about are ClickBank and Adsense. Both are affiliate programs whereby you advertise products from each site on your blog through link advertisements and banner advertisements created by the marketer. When a visitor to your site clicks on an advertisement he/she is redirected to the seller's site hosting the particular product. If a product is purchased you will receive a percentage of the profit.

To avoid some of the blogging pitfalls many unfortunately fall into you should try visiting some 'expert' blogger sites. Sites like Marketing Quickies and Blogging to the Bank both offer some great advice on blogging techniques.

You want to get as much traffic to your blog as is humanly possible. Without the traffic, there is no opportunity for income. I always quote a 1% rule as a lower bound for profits. If you have 1000 people visit your site a month you may have 10 person click on an advertisement. Of those 10 people only 10% may actually make a purchase, so you need 1000 unique visitors for just 1 purchase. This is extremist but a good path to follow as it is much better to underestimate things at this early age. Consider adding your blogs to blog directories like Blog Catalog and Yahoo. The same goes for the listings on Google.

Another mechanism for gaining essential exposure for your blog is through submitting your own articles to Ezine Articles. You offer your article up for free use by other bloggers but you can cunningly add your blog link to the end of the article such that it must be posted on all other sites where it is used. This gives you great and essential back links which Google loves!

A final site that is a must is Pro Blogger. This is a hub for blogging advice in an easy to digest format.

That should get you started for now. Good Luck!

Next Time: An Honest Review - Blogging to the Bank 3.0