In my continued search for profitable self employment ideas online, one recurring opportunity presents itself for consideration. That is blogging. But how does one earn money blogging, and what does one blog about? The experts who have actually made an income writing content and articles on the internet use a variety of techniques to become successful bloggers. As for the subject of their blogs, the pros insist that they write about what they know. For a beginner like myself, that will result in writer’s block (blogger’s block?) every time. Nothing makes my mind go blank faster than someone asking me what I know. So, for the sake of all of us clueless, yet ambitious newbies, I will start by relaying some of the methods used by others to make a living blogging on the internet.

One common method bloggers use to generate revenue online is affiliate marketing. More and more businesses are using outside marketers called affiliates to generate sales or leads. They pay the affiliate a fee or a percentage of the sale for sending a customer to their business’ website to make purchases. What does this have to do with blogging? The affiliate needs an outlet to attract potential buyers. Usually this is accomplished by setting up a website. The site will only attract traffic if it contains content for which a group of people have an interest. Bloggers fulfill that interest by writing articles or reviews on related subjects and posting them on websites. The products that an affiliate offers on the site are generally also related to that interest. When a potential buyer wants to learn more about a particular product, he or she will click on a link supplied by the affiliate that sends the customer to the business selling the product. There are websites dedicated to offering affiliate marketers a plethora of different product options to promote. Because this can be very confusing to a beginner who is interested in blogging for income, more advanced avenues for earning money become available to bloggers.

Experienced bloggers develop programs to teach others the techniques that they learned over the years to become successful online entrepreneurs. These programs contain detailed tutorials about setting up websites and using methods that will attract traffic to the sites. Advanced bloggers also write e-books for this purpose as well as many other subjects that people have an interest in on the internet.

Because this article is geared toward beginners to internet commerce, I will not go into further detail at this time. These are just a few of the ways that an individual can earn money blogging. As we invest more and more time and effort into researching self employment ideas online, a whole new world of opportunity will be made available to us.