Blogs are the latest and greatest way to earn an income online. It’s so great because of the flexibility of a blog, you can write about whatever it is you like and be able to monetize in some way that makes you money. This means that no matter what your hobby is, whether it be basketball, or knitting, you can make a blog about it and be able to make a decent income online from it.

When you make money blogging, the idea is get the attention of a certain audience, this will be your “target” audience. Once you decide who your “target” audience is going to be then you can move on to deciding how your going to monetize (make money) from your blog.

There are many ways a person can choose to make money online from a blog.

1. Affiliate Marketing – place affiliate links related to your topics, so when someone clicks on a link and ends up making a purchase, you get paid commission on that sale.

2. PPC Networks – Sign up to a PPC network like Google AdSense, or BidVertiser, and display relevant ads on your site. Every time someone clicks on an ad on your blog, you will get paid for the click, no purchase is required.

3. Sponsors – Another way to monetize your site is with sponsors, you can rent ad space on your site, and get paid under a monthly basis by your advertisers.

4. Consulting – If your helping others out in your blog, then it’s not unusual that someone may need more help then others. In many cases you will receive an e-mail from a readers willing to pay you for one on one consulting.

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A paid to click (ptc) site is exactly what is sounds like. You get paid to click a link and visit a website for about 30 seconds. Website owners know how essential traffic is so they pay these ptc companies maybe ten bucks for 500-1000 visitors. The ptc company then pays you a very small percentage to visit these sites. It’s a win win situation, the website generates more traffic and you earn money for visiting.

Do not get me wrong you are not going to make a fortune from a ptc site. This is however the easiest and the only free way to make money online that I have come across. Most of these sites pay you 1 cent for every link that you click.

You can also refer people and make money on all of their clicks. I know you are saying to yourself, “what good is one cent going to do?” When I first signed up for a few ptc sites I thought all I have to do is join as many as possible and keep clicking.

This is not the way to make a decent income from ptc. To truly generate a decent income you have to build a downline of clickers who log on daily and click the links available. Here is a brief illustration of how building a downline can multiply your efforts.

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A targeted ad in pay per click advertising results in more clicks. PPC service providers offer many tools that you can use for this effect.

Following are few options that you can use to target your pay per click ad campaigns better.

Use Well Matched Campaigns: You should bid on well matched keywords. You can try different types of matching options to produce maximum effect. Here is a basic understanding of different types of matches

Exact match- Your ad would be displayed only when exact keyword you are bidding on is typed. Thus, if you bid on “golf accessories”, the ad would be displayed on “golf accessories” search and not the likes “accessories for golf” etc. You can use this exact match to target your campaign.

Broad Match- A listing is triggered by the keyword phrase or slight variations of it, even if the words are out of order or separated by other words. Example: “golf accessories” will match “How To Play Golf” and possibly even “Golf Swings and Shots.” Broad match search is very useful for brand names and bigger companies with a name tag but it is not a good option for small budget businesses. It can result in a lot of poorly targeted clickthroughs for general terms and thus produce unnecessary burden on your campaign.

Negative Match- The ad is not displayed when a negative word that you have chosen is typed into search engine along with keyword. For example if you list “free” as negative keyword along with golf accessories then your ad would not be displayed when someone types “free golf accessories”. This kind of matching would allow you to keep people away who are not likely to buy.

Phrase Match- Ad is displayed when the phrase as it is written for bid is included in the search, though search might include other terms as well. Thus, “golf accessories” will match “golf accessories for starters” but not with “accessories for starters of golf.” Again this option can result in higher non contributory clicks.

Contextual Targeting: This is offered by Yahoo Search and Google AdWords both. Contextual targeting places your ad on websites which have the content related to your ad. It is a good idea to use contextual ads because it adds to your exposure.

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