By now, you must know something about blogs and blogging. Whether you have started a blog on your own, or know of someone who has, blogs are a great way to express yourself, keep in touch with friends, and most importantly (at least for us here) make money.

Blogs are no longer just piddly recipe sites or "look what my cat Maxine did" sites that your lonely neighbor sets up. No, blogs are big business. Just check the following news article here. It is entirely possible to not only make some decent money on your blog, but to even retire on its earnings.You will not profit from a blog site that discusses what you had for lunch or what horrible shoes your friend is wearing today. For serious money-making, you need a blog that provides valuable content for the reader. A personal finance site, such as the one you are visiting here, (hopefully) provides the reader with something of value. A blog about good seafood restaurants in Florida, or about the job market in San Francisco, are other ways that you might choose to attract people.

The other half of successful (lucrative) bloging is monetization. You may start making money with your blog by signing up with Google Adsense, for example, and placing links within your content which will show Google ads. Then, every time someone goes to your blog and clicks on the ads, you make a commission. As you develop your blog and your advertising skills, you will be able to sign up for affiliate sites like ClickBank and LinkShare, choosing specific product lines that will be ideally suited to your site. If you become very successful with your site, generating thousands of page views a day, you will be able to successfully solicit vendors directly. At that point, you will have these vendors paying you for the privilege of posting banners and ads on your site, with no clicks required to make money.

Do you need to buy web hosting and a domain in order to have a successful blog? Not at all. There are plenty of free sites out there that will allow you to start a blog in no time, and even monetize it. I have listed a few such free blog sites below.

Bravenet This site allows you to set up a free blog and RSS feeds.

Google Blogger Google offers a handy blogging site which allows you to not only start your own blog (at http://yourblogname.blogspot.com) but to also keep track of your other blogs. And it’s free!

Today  I recently signed up with Today.com and have my own little blog going there (click here to check it out). I must say: the site is pretty good; It’s easy to sign up at Today and navigate through the site’s pages and directions. Best of all, anytime someone clicks on your blog, you make 0.002 cents per click. It doesn’t sound like much at first, but if you write some interesting topics, or have a bunch of friends who’ll go on your site, those clicks add up.

WordPress I signed up with WordPress and have a small web blog there (to see it, click here). The nice thing about WordPress blogs is that they are universally recognized by many social netowrking sites, like Facebook and Twitter. So, you can publish something to your WordPress blog, then notify people of your new content. WordPress also integrates well with freelance writing sites like Associated Content. If you look at my own WordPress blog, you’ll definitely notice how my recent AC content is prominently posted there.

Want to learn more about blogs and blogging? Want to make money on your blogs? The following articles discuss such things as blogging, monetization, marketing, social bookmarking, publishing, and much much more. While you don’t have to be an expert in blogging in order to do blogging (and even get paid for it), you do need to learn some basics before diving into the world of the blog. This will save you loads of work later on, and definitely some headaches. 

What You Should Know About Blogging

• What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

• Your Guide to Making Money by Blogging

• Promoting a Blog or Business through Online Press Releases

• Article Marketing: One of the Best Ways to Drive Traffic to your Web Site

• Taking Advantage of Social Media Marketing

If you are looking for a serious, no-holds barred, everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-blogging-but-were-afraid-to-ask, guide to blogging, consider Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind course. This guy does a lot more than tell you to just obtain a domain name and install WordPress in order to start your blog. Of course, he does that too, but once you have your blog running, Yaro incrementally goes through the many ways in which you can turn your blog into a successful money-generating machine. He also introduces a concept called blog flipping, whereby you buy and then sell blogs at profit. After all, there are people out there making a six figure income through blogging (with Yaro Starak being one of them). Even if you don’t buy Yaro’s course, you can sign up for his weekly newsletter, which provides lots of good blogging advice. If you would like to check out and/or purchase Blog Mastermind, click here.