Tools I Use to make Money Blogging. Please note all these links are affiliate links. This means that if you are kind enough to make a purchase using any of the links below I will earn a small commission. This is how affiliate marketing works.
Where I Started From
When I started out I bought a software programme called "Build A Niche Store" The company who produced this software also later produced a comprehensive beginners guide to how to make money on the Internet. This guide is called "make 3 to 5 Grand A Month". Now firstly I do not think a beginner can easily make that kind of money and this type of hype is typical of the Internet Marketing world in those days. I no longer use the BANS software.
Webhosting
If you are serious about making money on line then you will need your own web hosting account. When I started I chose Hostgator which was recommended to me from other Internet Marketers.
This proved a sound choice. I have always found the staff at Hostgator to be helpful and prompt in replying. If you explain you are new to the Internet and ask nicely they usually go out of their way to solve problems often ones which are not strictly down to just hosting. I have a baby croc account with many domains hosted with them and have no hesitation in recommending them to you. Just click the link below and go register an account with them.
Whilst Hostgator is a US Company I have found no difficulty in using them from here in the UK.
Ok so you have bought your webhosting and you have created your wordpress blog. You will no doubt want to make your website look professional and stand out from the crowd. To do this I can recommend to you Studiopress. This company make some really outstanding wordpress themes. Now you can get a huge variety of free themes for wordpress on the web. The down side to this is so can millions of other users. I have found better results in terms of traffic and customer satisfaction using them. They are not cheap and they are not easy to use first off for a novice. Once you have created one or two blogs you will soon find you want to customise your site to look different. this is where Studiopress is great. The support is good and the user forum is comprehensive. I first started by buying one theme but soon decided to buy the full package. Just click the link below to visit them.
If you have your wordpress blog hosted and you have sorted out your nice looking theme then you need some help in actually making some money. I suggest one of the easiest ways to start with is Ebay Partner Network. Now there is an easy way to display ebay listings on your blog and that is by using a wordpress plugin called PhpBay.
This plugin is easy to install and really simple to use. It draws ebay listings directly into your blog. Click on the link and take a look at the product. I have had my greatest volume of earnings using this plugin.
The other main source of income is Google Adsense. You can get an overview of Google Adsense by clicking the link. Simply put Google will pay you a commission for putting their adverts on your website for each and every time some one clicks on this advert. This system is so simple and easy to install and above all is free to use that it is the best way for an absolute beginner to start to earn money from their website.
Now the skill in earning any money from the web is based on some simple maths. The more visitors you get to your website then the more likely one of them will click through a link to a vendor and make a sale. This will earn you your commission. You will make more money if you have a hundreds visitors a day than 10 visitors a day. it is as simple as that. How to get more visitors is itself a science and at times almost a black art. I have found a simple truth. It is better to be a small size fish in a very small pond than to to be a small size fish in a huge ocean. To do this you need to pick markets that are very narrow and well defined which are in demand and have little competition. As Alexander the Meerkat would say "simples".
To be able to pick such a market requires detailed research. To help I use a programme called Market Samurai. This programme assist and speeds up the process of identifying potential profitable Niche Markets and discarding the too competitive markets where you could waste time and money without earning a thing.
Now the good thing with Market Samurai is that you trial it free before you buy.
Micro Niche Finder
This is a great alternative to Market Samurai. I own both. Micro Niche Finder does not have the bells and whistles of MS but it does work and load a lot quicker. Take a look at the product yourself.
Disclaimer - Although I use all these tools I cannot guarantee that if you purchase any of them that you can replicate my success at earning an online income.
Using these tools I have created a series of websites which earn me what is called a passive income. By this I mean once the website has been created it requires very little work to keep it going and it earns small commissions which build up over months to be a regular small income. If you build several of these sites then the income level can grow.
Now since the Google Panda and Penguin updates (click the link to read my articles) Google hates these sites. This has caused hundreds of marketers to stop making these small micro niche sites.
However I have found that provided they are still found in Bing and Yahoo or you direct traffic to them from a different source then they can still make smaller amounts of money than previously, but still they are worth building.
Here is one example of a micro niche site I built which was earning well prior to Googles Panda and Penguin Updates. It was then dropped by Google from its search results completely. Google hates my site and does not send any traffic to it at all.
However Bing and Yahoo do. Very small amounts of traffic compared with before but it still generates small pockets of income each month. Here is the web site.
Its not a very pretty site. It is very thin with little content. But it was built using the above tools and it still earns a small passive income each month. On this site alone it would not be worth my effort. But add its income to the others I own and it all gradually mounts up.
There are some experts in this field who you can buy courses from to learn their techniques. The two biggest are Shoemoney and John Chow. The below links take you to their latest products which if you buy I earn a small commission from.
Shoemoney Advert
John Chow Advert
So what are you waiting for - Inactivity will lead you no where. If you take the leap and give this a go who knows what you will learn.