Previously, we’ve seen a few tips that would help you build a blog that you can use for online marketing. While deciding on the kind of content you will have on your blog, choosing a good hosting provider and monetizing your blog are important things to consider, there are also a few other tips you should keep in mind if you want your new blog to be a great tool that will help you make more money online. Here are some more of them:

Choose a Good Theme

When you create a blog by using a system such as WordPress or Joomla, you get thousands of options when it comes to themes for your new blog. A theme is basically an overall design, sort of like a template, that will determine the look and feel of your blog. Choosing a theme is relatively easy, as when you look through WordPress or Joomla, you will see thousands of free themes, as well as some paid ones that you can instantly apply to your blog. However, this is not something that you will want to rush into. It’s better for you to look carefully at all the designs available and select one that will work well for you.

The theme that you use will need to match well with your business and should be similar in appearance to your main website. Don’t hesitate to ask colleagues for advice on which theme will be better for you.

If you have some graphics and programming knowledge, you can design your own blog theme, or edit an existing one to make it match your needs better. You can also pay someone to make a custom made theme just for your blog, however the services of a professional theme designer could cost several hundreds of dollars.

Make Sure Your Blog is Inviting to the User and Easy to Navigate

One of the most common complaints that blog readers have is that the blogs seem to be filled with ads, opt in boxes and other monetization options, so much that it is difficult to actually see what link will lead them to an actual content page and which one is an ad. Of course, it’s important for you to make money from your blog and this is probably one of your primary objectives. But remember that the first purpose of the blog is a communication tool that you use to convey information to your visitors. Therefore, it needs to be easy to navigate for the user.

To determine whether you’re doing things right, create your blog and install your theme, make any customizations necessary and add a few test posts. Then show the result to some people to see whether they like it or not. Get some input on what they think should be changed or improved on your new blog. This will allow you to make some changes before you officially launch your blog.

When you have decided what you are going to blog about then the next step is to pick your domain name.  I recommend you pick a domain name that will have your main keyword in the URL.  A keyword is the word that is searched on Google everyday by users that will hopefully get directed to your blog.

To research what keywords are searched on a monthly basis on Google I recommend the following free tool:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

As an example I am going to target the keyword “LCD Tvs” in this guide

You will then be shown a list of the commonly used keywords used in that niche, with the Global monthly search volume is the amount of times a month that keyword is searched on Google worldwide and the local search volume is the country your in.  On the “Match Type” box on the right select “Phrase” and this will highlight the keyword phrase with “commas”.  Now what you want to do is go to Google.com and see what competition there is for this keyword.  What you want to do is find a keyword that has less then 50,000 competing websites because the less competition for that keyword the more likely you will rank on page 1 for that keyword.

For example go to Google and do the following with your chosen keyword (The keyword I chose from my list was “best flat screen tv” which has a monthly search volume of 9,900) making sure to put the quote marks around your keyword.

Now once you have chosen the keyword you want to target, next is to search online to see if there is a domain available that has your main keyword within the domain name.

The ideal domain extensions you want are

1. First option for .com if its available
2. 2^nd option if .com is taken is .org
3. 3^rd option if both .com and .org are taken then get .net

If all 3 extensions are taken then what you can do is add something to the end of the domain for example:

www.bestflatscreentvonline.com

www.bestflatscreentvworld.com

www.bestflatscreentvinfo.com

etc..

Make sure you don’t have any dashes (-) in your domain name and make sure your keyword starts at the beginning.

Click Here To Search For A Domain Name

If you have a wordpress blog and want to make money from your blog then a very good plugin to install is the Google adsense plugin.  The plugin is free to install.  Simply do a search on Google for the “Google Adsense WordPress Plugin”.  Download and unzip the plugin then using your FTP software upload the plugin to the following directory within your hosting account:

Public_html/wp-contents/plugins

Login to your blog and under plugins you should see the Adsense plugin and activate it.

Once you have activated the plugin your ready to customise the plugin under “Settings” on the bottom left of the screen.  Under the Adsense ID this is where you put you Google adsense publisher id also known as your PUB Number.  This number can be found at the top right hand corner in your Google adsense account.

You can also setup Adsense channels if you use adsense for several other websites and want to track which site is generating your clicks.

You can also set what sizes you want the adds to be displayed on your blog under ad formats.  You can also decide if you want your ads to appear on articles, static pages, category pages, on your home page or any of your archive pages.

You can also change the colour of your ads to match the theme of your website and you can also set to show a number of adds per page depending on your preferences.

If you have a blog or a website and are looking for a way to make money from it then i recommend joining upto Googles partnership program called Google Adsense.  Google adsense is a partnership opportunity that you will allow Google to show their adverts on your website and whenever a customer of yours clicks on their adverts you earn a commission instantly

The commission you earn depends on your content, some adverts can earn you upto $5 and some 0.20c depending on how much the advertiser has paid Google.  Google then spilts the revenue with you for placing the add on your website.  From the advertisers point of view this is called PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising via the Google Adwords network.

The great thing about Google adsense adverts is that you can easily intregrate them into your website or blog either as text or banners.  You can change the look and colour of the text to match your content which makes your reader want to click on the adverts as they will think they are part of your website so you earn commission very easily.

There is a very good plugin for wordpress that you can upload and activate and allow Google adsense to show up in your articles on pages.  Just run a search on Google for the plugin.  Installation is very easy.