But here’s a summary of the tips:

1. Post FREQUENTLY…
2. Think of your readers…
3. Love your visitors…
4. Be different…
5. PERSERVERE…
6. Never stop learning…
7. Go out of your way to selflessly help people, and you will be amazed what rewards you will receive.

I’ve been through this stage. I was excited when I was told that, while doing some research, so-and-so landed on my blog and really enjoyed reading it. I realised it was spam when I got the same comment over and over. Oh, and the fact that I could get my breasts enlarged if I visited their site.

There is a good article called “How to Spam with Blogs: A Tutorial for Every Wanna-be SEO” outlining a few of these spamming methods. Here’s a quote:

The problem with all blog spam is that it relies on SEO “tactics” that the search engines hate. Sometimes a nuisance, sometimes illegal and almost always results in more garbage on the Internet. There is nothing worse than having to wade through someone’s garbage to find good quality information. But one thing is for sure, for as long as blog spam works, one man’s garbage will continue to be a spammer’s goldmine.

On my blogs, because I’m using WordPress, there is a neat little plugin I’ve installed called “Akismet“, which, in the words of it’s creators:

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web serivce to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use this service. You can review the spam it catches under “Manage” and it automatically deletes old spam after 15 days.

Using this plugin, I’ve caught about 100 comments that are actually spam comments. This is nothing compared to what some blogs actually get. But it definitely helps.

By now, you probably know pro-blogging success (AKA making money) depends on finding the right niche. Focus on a specific topic, and you draw readers interested in researching and potentially buying something related to that topic. Whether you’re into affiliate programs or pay-per-click advertising, it’s easy to capitalize on a niche audience.

Finding a niche can be really simple, and yet, why don’t we all find one?
One tip I can offer when trying to come up with a Niche: Think about something you enjoy doing, or even just researching, take it down to a granular level, and talk about that.

As the writer of the ProBlogger article shows, instead of writing about “warmth in the home”, which could mean fireplaces, as well as heaters, blankets, slippers, etc., they took ONE of these topics and focused on that.

1. Claim your blog at services like Technorati

This is an easy option that has a few benefits, though in my opinion, 2 important ones:
People will more easily find your blog using the topic/keyword searches
You will be able to see how many blogs are linking to you

2. Use Ping services like PinGoat or Ping-O-Matic

If you are using WordPress, this is most likely already happening. (Ever notice how long it can take to publish your post??) Check out the settings at the bottom of “Options->Writing” in the Admin Console for your blog.

3. Use FeedBurner for your RSS publishing

I mention this when talking about my preferred WordPress plugins in this post: “WordPress Plugins – What and Why”

For the rest of the list, go take a look at the blog. Like I said, it’s very helpful…

Anyway, there are MANY ways to earn money from blogging. We can all see I’m using Google AdSense here, but here’s a very quick rundown:

• Per-Click Advertising - Probably the most famous of these is Google’s AdSense. This is a very simple way of earning money as it involves putting some code into your web pages, and Google’s system does the rest. It scans your text and finds ads it feels are most relevant.
• Affiliate Programs – This is where you put adverts on your page for specific products and you get a small commission if any items are sold via these adverts. A good example of a company that does this is Amazon.com.
• Selling Ad Space on your blog - This mainly happens when you have a large readership. You can then approach suppliers, (they could even approach you), and offer to sell them space on your blog to put relevant adverts on. They would then pay you a pre-arranged amount.

So, depending on what you’re looking for, there are many ways to earn money blogging. In future posts I will be highlighting a lot of them, but my focus will be mainly on Google AdSense. To give you some sort of optimism, there are people out there earning MUCH more than $10,000 A MONTH from AdSense. There are even videos that people have outlining how to earn money from AdSense. I won’t be showing any videos for AdSense any time soon, though. I like the idea of keeping things simple.

Use Headings:

This is something that is very effective. Using headings that stick out from the rest of the text will enable a reader who is scanning the page to see if the information on the page is actually relevant.

Use images in your posts:

Using images in your post helps relieve some of the strain caused by too much text. When you were small, did you ever enjoy reading books with no pictures? Pictures that help tell a story can enhance the story as well. And, of coures, a lot of text looks like a lot of BOOORRINNG!

You don’t have to be a top class photographer to put photos on your blog. You could also get some photos from free image and photo stock websites. There are a few subscription based, royalty free stock photos available, as well as completely free stock photos available. On some sites, the only requirement is that you notify the owner of the image that you will be using their photo. I will discuss some of these sites in a later post.

Make your blog visually appealing:

Whichever platform you have decided to use to blog, you will most probably be able to change the template of your posts. This means you will be able to change the look and feel of your blog. If you browse the internet you should be able to find quite a few free blog templates for your platform.

This has 2 benefits:

1. - Your blog looks more appealing and professional
2. - You can give your blog an original look and feel to it

Following these simple tips can really make your reader’s visit an enjoyable one.

Get your blog high in the SERP‘s:

This will be discussed in a lot more detail later on as there are a LOT of things that need to be done to faciliate this. Some of them are:

• Put a few relevant keywords in your post – You shouldn’t write about dogs without actually mentioning the word “dogs”, right?
• Name your posts properly – This is generally because the names of your posts become the title of the post’s page, and the Page Title plays a big role for Search Engines
• Become a blog that people link to – This probably won’t really apply so early on the life of a blog, but the more relevant sites that link to your blog, the better

Join Relevant Discussion Forums:

This will help quite a bit, because it might also give you some information to help you with your blog. There are a TON of forums out there on the internet, so it shouldn’t be TOO hard to find a few that are relevant to your blog’s topic. When you join a forum you will generally learn a bit from the other members (assuming it is an active forum). Not only that but you can ask people to visit your site if it’s appropriate. Just be careful, as joining a forum just to ask people to view your site is considered spam and can get you into trouble.

Visit similar blogs and comment on them:

This will also be beneficial because, a lot of the time, when you comment on other blogs you can leave a link to your blog’s site when you fill in your details. If you start leaving some useful comments on other blogger’s sites, they tend to come to your blog to see what you have to say. And, other visitors to the other blog follow your “comments” to your blog as well.