How to Become a Profitable Blogger, Part 2

1. By now, you know if you’re going to enjoy this or not. If so, take a moment and go over to godaddy.com and buy a domain name for your blog. Do it now, it’s only $8.95, and Blogger has a great article in the help section explaining how to transfer it over (super-easy!). You won’t have to change a thing on your blog, and you’ll still be able to use the blogger interface. Plus google will host everything for free.

2. Add Google Analytics to your site so you can begin measuring stats. I’m testing pMetrics from Performancing right now, and I have to say, it’s much more intuitive and easier for the layman like me to understand. But, Google Analytics is really a de facto standard right now, and every advertiser that has requested stats from me expected Analytics.

3. If you’ve been a good boy or girl and started getting links and a little traffic, you may have seen your page rank begin to inch up to 1 or 2. Changing to the new domain name may reset you, but you’ll build it back quickly and it is best to do it now than when you have a PR 5 blog with advertisers demanding you keep your rank up. Trust me. I have several PR 4 and 5 blogs that I never bought domain names for until it was too late, and now it’s almost impossible to make the switch without risking a loss of income in the short run. Additionally, sites like PayPerPost allow advertiser to exclude certain domains, and your Blogspot or Xanga address could limit your opportunities.

4. Now is the time to start being aggressive about optimizing your site for the search engines. Get your links out there, join some message boards in your niche, communicate regularly with your blogger friends, put a small Alexa badge down in the footer of your page so you get credit for every visitor (and not just those with the Alexa toolbar!) and find Technorati favorites communities to join. Be creative. Stay above-board, “white-hat”, but be aggressive.

5. Keep banging away at great content. Try stepping up and creating some pillar posts (timeless posts with huge value that people want to link to and give you kudos for).

6. Start tinkering with design a little. Try some new templates, add some new widgets, find something you really like. Do some research to be sure you design for SEO, or find a template, free or not free, that is set up well for the search engines.

7. If you’re of a mind to start making a little money with your blog, head over to PayPerPost.com and submit your blog. They accept blogs after 90 days, provided you have at least 20 posts and the content shows that you’re not necessarily blogging to make money (for instance, this blog would probably be rejected!). Most of the other paid-post brokers accept by this point as well, so click through the links in the sidebar and start submitting your blog.

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