The CrystalX Template

This template has a simple but professional looking design, and is originally adapted for Blogspot, from Wordpress. Who says that Blogger blogs can't look neat? Blended with the right Adsense units, heavy content, a few tweaks, and bingo, you have the pro blog layout of your dreams! To install, just download the .XML file from the download page, then upload the same file to the "Edit HTML" section of your Blogger dashboard.

The Connexion Theme

This awesome Blogger template shows a header picture of a skyline and a bridge. Great for blog authors who want their blogs to appear modern and reflect the beauty of city life! To download, just click the "The Connexion Theme" title above and you'll be taken to the download page immediately.

The Daya Earth Template

This is it! This three column template will surely leave you lots of room for links, Google ads, and lots of widgets on your blog! All you have to do is visit the download page, read the instructions there, and have this template incorporated into your blog in minutes! You may need to tweak some settings, though, so make sure you read the comments portion on the download page. The author of this template has answered most of the common questions.

The Minyx Template

This is an amazing, professionaly looking blog template/layout! Now you can use it on your free Blogger account and make your blog look more "legitimate'! The Minyx Template has a Web 2.0 style, customized for heavy content, and leaves you lots of room for your Google ads. The three column style and RSS subscription widget allows you to think and act like a problogger! Visit the download page now for more instructions!

Blogy Web 2.0 Template

Impress your blog subscribers with these simple but neat layout. Do you know that simple, professional themes like this are more attractive to readers? Now you do! And that's precisely the reason why the Blogy Web 2.0 template has been created. This template is great if you intend to add videos, pictures, widgets, feeds, surveys, and many other plug-ins to your blog! You may visit the download page now.

CAUTION: If you have no previous knowledge about downloading and installing blog templates, make sure you do a little research first. Feel free to post questions on this page, or do some research online. If your blog is already well established, be careful about impulsively installing .XML codes for template designs without prior knowledge. Some page elements might get removed and you do not want your blog to be messed up!

Feel free to leave questions on this page. Good luck and have fun!

Commission Junction 

Commission Junction is a website that allows you to become an affilliate for well known companies such as Capital One Bank, Carnival Cruise Lines, and many more.  The way it works is you register your website or blog for free on Commission Junction's website.  Once you have set up your account you can browse the list of companies.  Look for companies that are related to the topic and content of your blog or website.  Once you have found a company you would like to advertise for you apply to become an affilliate.  They will review your blog and e-mail you when you have been approved.  The next step after approval is to choose the advertisements you would like to place on your blog.  You can choose html or javascript formats, copy the code and paste it on your blog.  Blogger makes this easy by having a gadget you can paste the code into to add it.  Your ad now appears on your blog.  When a visitor to your blog clicks on the ad, they are taken to another website where they can purchase items or services.  You earn a commission from the purchases made. 

Link Share

Link Share is an affilliate program like Commission Junction.  They serve different companies though, so I suggest using both of them to find the advertisements that work best for your blog or website.  Some examples of the ads you can get can be seen at   Camping In The Western States. 

Google Adsense

Google adsense is a program through Google obviously, that allows google to place ads on your blog or website.  You in turn recieve a portion of the profits from clicks on these ads.  The way this works is, you set up a free account with Google Adsense, they will give you a code that you will use to get ads on your blog.  They choose which ads will go on your blog based on the content of your blog.  You can choose the format for the ads, size, shape, color, and number of ads so it will fit in with your theme.  On Blogger you can add an Adsense gadget using the code that google gave you.  Ads will appear on your blog within a couple of hours.  Using Blogger, you can choose to have ads between posts or on the side, bottom, or top of your blog.  Once you have earned a certain amount of money you can request payment by check or PayPal.  To see some examples of these ads you can go to Christy's Cruising Guide. You will see "Ads By Google" at the top of the page under the big picture. 

I know there are other ways that your blogs can be profitable for you but these are a few suggestions to get you started.  Good luck and I hope you make some good money!

Surf Other Blogs and Comment on Them

Try going to Google Blog Search and look for blogs that have a simlar topic to the webpage or blog you're promoting. Then leave useful comments on those pages. Don't just make spammy comments. Share useful thoughts and participate actively in any discussion. When you frequently do this, you wll accomplish three basic things:

1. The owners of the blog you comment on have a greater chance to visit your website (this is their way of returning the favor to you). Most blogs allow you to leave a link to your webpage each time you post a comment. People see your link, so they click it and end up on your website/blog.
2. Your website link will be popular. When your website link is posted on hundreds of other different blogs (just by simply posting comments), Google will decide that your link is important and popular. Therefore, your website address will push higher on search engines.
3. You will gain more recognition in the blogosphere. This is important for long term traffic.

Study Google Trends

By going to www.google.com/trends, you will find popular search keywords that real people are actively searching online. For example, a recent Google trend showed that Michael Phelps ranked number 2 on Google as the most searched keyword in August. Based on that trend, you may want to provide content that appeals to readers of the same topic. By knowing what's truly popular online, you will be in a position to provide content that many people will love to read. The result? More traffic and more clickthroughs for you.

Ride The Web 2.0 Wave

There are many sites that offer you opportunities to share your useful links and content to other people. The sites that come to mind are Digg, NewsVine, Facebook, Myspace, Reddit and many others. The key is to build a network of friends and a solid reputation on each of these sites. Then when your network of contacts has been established, sharing yor stuff is gonna be a whole lot easier.

Take time to master the culture of each site mentioned above. Others are strict and doesn't allow you to blatantly promote your links. In other Web 2.0 sites, meanwhile, you are expected to read and promote other people's works so others can do the same for you as well. Master the rules and regulations of each Web 2.0 site mentioned above and make sure you abide by them.

Is building traffic hard work? Is this a rocket science? My answer to both questions is yes! Now let me ask you a question: Who ever told you that it's all gonna be easy?

There's no free lunch, so to speak!

The good news is, as you gradually move up and build a huge contact base and reputation online, things will start to get easier and easier. The traffic will become more constant. It's all worth it in the end, if you have the patience and perseverance to do what it takes to succeed on the internet.

Choosing Your Blog Name and Topic

The very first step that needs to be accomplished is for you to decide exactly what it is that you wish to blog about. The topic of discussion on your blog can affect anything from the name of your new blog to whether you wish to place advertisements on your site.

You don't want the name of your blog to be “Billy Bob's Bed And Breakfast” and have all of your posts be about sports. You need to build trust with your potential readership. Heading to “Billy Bob's Bed And Breakfast” blog only to find out that baseball preseason has started will instantly reduce your credibility in the eye or your potential readership.

The subject of your blog can also impact your decision to place advertisements on your site. If your goal is to earn money from your blog, a narrowly focused niche topic is advised. If your goal is to simply get out there and blog, the need for a narrowly focused nich topic is not needed.

Purchasing and Registering Your Domain Name

When choosing your domain name be sure that the word or phrase that you choose reflects the content of your blog and is also related to the title of your blog. You may also consider purchasing any common misspellings of your chosen name. This will allow you to redirect potential readership from the mistyped address to the correct address of your blog. This is done from within your host server if you decide to self host. It is advisable to stick with the more common domains of .com, .net, or .org. Domainsite - NameCheap.com - Godaddy - Network Solutions - RegFly - are jus t some of the sites that offer domain name pruchasing and registering services.

Pay Hosting or Free Hosting

Hosting your blog on a blog hosting site such as Wordpress or Blogspot is an excellent choice for the new blogger on a tight budget. Along with free hosting you get the ease of use of the free hosts built in content manager. There is no need to be familiar with HTML or PHP coding. Most free hosting site also offer various quantities of pre-made blog templates for you to choose from. The domain name for a free hosted blog is usually formated as http://yourblogname.freehostsname.com Keep that in mind.

Pay hosting offers numerous advantages of its own. You can host your own domain (http://www.yourblogname.com). Paid hosting allows you to control every aspect of your site. You decide the design and if needed the advertising content. Increase in versatility is another intrinsic quality of paid hosting. You are able to run various CGI and scripting application. A knowledge of server function, file managers, file editors, HTML and PHP is advised in order to take full advantage of the options paid hosting offers. Some of the better known paid hosting sites are Host Gator , HostMonster , LunarPages , and , WebHostingPad.

Social Networking

The life blood of any blog is traffic. Every day approximatley 150,000 new blogs are created. Having a solid plan in place in order to promote your blog is an absolute neccessity. There are dozens if not hundreds of social network sites available for you to join. These networks are vital in promoting and directing traffic to your blog. Populair is the absolutely best site for finding all the social networks that you need. It also contains a list of the hottest blogs. Bookmark those blogs. Read them. Post comments in them. The more you make your name seen and known the more traffic you will generate for your site.

Odds and Ends

Always ping your blog after each new post that you publish. Pinging your blog alerts search engines and crawlers that your blog has been updated with fresh content. By pinging your blog you improving your chances of having your blog indexed. A simple search for "ping blog" on any search engine will retrieve the most popular sites offering pinging services.

Use a traffic monitor for your blog. Google Analytics is web based free traffic monitor. Monitoring your traffic will allow you to pinpoint the dips and spikes in your traffic. By analyzing those dips and spikes you can ascertain whether a recent post, redesign or anything else has affected your traffic flow.

Create a sitemap. A sitemap is a list of the pages on your website or blog. Creating and submitting a sitemap helps make sure that search engines and indexes crawlers know about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by normal crawling process.

Set up an RSS feed for your blog. RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, blogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS feed to whoever wants it. Set up an option for readers to subscribe to your blog via email. Offer your readers various means of obtaining your blog's content.

Finally, enjoy the blogging and blogosphere experience!

Start visiting blogs who write over similar topics. Read the articles, comment on them. Offer intelligent feedback, not just "good work" but detailed criticisms. Tell them why it was good, or what could have been improved upon. Make sure and leave a link to your blog at the end of every post, don't push them to view it, because if they enjoyed your post, they will check out your blog.

Writing a weekly newsletter to your subscribers will encourage them to visit often and tell friends. In the newsletter, don't include full articles, but samples that will beckon your audience to want more, thus going to your blog. I would advise Zookoda, they offer a hosting service for newsletters, best of all, its free! Zookoda allows people to subscribe to your newsletter and you get detailed information about click counts and subscriber demographics.

Cross promote other blogs. Talk about blogs you enjoy reading. Have those bloggers write an article for your blog, then write an article for theirs. This will keep fresh viewers coming in and plugging your blog.

Submit your blog to search engines. Also keep linking to your blog every time you post, on myspace, facebook, other blogs and on social bookmarking sites. Search engines work in a way that not only do they find relevance to keywords from the actual search, but also the number of pages linking to the blog. So the more your link to it, the higher up on the list it will appear. Don't annoy people though, because if you put your link up everywhere, some search engines might see this as spam and ignore your site!

Use Facebook, MySpace, Furl, Twitter, and Flickr to your advantage. Link into your blog from these social sites. Tell people when you have a new post. Keep the traffic visiting each one and they will frequent your blog. Email your friends and family, have them email some people.

Most importantly, keep your advertisements tasteful. Don't put flashing banners up all over your page. Let your viewers know what is a paid advertisement and what isn't, this will show them that you care about them reading your article and not just clicking your links.

Summary

• Link to other blogs.
• Post on other blogs.
• Write for other blogs.
• Include your link after every post.
• Submit to search engines.
• Use social networking sites to your advantage.
• Keep your advertisements tasteful.

Follow these tips to drive traffic to your blog through advertisement and make sure to view my other 3 articles on keeping your blog looking good and easy to navigate. Happy Blogging!

let your readers know who you are. Have an about page where they can read about you. Many times readers get attached not only to your writing or photos, but to you. Let your readers know how to contact you, via email, phone, post or whatever. Give them what they want. Include photos, education, where you live, and what you do. Don't be afraid to share your life with them, thats why your have a blog in the first place.

Update Frequently

By constantly updating your blog people will constantly check it, simple as that. If your viewers start seeing that you are putting up new post daily, they will check daily. If they see you only post every week or so, they will eventually just stop coming back. Give a time and date to every update, even if your just writing a simple blurb, do it frequently enough so that you embed that frequency in your readers mind.

Include Photos

This will keep your site visually dynamic and your viewers frequenting. Put pictures of you up with every post. Add photos you took or maps of where you are. Change your main page image weekly so that your readers know that you just updated your page, even if you haven't!

Write in Segments

Make a long story a two part story. Leave a cliff hanger at the end. Be controversial and opinionated. What these do is beckon your viewers to want more, learn more about you or even become frustrated. Don't be afraid to be on the edge, you'll anger some but they will usually come back to read more and begin to know you better and start checking your blog often.

Let Friends Write Articles for Your Website

Make sure that they are on similar topics. This will drive traffic from another blog over to yours and hopefully expose each others fan base and make it larger. Find a good writer who contrast your style or dynamic. This way you will have content and styles that relate to a variety of audiences.

Summary

• Make it personal
• Update Frequently
• Include Photos
• Have a bio page
• Write in Segments
• Use guest writers

By following these tips on content you can hopefully drive more traffic to your blog and keep that traffic coming back for more. If you haven't read my other perts in this series on making your blog aesthetically pleasing, navigation and advertising, I would advise you too, as they are geared towards keeping that traffic flow heavy. Happy Blogging!

When you first visit a blog, you usually see a banner, photo, logo, or name. Make sure that when your guests visit your site they are immediately hooked. Use a photo you took or a graphic you designed.

Many times the photo or graphic doesn't even have to do with what your blog is about. You could have a blog written about your new puppy and your love for animals but a picture of a green pasture or the ocean. Make it visually pleasing. You just want to make sure that your visitors are immediately hooked, and the image on top is what will keep them interested enough to not click away to the next blog.

Web browsers usually spend under a second before they decide to either stay on the page, or leave. Use a color scheme that relates to your content. If your writing dark poetry and prose, don't use light greens and yellows, but deep magentas and dark blues. This leaves a good sense of visual dynamic in the mind of the viewer as they navigate through your blog.

When choosing colors for your web page, pick complimentary colors and complimentary hues. Below is a color wheel demonstrating complimentary colors. Colors directly opposite are complimentary, and look good together.

After choosing a color theme, keep it simple. Don't use more than three colors or your viewers start to get confused and will leave. Remember, you've seen the site hundreds of times, but this is their first visit.

When it comes to the aesthetics of your blog, make sure and always keep it pleasing. Don't have flashing banners or scrolling text, these make the viewer uneasy and they tend to click away. Avoid hard edges, keep corners rounded and use fades to lead in and out of your images and to match your sites background.

Having a solid photo atop your page with a smooth gradient fade into your background will lead your viewers eye from the top banner down into your content. Always be aware of your focal point and secondary focal points. Human brains are attracted to lighter colors, especially reds and oranges. Use this knowledge to guide your viewer through the website.

Have a strong set of colors where you want your viewer to look first, then lead them away with similar hues of varying brightness, so they naturally want to stay on your page longer and keep reading.

Think of your blog or web page as a piece of art. Step back and look at it as a whole and consider what will pop out and what won't, and use this knowledge to reshape your blog and guide your viewers attention.

Summary:

• Use a strong photograph or graphic to immediately hook your viewers.
  
• Keep it visually pleasing.
• Use complimentary colors.
  
• Pick a theme.
• Guide your viewers attention through your page to keep them reading.

Make sure and view the other parts of this article on blog navigation, content and advertising to continue to drive traffic. Happy Blogging!

Navigation placement is possibly the most important part of running a blog or website.

De-clutter your navigation. Instead of having 12 links to all the pages on your website, use 3 or 4 links with sub navigation on those pages. Not only will this help your viewer find what he or she is looking for, but it will drive up the page counts and clicks!

Example. You have a blog on your travels. You also include travel writing and photography from your adventures. Instead of having a navigation that has every place you've been too and links to your photography and writing from those places, put up just three links, Travel, Photography and Writing. Under your writing link, put a page with links to the different cities, countries and places you've been and the writing from those place. Do the same for photography.

By doing this it will help your viewers navigate around what they are not interested in and find what they do want to read. Those interested in your writing can directly find it, instead of having to click through the different places you've been, same for those interested in your photography.

When working on content pages and post, make sure and include links outside of your navigation bar to other pages on your site. If we take our travel blog as an example, at the end of one article leave a link to the next article or a link to view photos from the place that you wrote about. By doing this you will keep your viewers on your page longer and exploring more and more of your website.

Navigation placement is key. Many blogs have links, and archived articles all on the same page. The human brain naturally lends itself to the left and to the top of a web page. Place your most important links on the top of your web page, and keep them simple. Place your ancillary links, such as an archive or outside websites on the left. Stay away from the right side of your page when it comes to important links or information, most viewers tend to skim over those parts.

Summary

• Keep it simple!
• Use as few links as possible.
• Use sub navigation pages.
• De-Clutter your navigation.
• Link to the next article at the bottom of every page.
• Keep important links on top and ancillary links on the left side of the page.

Hopefully these tips will help your viewer navigate your page easier and keep them on your blog longer! Check out my other articles in this series, on Blog Aesthetics, advertising and content! Happy Blogging!

Is there a fastest way or a shorter way maybe to reach the level when you're getting paid big time? Or you really have to start from the bottom and realize the success of your work after 3 or maybe 5 long years. I really don't have a clue yet so I'll start here at bottom. Your comments and advises will be appreciated whole heartedly. More questions to come as I get along on these blogging system. Thank you!

So what's it gonna be, if you write some and participate less. What do you get? Just a little or maybe none. But if you write a lot, participate a lot, of course you'll get big bucks. Hmmm!. Is it true or am I just dreaming over the internet. As of this writing, I only had a few published works and it's not yet considered a hobby on my end. But to tell you honestly, I am getting excited whenever I received additional payment to my account(1 tik at a time). So guys! It's really up to us. If you want to reap a lot, you must sow a lot.

Good Luck to us!