There are several ways for freelance writers to make money blogging.
The most lucrative form of blogging for most freelancers – at least for now – is to ghostwrite the blogs of businesses, both large and small. Business owners who are Web savvy recognize that professionally written blogs are an excellent way to communicate with customers both current and potential. These entrepreneurs usually pay their freelance bloggers a flat fee per month.
Writers can also opt to join a blogging network. These networks – places like ContentQuake, b5 Media and Today.com -- pay either on a per-post basis, flat monthly fee, according to page views or some combination of all three. The money here rarely makes anyone rich, but the pay, at least, is steady.
But there's another way for writers to make money blogging: They can set up their own niche blogs and equip them with Adsense.
Adsense Won't Make you Rich
Adsense is an extremely simple tool to use. Writers need to to simply log onto its homepage and follow the easy instructions to hook Adsense up to their existing blogs.
Once writers do this, Adsense will run a variety of ads – writers can choose what kind -- on their blogs. Whenever visitors click on the ads, the blogger gets a certain amount of money deposited in their Adsense account. This varies, but it's usually pennies per click. Once the Adsense account equals $100, Google, which runs the service, sends out a check.
Adsense doesn't make many bloggers rich. It's hard enough for bloggers to get visitors to their sites. It's even more difficult to get them to click on the ads. Adsense is supposed to place ads that relate to what bloggers are writing about. But still, the vast majority of visitors will never click on an Adsense ad.
Quantity is the Key
This is why writers who want to make a fair amount of Adsense dollars need to run several niche blogs -- all equipped with the service – at the same time.
This simply increases the odds that someone will click on an ad.
The key, then, is for writers to pick blogs that they can post to quickly. They should find a topic about which they are passionate and knowledgeable. That way, they can write useful, informative posts without have to spend too much time researching them. A good rule of thumb: Writers should be able to complete enjoyable and information-rich posts in no longer than 20 minutes. Spending any more time is just not cost-efficient.
Writers should also remember that they want a lot of visitors to their blogs to increase the chance of clicks. It's important then to create blogs that will appeal to a large enough crowd. Writing about the Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom might not attract enough visitors. Writing about Marvel Comics might. Writing about comic-book movies might even do better.
Don't be Tempted to Click Yourself!
Finally, a word of caution: Writers should never click on their own blog's Adsense ads. That's known as click fraud.
Adsense advertisers want blog visitors to click on their ads because they're interested in their products, not because they want to bank a few pennies in their own Adsense accounts.
Writers won't receive any payment for clicking on their own ads. And writers also can't include any language on their blogs encouraging visitors to click on the ads. That, too, is considered click fraud.
Google is not shy about kicking bloggers out of the Adsense program if they commit click fraud.
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