BLOGGING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS

Indian bloggers are mastering the art of making money by linking up with advertisers. Its too early for them to leave their jobs, but many professionals have become full-time bloggers. Heres how it works.

BLOGGING is no longer seen as a favorite pastime of the geeks alone. With the spread of high- speed broadband connections and the new media, the guy- next- door to business tycoons to Bollywood stars are blogging seriously. Who doesn't know about Big B's latest venture in the online medium to reach out to his audiences or Aamir Khans day- today scribbles ( even a little of mudslinging), for that matter?

Apart from being an easy outlet to express oneself on just about anything, blogs today have also become a means to earn money. All one needs is a domain name and a space in blogosphere. This is how you can make money out of your blog. Once your blog has a certain number of hits, which you can track through free softwares like Siteometer installed in your blog, you can register for Googles AdSense in Google.com/adsense. There you can see a directory of companies which want to place ads in blogs.

Suppose you have a travel blog, you choose some of the travel- related companies you want and put that companys link in your blog. If, say, ten viewers who came to your blog click on that link, then you get a portion of the money that the company pays to Google. Every now and then you will be surprised to receive money from Google, which is your share of the money that the particular company has given to Google. How does this work? Anyone of you who has a Gmail account can see on the right side of your page adverts of various companies.

Suppose you get an e- mail from a friend inviting you to Rajasthan for a holiday. When you open that page, on the right hand side you will see links to various hotels and travel agents in Rajasthan. If you click on any hotel which has a link there and book rooms, then that particular company pays Google some money. The same works for blogs though the methodology could be different.

Many Indian bloggers make over a lakh of rupees a month. It is quite easy for travel bloggers who update regularly to get about Rs 10,000 a month. To increase revenue from ads, the blogger needs to keep on adding company links on his blog. How much you earn depends on a number of factors including how many clicks an advertiser gets from your blog . Youll receive a portion of what the advertiser pays. The best way to find out how much youll earn is to sign up and start showing ads on your web pages. The payments come to you through electronic fund transfer, or sometimes through cheque.