Since the explosion of affiliate marketing a few years ago, getting traffic to your internet marketing campaign has never been so competitive.

As an affiliate marketer, blogging is a tool that you must seriously consider and include in your internet marketing arsenal

In fact if you have not started your own blog yet, you really should stop everything you are doing and set up your own online blog right now.

Here are a few top tips on why blogging is crucial to your internet marketing or affiliate marketing business

Blogging Tip 1: Blogging is easy to set up and can be free or relatively cheap. If you use a free bogging platform like blogger, remember to back up your blog contents elsewhere. There is that small risk of your blog being erased overnight. I would recommend using a blogging program that requires you to host your own blogs eg. WordPress. This gives you total control of your content although it will cost you the price of a hosting account.

Blogging Tip 2: Use your blog to build authority and credibility. Share your experience and expertise on your blog. If your content is unique and useful, you will soon have a huge following of readers who will act on any recommendations you make. Although your posts should be informal, to build credibility, your posts must have an air of professionalism at all times

Blogging Tip 3: Use your blog to generate traffic to your money sites. This is crucial. The great thing about blogs is the ability to include backlinks to your money making sites using optimal anchor tags on highly relevant pages. This could help drive traffic to your site in two ways

Human visitors who are impressed with your post will follow your link to learn more
Search engine bots can follow these links thereby contributing to the ranking of your money sites in the search engines
Blogging Tip 4: Keep your blogs simple. No one has the patience to grapple with complicated blogs. Keep you blog structure simple and your posts short and interesting. That way you will hold your readers attention for the entirety of the post.

Blogging Tip 5: Have an opt in form on your blog: your blog will rank high in the search engines if you post unique content to it frequently and apply good search engine optimization to it. This means a boat load of free traffic via the search engines. Capture the email addresses of your blog visitors using an opt in form so that you can later contact them with your ideas and recommendations.

Remember, even the internet marketing ‘gurus’ have blogs. This must give you an indication of how relevant blogging is to the internet or affiliate marketing business.

There was a time on the web when business owners were trying to decide whether to blog or not to blog. Primarily because is was just one more thing to do — and who needed more to do?

Well, it turns out that blogging was not a fly by night thing and can actually play a crucial role in your marketing plan as well as your bank account.

Blogging began as a way to deliver chunks of information fast – but like most things on the web, people figured out how to make money with them.

1. Google AdSense

The most significant way people monetize their blogs is with Google AdSense. Most blogging platforms such as Blogger and WordPress even allow for easy AdSense integration.

The decision on where to place Google ads in your blog should probably be based on your content and your marketplace. If you are blogging on marketing, entrepreneurship, entertainment, dieting and other topics with a large broad audience – you can get away with ads within the body of each post, as well as in the sidebar(s) or in the footer of the blog.

If you are writing about softer topics such as relationships, health, coaching, spirituality, wellness etc., you would do better with a small ad banner after each post and/or in the sidebar. The key is to test placement within your blog.

2. Chitika or Kontera

Another great passive income option for blogs are the use of content links. Services like Chitika or Kontera are proven services to use for making money with your blogs. In fact, it is the #1 income stream of many top bloggers making over $100,000 on the web.

*These services have traffic requirements, but another service like it (contextcash) is similar but links to ClickBank products exclusively.

3. Other Affiliates

Blogging is a great way to write about products and services in your field, especially if you have signed up as an affiliate for that product or service.

A formula I have found that works well is writing reviews on books, products, services or programs that I have personally used. This way the recommendation is sincere and the writing was effortless.

4. Your Own Products

Of course if you have our own products or services, then it makes perfect sense that you should promote them on your blog.

Placing small square ads in one of your side columns is a great place for them – as well as weaving promotion of your products within blog posts that are relevant to what you are offering.

5. Advertisements

You’ve heard the stories about the mommy or celebrity bloggers who make thousands a month blogging–and it’s all from advertising.

This income stream works well with blogs which attract large amounts of traffic and appeal to a particular demographic. But even if your blog is just starting out – if it serves a narrow niche, there may be advertisers who would be willing to pay to reach your audience. Just be sure that opening your blog to advertisers is something you want to do – and that they are not your direct competition.

Finally, remember that ultimately your blogs will make money if they contain posts that are informative and/or entertaining and keep readers coming back for more. So it’s important to remember that the quality of your content should be your #1 priority.

You may have heard of blogging or you may even be a subscriber of certain bloggers out there but do you know that you can earn money yourself by blogging? Yes it is true, blogging is no longer limited to being only a source of hobby, but it is also a means of earning a steady income and a good way to load up one’s bank account.

Blogging can provide you with the possibility to build up a smooth cash-flow line provided you do it the right way. When you are a blogger, the primary requirement would be that of an audience because you can’t make a single penny if no one reads your blog. If you are lucky enough to have thousands of visitors or readers on your blog then you can take up blogging as a full time job too.

In order to earn money by blogging, one of the ways is to advertise. When you are a popular blogger, a lot of companies would want to partner with you so that they can put up their ads or banners on your blog site for maximum exposure and in return you will be paid handsomely. Or you can approach them for publishing their advertisements in your web page. Of course it is advisable to approach only companies whose products or services are related to your niche.

If you are not interested in writing a personal blog then you can write reviews as well. This is a common way for many to earn money online. Writing reviews translates to online work because a lot of people purchase the products and services only after reading reviews as these answer their doubts or questions relating to the product or service. So writing reviews for the products or services of top brands would definitely fetch you a lucrative income.

Just because blogging can be considered as a surefire way of earning money online doesn’t mean that it would work no matter what. You need to be aware of certain mistakes that can hinder your desire in making money. The first is the mistake of creating too many blogs at a time. Another mistake is to flood your blogs with too many ads – while you should include ads in your blogs but overdoing it may drive your readers away because online users hates being flooded with too many ads.

Earning money through blogging takes time and it is not something that can be achieved overnight. While indulging in blogging to make money, keep in mind that you need to be regular in updating your blog with fresh content as it is essential for your blog page or website to earn a higher ranking in search engines. Also it pays to be original and unique with your content, copy-pasting does not work here. You need to be focused on your blog and not get distracted. Sometimes too much browsing on the internet can kill your productivity.

So with these points in mind, you can start blogging today itself and make money. After all, all that is required is to put on one of the six thinking hats which would induce the free flow of creative juices.

Accountability Blog is the most lucrative and the best membership site that one can ever create. As one is responsible for everything he/she does daily, an accountability blogs would helm you keep track of your day and be sure you reach your daily goals. The set up is as that of a regular membership site, the exception is that you are the only one who logs in to it. One posts their daily tasks to ensure that you complete at least four of them. You can reflect on any day of the week or month or at least a year to see how much and what you accomplished daily and overall.

You become this membership site administrator and its sole subscriber. No one can pay to log-in and there are no registration forms as you are its sole subscriber. What do you do then? You make a post in your site, then write down four things you intend to do for the day. No more, no less, just four. However, these are not the only things that you are supposed to do in the day. They are however, the four most important things you need to do in that day.

A normal day for me looks like this; email my list, write down 5 new articles, compile a how-to video, and answer all customer support questions that come in. I do not include casual tasks in this list. It is absurd to put tasks like; eat dinner, send thank you cards, wrap presents, include tasks that are work related. It is ill-advised to have two or less to do tasks on your list as this leads you to waste time. In addition, if you put too many things, say five or more, you will notice that even doing four will be a hassle.

Once you establish a routine for daily task posting, if you have a corporate associate, invite him/her to join you on the blog. Only invite people you trust as you do not want to reveal your business future plans to people who do not share in your interests. Allow access to your corporate associate and have them make the four postings too. The advantage with inviting your corporate associate is that even if they do not read daily what you are up, the possibility that they may read will keep you on track and hence complete your tasks.

Measure your advancement on the accountability blog. Review instances when you felt you did worse than expected and you would surprise yourself on what you find. If you doubt the much you accomplish in a specific day of the week, re-visit it and confirm if this intuition is true. This will help you establish a work pattern that works for you.

The best type and the most profitable membership site you could ever create is what’s called an accountability blog. This is a blog where you are accountable for the things you do every single day. You set it up exactly the same as any other membership site, but this is a membership site that only you are going to log into. In this site, you’re going to post your four daily tasks to make sure that you get at least four things completed everyday, it’s going to give you mutual motivation if you let other business partners inside that blog, and it’s going to measure your progress. You can look back on any day of the week or any month or even last year and figure out exactly how much stuff you got accomplished each and everyday.

You set up this membership site and you are the only subscriber to this membership site. Nobody else can buy in, there’s no way to register, you are right now the only subscribe to the site. What do you do? Well what you do is you make one single post in the site and you list out four things you’re going to complete today. That’s it. Four things. Not six, not eight, not two – four simple things you’re going to complete today in your business. I’m not saying these are going to be the only four things you’ll do today. These are just four of the most important things you will do today.

An example for one of my days might look like “send an email to my list, write five new articles, record one new how-to video, and answer all customer support that comes in today.” It does not include non-business-related tasks. You wouldn’t put things like eat dinner, send thank you cards, wrap presents – none of that, only things that are in your business. Don’t do five, do exactly four. That way, you’re guaranteed to at least finish four things. I found if I have less than four things, I’ll spend all day on just one or two tasks, which is not good. And if put six, seven, or eight things per day on the blog, then I won’t even get four things then because it will be too overwhelming.

Once you start posting your four daily tasks for a while, if you have another business partner, give them access to this blog. I definitely would not post your to-do list out in the open where other people can see it who you don’t trust because you don’t want to divulge your future business plans to anybody. But if you have a business partner, give them access and have them post four daily tasks as well. The interesting thing about this is even if they don’t necessarily read your tasks everyday, just the fact that they might read it will keep you motivated enough to complete those four daily tasks.

Finally, you can measure progress. If you feel like last week you didn’t get as much done as you thought, go back and look at last week. You will be surprised. If you feel like on a certain day of the week or a certain week of the month, you don’t get that much stuff accomplished, go back and look at your accountability blog so you can know for sure, you can know if you really don’t get as much done or if you get more done at night or more done on Tuesdays, you can know for sure, you can have the facts and see what exactly you completed in this accountability blog.

An accountability blog is a simple membership site that nobody else can buy into, that nobody else can register in except you. You’re the one member and you go and you post your four daily tasks and let a trusted business partner see your to-do list items as well.