Blogger Set-Up, Step 2 – Name Your Blog

On the “Name Your Blog” screen you will enter a blog title, a unique
Blogger URL address for your blog, and once again enter the word
verification.


Naming your blog well can be an important part of having a successful
and income generating blog. It is a good idea to name your blog
something memorable and in tune with the content your blog will
contain. Rather than name your blog “Jane’s Blog,” try to name it
something people surfing the web will remember and look for again in
the future.


If you are name is “Jane,” and you will be blogging primarily about
knitting, then your blog might have the title “Jane the Master Knitter”
or something similar. Feel free to use your imagination and have fun






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with your blog name, but try and keep it both short and easy to
remember.


Each blog on Blogger has a unique URL which looks like this:
http://www.___.blogspot.com


Blogger allows you to enter the word(s) to fill the blank space before
the word “blogspot” in the URL. Just as important as the name of your
blog, what you choose to enter here for the URL will help others to find
your blog online. It is always best to stick to only a few words and
make the URL similar to your blog title. For the example above
something like this would work well:
http://www.adsense.blogspot.com


while http://www.adsense.blogspot.com gets a bit long to
remember and type so it is probably not ideal to use.


The “Name Your Blog” screen of Blogger looks like this:
Once you are satisfied with your new blog’s title, unique Blogger URL,
and have entered the word verification, click on the orange “Continue”
button. This takes you to the third step in creating your blog; the
“Choose a Template” screen.

AdSense for Search

Google also offers a companion program to AdSense which is called
“AdSense for Search.” The AdSense for Search program allows you to
host a Google search box on your website or blog. When a visitor to
your website searches via that search box you will be paid if they go
on to purchase something online from the search. In other words,
Google does not pay you for the search itself, but does pay you from
any revenue earned from the search which originated on your website.

AdSense for Search can be a great income generator for you. Assume
for a moment that your blog is about appliance repair. Someone finds
your site that is looking for information on the problem they are
having with their washing machine. You have a Google Search box on
your blog. After the visitor is done reading what you have suggested
the problem might be, they decide to go on to search for a new
washing machine. Maybe you had a review on your blog of a good
washer they might consider buying. If they buy this washing machine
from the search then you will get part of the revenue from that
purchase because the search started on your blog. How entirely cool
is that? All you did was simply host a search box on your blog!

Using AdSense for Monetization

Many websites and blogs use AdSense to monetize their sites.
AdSense is good for monetization because it tailors the ads to your site
content. AdSense also allows you to sell space on your site by setting
it up once and then not having think much about it ever again, other
than tweaking a bit the location and side of the AdSense ad blocks
themselves on your site. Passive income is always the best form of
income to have because it frees you up to be working on other things
and sits there in the background making you money.


If you spend a bit of time placing the AdSense ad boxes on your site
when you build it, and then keep your titles and content inline with the
topic of your blog, you can make money with AdSense without much
further thought. AdSense is a great source of passive income. Passive
income is very important and valuable. Passive income is money
which you receive without having to do daily work for it. It is simply
something you set-up once and then sit back and collect your money
from it over time.


One way to publish a successful monetized blog is to find a blog topic
which is fairly unique. Find a unique topic means you do not have a
lot of websites to compete with in the search engines. By doing this
you can generate a lot of natural visitors through search engine
listings and then from those visitors a lot of clicks on your AdSense
ads as well.


There are entire books written on how to find “the” topic to publish the
best monetized blog. However, the easiest way is to simply search for
topics that interest you and see how many page hits sites like Google
return; the lower the number, the better the topic. Understand
however, that everything you search will have a ton of hits. Any
search with results lower than about a two million is probably a great
option for a blog topic. Any search over about ten million is probably
not the best topic to choose.


Trying to get good search engine rankings with a topic like chickens is
much easier than trying to get a high ranking with a topic like
computers. With a topic of computers there are literally millions of
websites; some are very large sites, dedicated to the topic. All of
whom you will have to compete with for rankings! Why try and
compete with IBM and Dell when you can simply find something easier
to blog on? It just doesn’t make sense to try. Stick to the lesser
keywords and you will see better traffic and AdSense income.

The Future of Blogging

While no one can know for sure what the future will hold for blogging,
I am pretty secure in thinking that amazing new developments are on
the horizon. With the ability to host audio and video files on your blog
you can make your blog a very personalized and impressive
experience for anyone who visits. You can essentially have your own
television or radio show via your blog. Imagine shooting live footage
of a crime or event and being able to have that footage on your blog
before any news station can get the footage out! And, the best part is
you can do most everything you want with your blog for free or at very
little cost!


Even at this relatively early stage in blogging, there are some people
out there with blogs which are much, much better than traditional
websites in their ability to educate and entertain their visitors. Gone
are the days where it is enough for your business, or even your family,
to put up a simple website and then never change or update it. Web
surfers expect regular updates. They like it even better to see an
actual blog on your site. They know that if you have a blog then they
will be able to read and find out what is new and exciting with your
business or family. If you have a website, you will need to have a
good blog to go with it.


There are many ways today to monetize a blog such as through
Google’s AdSense and affiliate programs. As the times and the web
change there will likely be many, many more ways to monetize your
blog. Companies both large and small understand that people are
reading blogs in large numbers. Companies want nothing more than
to get their advertising dollars spent in areas where people who would
be interested in their business’s goods and services will see them.
Blogs are a great place to find these potential customers. Just as the
original weblogs morphed and changed into today’s blogs, so too will
today’s blogs go through great changes in the years to come. Imagine
how far they have come in this relatively short time and imagine what
they will evolve into in the next five to ten years! Will you be part of
this evolution and the money to be made from it? Will you have a well
established blog and be raking in the big money with it in the future?
We hope that you will!