The answer is, of course, yes. You can make money setting up your own blog, writing about topics close to your heart, and earning through Text Link Ads, Google Adsense, or similar blog monetization techniques. You’ll have to work on publicizing your blog, though- and if you want to really earn money, you’ll need a healthy dose of good marketing techniques.

What’s easier? Blogging for someone else. Many of the big blog networks are always on the lookout for new bloggers, and they’ll usually take care of the marketing side of things. Here’s where to find the best blogging jobs:

Blogger Jobs .biz
A lot of listings here. I recommend subscribing to their RSS feed until you find something that interests you.

SimplyHired Blogging Jobs
This is an aggregator- which means that they pull job listings from different job sites.

Weblog Labs’ Jobamatic
Thanks to Jobamatic, we have our very own job boards featuring blogging jobs from a variety of sites.

One of my favorite ones, ProBlogger Job Board, isn’t working for me right now. But I’m listing it here anyway, because it’s such a great resource.

Using PopShops

To use PopShops, you’ll want to be signed up with Commission Junction, LinkShare, or one of the other large affiliate networks that PopShops supports. I’ve found that the problem with using only the tools provided by these networks is that things can get pretty overwhelming pretty fast. Usually, you’ll find yourself searching through several pages just to find a specific product. PopShops, however, makes it easy to search through available products at your affiliate shops of choice, build a store out of these products, and “pop it in”-to your site or blog by cutting and pasting a bit of code. Yes, it’s that simple.

Using it with WordPress

I built my Blogger’s Bookstore in less than 10 minutes. Here’s what I did:

- Installed the runPHP WordPress plugin. This allows me to use PopShops’ PHP code, and not just javascript… although the javascript works fine from within WordPress.
- Logged into PopShops.
- Created a new shop called, appropriately, Blogger’s Bookstore.
- Searched for each book on my list (I had written my list down on a piece of paper beforehand), and added it to my new shop.
- Customized the display to make sure it fit in with the layout of my blog.
- Created a new page in WordPress. Copy and pasted the code from PopShops. Published!

… and ta-da! My very own bookstore on my blog. My favorite thing about PopShops is that I can login anytime and make changes to my Bookstore, and it will automatically reflect the changes on my live store.

Why not try it out? PopShops has a free version, which is a little limited compared to their paid versions, but works just as well.

The 15% discount is good for the life of your order.

Get $100 in FREE Links at Text Link Ads.

CashBulges’ Traffic is the Backbone of a Successful Website is written “for starters”, and is an excellent quick read for new bloggers who are looking to monetize their sites. We all know that that sooner you start working smarter, the quicker you’ll see benefits.

Now that we’ve established that traffic is key, go read Blogging Tips’ How to develop stickyness to your blog in case you haven’t yet. I read this a few weeks ago, but have reread it several times since then. Yes, you want your blog to be sticky, especially if you’re looking to make money from it.