How Can You Get Paid for Blogging?

1. PayPerPost

PayPerPost is the largest paid blogging service out there. With over 100,000 blogs in their system, PPP is a giant. With that size comes a full-time sales force to find new advertisers. Other pros are the ease of use, ease of entry (blogs must be 30 days old, with 10 posts), and payment reliability.
The major drawback is… Google! Google has launched an all-out offensive on PPP where they rank PPP blogs with a big fat zero (PR 0) when they realize it. A good page rnak of 3 can mean $15 for a 200-word post, but you might only have 30-60 days before Google takes away your PR.

2. PayU2Blog

A favorite of mine, PayU2Blog is a horse of another color. Instead of a marketplace where you look for and take offers, PayU2Blog’s administrators assign you offers only a weekly basis. This can be a good or bad thing depending how you look at it. The good thing is that you don’t have to fight for offers. Once assigned, you have about a week to finished them.
The bad news is that you are limited to whatever they give you. Another good point is that most offers are for placing a link only. You don’t have to write about the company or the product — you just have to insert the link in a post where it makes sense. A bad point is that each offer is worth only $5, but that’s not bad considering it’s only a word in a minimum 60 word post.
PayU2Blog also seems a little more selective in letting new members in. It might be difficult to join without a PR higher than 0.

3. SponsoredReviews

A relative newcomer to the ranks (although still over a year old), Sponsored Reviews is a marketplace like PPP. The different is that instead of taking and immediately completing any offer you qualify for like in PPP, here you have to make an offer for the job and bid a payment amount. You can makes hundreds of bids without getting a single taker, but then again, with a high PR, you could make $20, $30, or $50 a post.
A bad point is that Sponsored Reviews takes a 35% cut of your earnings off the bid you make (e.g. you bid $20, you only get $13). A good point is that you get notified by email when an advertiser accepts your offer. Then you have a few days to complete.

Other Services

There are lots of other paid blogging services out there, but currentlyt none of them float by boat, meaning they don’t provide a steady income and can be sporadic. These include:

Smorty (hard to get offers, fill up quickly, new offers not very often, $5-10 usual size)

Blogitive (not many new offers, offers are shown only after higher ranked bloggers turn them down, $5 for 200 words is a lot of writing)
Blogsvertise (good payout $5-$15 for 75 words, but not many offers, new offers emailed to you but not regularly)

CreamAid (an original, but lousy payout (starting at $1), even if you take offer you are not guaranteed payout)
ReviewMe Marketplace (not many offers, high word count, low monthly maximum on offers you can take)

Popularity: 70% [?]

Which WordPress Theme is Right for You?

WordPress is the recognized leader when it comes to blogging platform. Hosted on your own site, a WordPress blog can be highly customized and very useful. Picking the right theme is key, especially if you want to make money off it. This blog uses a WordPress theme which is optimized for Google AdSense. Just take a look and count how many different Google ads are seen. Luckily this theme was free to download and use. See the footer for the Theme Name and a link to get it. More sophisticated WordPress themes allow you to sell advertising slots directly to advertisers. The downside is that these themes can cot $50 to $500 each, and that’s just for a single use license. Here’s an example of a site using the powerful Revolution theme, ThaGuru.com.

Popularity: 69% [?]

EntreCard

Have you heard of this new thing — EntreCard. What is it? Here are some basics taken directly from the EntreCard website:

• Entrecard is a blogging network.

• You can drop your card to show other bloggers that you visited their site.

• Other sites can drop their card on your site too, and you can check them out.

• Entrecard uses a currency - Entrecard Credits (EC for short).

• You can use this currency to buy adverts on other sites.

• We also have forums that you can participate in.

I’ve joined EntreCard and have had some success gaining traffic and readers. Advertising like this is organic — one it reaches a certain size, it takes on a life of its own. Perfect!

Popularity: 95% [?]

Make Money By Entering Post Contests

Here’s a fun way to make money — join “post contests” like this new one from ThaCash.com: Win some cash @ ThaCash.com. How does such a contest work? Well they vary, but this one is easy. Just blog about the contest on your own site, and then leave a comment about the post. Simple! Here are the prizes (payable from PayPal):

1. The winner: $25
2. Second: $15
3. Third: $5

These three prizes are randomly awarded with a 4th winner selected for creativity winning $15.

Popularity: 96% [?]

Write an eBook

People love eBooks! There is something genuine feeling about a PDF file rather than words published on a blog in HTML (or XML). I don’t know what it is but it works. If you have an experitse or uncommon knowledge of something, then a great idea is to write an eBook on the subject. It can be as little as 10 pages in length, just make it fun and interesting. So what’s the point? Are you going to sell your eBook to make money. No way! No one wants to pay for an eBook. Give it away instead and watch the traffic on your site build up! That’s the real point here — more traffic means more clicks and more pageviews! Make that money!

Popularity: 100% [?]