Even though the economy is running extremely rough right now, we are still lucky because the internet has opened up so many new income generating possibilities. The sad thing is that so many people are unfamiliar with the various ways of making money online and many people, who simply don't know any better, will dismiss internet income opportunities as scams. While it's true there are scams online, and off, it's also true that you can make real money online and one of the best ways for a beginner to make money online is starting to blog for money.

A blog is simply an online journal, the name comes from the words web log, blog. You can start a blog for free and learning how to set up your blog is very easy to do even if you don't know anything about computers or websites. Most people will learn all they need to know in a few hours. You can pick various themes and there are several things you can add to your blog that will help you monetize it.

The first thing you need to decide is what the theme of your blog be. It could simply be something that you are interested in and know a lot about such as a hobby, or if you really want to make a lot of money, you could learn the secrets to picking an extremely profitable niche market and start your blog around that niche. This will enable you to get more leverage out of your blog and make more money.

When it comes to earning money from your blog you have several choices, the two main options are with affiliate marketing and Google Adsense. Affiliate marketing is a business model where you sign up to become an affiliate, for free, for a certain product or service, advertise that product or service on your blog, and when someone buys that product or service from the unique URL of your site (which will have your unique affiliate id embedded in it) you will earn a commission.

Google Adsense is a process where you allow Google to place ads on your blog, ads that are related to the topic of your blog, when someone clicks on one of the ads you will earn a commission. With adsense the amount you make per click can vary dramatically based on the popularity (and thus the amount of money advertisers are willing to spend to place the ad) of a certain topic. The more popular the niche you're in, the more advertisers will spend on the ads and the more you'll make when someone clicks on those ads.

Don't let the ignorance of others scare you off of learning how to blog for money. Sure, it's true that there are a lot of scams online, just like there are anywhere else if you're not careful, but the reality is that if you're willing to invest some time to learn some simple skills you can turn your hobby into an income... maybe even a full time income.