How to Set up a Blog to Make Money

1. Choose a topic for your blog. Make it a unique topic that you have a considerable amount of knowledge about. The more it answers a need, the better. For example, if you are an Asian plants expert and there isn't much online information about raising Asian plants in North America, you can blog about that topic.
2. Sign up for an account at Blogger, WordPress or TypePad and start creating posts about your blog topic.

3. Sign up for an account at ad serving sites like Google Adsense, AdBrite or Yahoo Publishing Network and place ads on your site.
4. Place social media links on your site such as Twitter and Facebook and promote your blog to your social media followers.
5. Improve your search engine ranking using keywords in your articles that people searching about your topic might use.
6. Connect with other similar blogs and ask them to link back to your site.
7. Provide products for sale on your site, relevant to your blog topic. You can either sign up as an affiliate and collect commissions, or have your own products, such as an eBook, for sale.
8. Monitor your site visitor statistics using tools like Google Analytics, Clicky or Yahoo! Web Analytics to analyze trends and help you gather more information on how to increase visitors to your site.