For those people who have started writing blogs using WordPress blogging software the idea of building your traffic to increase the numbers of hits you are getting will be nothing new. You will already be alert to the possibility of making some money from your site using Adsense advertising and you will probably have learned a little about the scale of Internet Marketing these days. You probably wonder if the glossy adverts can be true – that there really are ways how to earn money working from home on your computer? How can there be – you get 100 unique visitors to your interesting blog every day and yet your Adsense revenue is meagre – a few $ per month! Not a very good method of work at home employment!

Adsense earnings can be hard fought for – yes there is a huge budget available for paying web masters to include Adsense on their sites – but the competition is huge. To rely on Adsense alone for bringing in a useful income means that you must be writing totally commercially with an extremely astute choice of subject matter – such that the browsers happening upon your site are actually looking for the item that you have written about!

It is arguably easier to find a product to write about and use an Amazon link to encourage browsers on your site to buy the item from your affiliate prompt. Take for example a subject that I write about on one of my blog sites – scuba diving computers. These cost around $300 to $1000 each. If a visitor to my site hits upon a page that is about a particular computer that he is looking for, the Adsense adverts will most likley be pointing to scuba diving holidays in the Maldives or some other holiday location. I will be unlikely to get my $1 click from Adsense going to my bank account.  However, if my product review of the particular computer instead has a dedicated link to a good deal for that item on Amazon – there is a much higher chance that my visitor will click through. Not only is there a higher chance he will click through, but even if he visits Amazon and decides upon a different computer I will still earn the commission on the sale. And guess what, with commissions starting at 5%, this means $50 on a $1000 computer! I would rather have one click in 10 producing a commission of $50 than one click in 100 earning me $1!

The sums do add up in preference of Amazon – or indeed other affiliate sales. Adsense is easy to install to your WordPress blog and is the route in for many aspiring Internet Marketers. However, using Amazon as one of your ideas for making money can be just as easy. If you use an Amazon Widget Shortcode (simply browse for this in your “Add New Plugins” option) – you will get a tool added to your new post toolbar in your blog. You will also need to register as an Amazon affiliate in order to get a code for adding to your Amazon Widget Plugin dashboard. Once you have done these two simple steps you are ready to write product reviews and install an Amazon link into each one.

Now whatever the subject of your blog you can find something relevant to sell from Amazon to write about – even if it has to be a book. For example if your site is a business or career related discussion forum you can review few books on it. Don’t forget to link internally within your blog site to the review and also spend time building back-links to your review post.

Of course if you are blogging specifically to make money on the Internet then you will be choosing your niche areas to promote with care. You can use the Amazon browsing facilities for this and it is a good idea to look on their bestseller list to see what is popular. Essentially you want a subject area with a number of categories so that you can write a unique post targeting items within these categories. In this way you will be building up a strong site covering a wide range of products that are linked. As the site strengthens over a year or so each new product you add will be ranked much easier for the key words (in this case product names and brands) you are targeting.

And for those of you that think this is complicated – consider this:

1. It takes me about 15 – 30 minutes to research a new product item and write a post about it.

2. It takes me about 10 seconds to locate the item in Amazon (I usually do this first to make sure it is being sold) and copy and past the ASIN code into the drop down box on my new post window.

So if you are writing posts anyway why not add an Amazon widget to it – it acts as an illustration improving your post anyway and might result in a few commission clicks!

If you are seeking an idea for making money from the Internet that does not involve you enrolling on any expensive monthly subscription course, or similarly does not require you to invest in a web site domain name or hosting account – and really will make you a valuable side line income, then follow these instructions:

1. Spend some time considering the things that you are interested in. Take for example fishing. Start entering words connected to fishing into Google and see what results come up. Try bass fishing, fishing tackle box, sea fishing gear etc. You want to find a search term around which you are going to write an interesting article and publish it on the Internet.
2. Prepare your article. Article titles including the words “How to…” often work very well, for example “How To Make Your Own Bass Lure”. Make sure you add some interesting and useful information to the article.
3. Publish the article with Hubpages.com – that’s it – all you have to do is wait for people to read your article and hopefully click on the advertisements that Hubpages puts around your offering and you will receive advertising income. You will have to follow Hubpages’ instructions to make sure that you receive your income.

Now the likelihood is that not many people will visit your article to start with. You can improve the numbers of visitors by becoming a regular and supportive contributor to Hubpages, getting to know the subjects that people are most interested in. You will be writing more articles, and gradually raising your author profile.

However, you will still be lucky to see more than a few pennies coming in each month! To improve your readership you should consider actively promoting your Hubpage articles. This can be done simply by writing more articles and getting them published on different web sites. There are hundreds if not thousands of directories that will be happy to publish interesting and unique articles that you have written. They will also allow you to include one or more Internet Hyperlinks back to your Hubpage site. The more hyperlinks that you distribute around the world wide web pointing back to your Hubpage article the better it will rank in the search engines. The result is that you will get more visitors to your Hub and as a consequence your advertising revenue will increase.

For more information concerning Search Engine Optimization using targeted key words and article marketing visit the Keyword Academy and risk $1.