Becoming part of a blog community is a really great way to improve your blog. When you join a good blog community, you will get other members of the same community, to come visit your blog and leave you comments on how to improve your blog, or what they like about it.

This is also a great way to get some followers. If other people come to your blog and they like what they see, these people are going to start following your blog.

One of the many blog communities out there, and one that I am also an active member in, is My Blog Log. In this blog community you visit other blogs that interest you, and you start following them through that community.

• The first thing you want to do is, go to MyBlogLog.com.
• Now click on the tab that says "Join/Sign In".
• Then just use your Yahoo ID to get signed up. (If you don't have one, they will show you how to easily get one)
• Next just fill out the correct information about you and your blog.

After you get signed up you can start following other members blogs. This a great way for you to start out building your blog.

Make sure to check back tomorrow for Day 18 of the "Build A Blog". Until then, work smart not hard and as always good luck!

Today for the Build A Blog Workshop, we are going to monetize your RSS Feed. To set up Google AdSense on your Feed is so easy to do, it would be crazy not to.

The first thing your going to do is:

• Go to www.google.com/adsense and log into your Google account.
• Then click on AdSense Set Up, which is the second tab over.
• Next go down and click on AdSense For Feeds.
• This is where you pick your Ad Type. Your options are Text/Image ads, Text Ads Only, or Image Ads Only. (I use text ads only)
• After that choose your Frequency. Do you want AdSense on each feed item, every 2nd, 3rd, or 4th feed item. (I have AdSense on every feed item)
• Now choose the Post Length. AdSense Ads can be shown on Posts of any length, Posts longer than approximately 50 words, Posts longer than approximately 100 words, Posts longer than approximately 250 words, or Posts longer than approximately 500 words. (I have them show up on Posts of any length)
• Here you select the ad Position. Where do you want the AdSense ads? At the bottom of the feed or At the top of the feed. (I recommend At the top of the feed)
• For the Colors. Either Allow AdSense to optimize feed ad color choices automatically, or Let me choose my colors.
• Last, for your ad Channels, click on Create new channel and give it a name. When you are done with that click Save.

Now your Feed posts are monetized with Google AdSense. More people than you might think subscribe to RSS Feeds, so it only makes sense to have AdSense in your posts.

For tomorrows Build A Blog Workshop we will discuss how to submit your blog to the major search engines. Until then, keep working at it and as always, good luck!

Day 4 of the "Build A Blog Workshop" is on finding a great blog template. Finding which template to use for your blog all depends on what your blog topic is. For example if your blog topic is Barbie Doll Collecting, then a pink blog template would probably be something you would want to consider.

Another piece of advice that I want you to think about is, do not use a template with a black background. Templates with black backgrounds look cool, but reading white words on a black page is hard on the eyes. Plus you don't see to many successful and popular blogs on the web, that have a black background.

What you need to ask yourself is, do you want people to take your blog seriously? If you do, then you can never go wrong with a simple, white, plain looking template. Is your blog about poetry? I have come across a lot of poetry blogs with a tan background and soft colors.

You want your blog to match what you're blogging about. Remember you can always change your template. However, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Research shows that people visiting a website or blog will leave within 10 seconds if something doesn't catch their eye. So make it look good and don't just pick the first template that you see. Look at 20 or 30 of them before you make your choice.

Make sure to check back tomorrow for tips on which blog settings to use. Until then keep working smart not hard and as always, good luck!

Day 3 of the "Build A Blog Workshop" is about picking your blogs domain name. If you have decided to use Blogger as your blog host, then you have the option of using a free sub-domain name. If this is your first blog, then this is what I would advise you to do. You can start paying for a domain name later if your blog takes off and starts doing really well. Until then there is no point in spending money if you're just starting out.

When choosing your domain name, it's important to have name that it is relevant to your blogs topic. A good example would be my blog here, my blog title is "Bloogle AdSense", which of course is about "how to make money blogging using Google AdSense". A couple of the keywords I want to get a good ranking for in the search engines is Blogging, Google, and AdSense. "Bloogle AdSense" is a combination of all three of those keywords. As you can see my domain name is bloogle-adsense.blogspot.com.

If your blog is about bikes and your domain name is bike.com, when somebody Googles the word bike, your blog will likely appear as one of the results on Googles front page. Unless of course, there are 2 million other blogs out there about bikes. This is why it's good to try to pick an original topic that a lot of people haven't done already. Like we discussed in the last post "Choosing Your Blog Topic" .

So put a lot of thought into your blogs topic and domain name. Don't be afraid to get creative, this is one of the most important steps to having a successful blog.

Make sure to read my next post where I will show you what to look for when your picking a blog template. Keep up the good work and as always, good luck!

For Day 2 of the "Build A Blog Workshop" we are going to discuss how to choose a topic for your new blog. In the last post, we talked about Finding A Blog Host. I recommended Blogger.com for various different reasons. If you would like to set up a free blog here at Blogger.com, click here.

Now that you have found where to host your blog, I can help you with choosing a blog topic. 

Here are 5 things to consider while your trying to think of an interesting topic.

1. Is this something that you are knowledgeable about? You don't want to choose a topic that you know very little about. If you have no idea what you're talking about, people can see that and they will call you out on it. So pick a topic that interests you and that you know a lot about.

2. Make sure your topic is something that you either really care about, or something that you hate. Many people think that your blog should be about something that you love or care about. The truth is that you can blog about anything. There are a lot of successful blogs out there, where bloggers will complain about something that they dislike. If you're passionate about what you're blogging, your readers are more likely going to relate. No matter how much you love or hate it.

3. Do you want to have a personal blog, or is your main goal to make money? I'm not saying that personal blogs can't make money, they can. But when somebody goes to a blog it is usually because that blog has information that they're looking for, not because they want to hear about someones day at work. On the other hand, somebody who is blogging about their battle with cancer, might have some helpful information for other cancer patients out there. Helpful information is what will generate revenue.

4. Are you going to have something to blog about 6 months down the road? You want to pick a topic that gives you a lot of different things to blog about. A successful blogger will post something to their blog every single day or at least every other day. If your blogging about the first baseball game that you ever went to, you will probably run out of things to blog about after the first couple of weeks.

5. Try to choose an original topic. You don't want to start a blog if you are going to have to compete with 3 million other blogs that have the same topic. A blog about the war in Iraq would be a great idea. Even if your blog supports the war, you will still get people coming to your blog that are totally against it and just want to leave a comment to disagree with you about your latest post. But who really cares if they disagree with what you have to say, as long as they're reading your blog!

I hope this post gets your creative wheels turning and helps you to pick out an original and interesting topic for your new blog.

Check back to get new tips everyday in December for the Build A Blog Workshop. Tomorrow we will talk about "How To Choose Your Blogs Domain Name". Until then, keep working smart not hard, and as always, good luck!

For the month of December I have decided to do a 31 day "Build A Blog Workshop". I will show you the ABC's and 123's of starting and promoting your blog for free. I am going to help you pick a blog host and even show you the type of gadgets and modules that you should use on your blog. You will find out the best way to monetize your blog and also where to place your AdSense to get the most clicks.


When starting a blog there a few things you'll want to do the very first month, I will let you know what you should do and how to do it. This will be great for all of you that are newbies to the blogging game and possibly even help the more seasoned bloggers learn a few new tricks.

Make sure to check in everyday throughout the month of December for some great tips and tricks. Keep up the good work and as always good luck!

With the amount of blogs popping up all over the blogosphere, it's becoming harder and harder to come up with an original and interesting topic to blog about. However, there is one topic that's always interesting and you rarely ever run out of things to post. The news!

The reason that this is such a hot topic for a blog, is that when it comes to the news there is a protocal that has to be followed before the media can release the story to the public. News stories will usually go through reporters and editors before the story can be aired or put into print.

This is great news for bloggers because when we write a new post for our blog and click the publish button, that's it anyone can read it. So what this means is that if you can stay right on top of the things that happen, you could be publishing news stories before it really becomes news. Which is a recipe for a popular blog.

Now you might do this by following other blogs and real time websites that have the same topic. The internet is the first place that big news hits. News will circulate through the web pretty fast. So if keep your ears open and stay up to date with whats going on here on the World Wide Web, then this would probably be a good topic for your next blog.

I hope this helps some of you to start a new interesting blog. Keep working smart not hard, and as always, good luck!

Ever since I started building websites and blogging, I have seen, tried, and read a lot of worthless e-books and silly programs out there. These programs that claim they can show you how to get rich overnight with your blog. If any of you have been on the internet for more than a week or two you have probably came across the same kind of things.

Well, I hate to be the one to tell everyone this but, you cannot get rich overnight blogging! Now that doesn't mean you can't earn money doing this. If you work smart and have an interesting blog with quality content and use some good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) then you can actually make some pretty decent money blogging.

But like I have said before, these things take time. You have to build a web presence, build your back-links, get your blog listed in the search engines, among other things. However, if you love to blog and don't mind putting in the effort, then it will pay off.

So keep at it, don't get discouraged and make sure you listen to the pro-bloggers out there.

Keep working smart not hard and as always, good luck.