This article was the top engaged blog post of the week at BlogEngage.

The hardest thing about blogging is coming up with fresh, new content. It’s really easy to run out of things to blog about if you have no ideas.

Obviously this is detrimental to any blogger who wants to make money from blogging because it is important that you publish new posts frequently – twice a week at the very least – to keep readers interested and earn search engine love.

If you’re feeling stuck, here is a list of 50 blogging ideas that are sure to inspire you to come up with new content for your blog. Most of the ideas can be used more than once, so you won’t run out of blog posts for months to come.

1. Special events – Relate your blog topic to special events such as the Olympics or World Cup, national day such as the Independence Day, or holidays such as Halloween or Christmas.

2. News – Subscribe to Google News Alert on your keywords and write about the latest news in your niche.

3. Do a good review on a book.

4. Respond to a post on another blog in a niche similar or related to yours and give it an interesting twist and angle.

5. Write about your blogging milestones, such as publishing your 99th post, getting your 1000th comment, etc.

6. Blog about a hero or rock star in your niche who has made a positive contribution to the industry.

7. Join blog memes such as “Wordless Wednesday”. There’s at least one for every day of the week!

8. Do a product review and collect some affiliate income in the process.

9. Write a short Q&A based on frequently asked questions in your niche.

10. Write an interesting response to a comment on your blog and make it a blog post.

11. Predict trends in your niche 1 year, 5 years or even 20 years down the road.

12. Look back and write about how your niche was like in the past. Or you can write about past events that have influenced your niche.

13. Write top tips on any topic of interest to your readers.

14. Do a “best of” list … Compile a list of your best posts for the year.

15. Organize a contest for your blog readers, or make a list of contests your readers can join.

16. Write about what you have learned from a current event, a person you met, or an experience you had.

17. Define terms that are commonly used in your niche but a beginner may not understand

18. Do an announcement not amounting to a review of a new product relevant to your niche. This is another good opportunity to drop in some affiliate links.

19. Ask your readers what they would like to know about your niche and let them post their questions in the comments section.

20. Questions follow up – Summarize the comments from #19 in another post.

21. Questions follow up series – Write a separate blog post tackling each question from #19.

22. Interview somebody successful and knowledgeable in your niche.

23. Compile a big list of various resources, just like this one. The bigger the better!

24. Put up a brief survey online and blog about the results.

25. Be provocative and challenge a common belief or widely accepted idea in your niche.

26. Discuss new ideas in your niche you have come across lately.

27. Embed a funny, moving or insightful video onto your blog and comment on it.

28. Create your own video, publish it on YouTube and embed on your blog. This way, you can attract traffic from YouTube to your blog.

29. Scour the net for freebies that your readers will love. Or create a freebie of your own, such as a checklist or special report. Blog about your find or offer.

30. Use a personal story to illustrate an important concept or principle in your niche.

31. Check out relevant articles in article directories such as Ezine Articles… but don’t publish them entirely on your blog. Instead, use an article or a group of articles as your take-off point for a blog post or a series,

32. Create a post with links to other blogs. Some bloggers set aside one day a week to publish a list of the best blog posts on their niche.

33. A picture is worth a thousand words. Search Flickr for creative commons pictures that your readers will like.

34. Look through Digg for hot topics in your niche

35. Write a post that examines what’s good and bad about something related to your blog topic

36. Respond to relevant questions you find in Ask.com

37. Invite another blogger to write a guest post for your blog

38. Invite blog subscribers to submit an article or post to be published on the blog

39. Write a motivational post for your readers.

40. Update an old post with fresh ideas, new learning and current research findings.

41. Beginner’s guide – What do beginners in your niche struggle with? Write a post to guide them through it.

42. Make a list of the best ___ in your niche.

43. Make a list of the worst ___ in your niche.

44. Think of new innovative ways your readers can use gadgets and other stuff.

45. Write about a live event that you attended and what you learned from it.

46. Bribe your readers with a freebie in exchange for subscribing to your newsletter or RSS feed.

47. Describe and compare how people in different countries do something related to your niche.

48. Relate the month or season to your blog topic.

49. Join or host a blog carnival, where several publish posts about the same topic on the same day.

50. Host a virtual “conference” on your blog and invite “speakers” to publish their posts on a specified date and time. The Q&A happens in the comments section.

I hope that my tips will help you generate a steady flow of fresh content.

Keep me posted

If you are interested in knowing how to make money through blogging, do check out the great product below called Blogger’s Pay Check from John Yeo.

A couple of posts back, I promised to give you the secret of where I go to get my sponsored review assignments that pay up to as much as thousands of dollars per assignment.

Without further ado, here they are – my 2 favorite haunts which make me thousands of dollars through blog reviews.

Sponsored Reviews

One thing I really like about Sponsored Reviews is the fact that the approval process is almost instantaneous. All you have to do is to register as a blogger, register your blog and after that you can start sifting through the assignments to bid for them. All the advertisers here are genuinely looking for blogs to review their products and many of them have good budgets – $20 upwards. Some go as high as a thousand dollars although most are in the $20 – $100 range. How high you can go will depend on how much traffic your blog enjoys and what niche your blog is serving.

From my experience, the niches that pay best are – auto, entertainment, business, finance, technology. It is very easy to make a couple of hundreds here weekly if you are not too pricey and your blog enjoys decent traffic. Sponsored Reviews is prompt on payment and pays through Paypal.

Social Spark

Social Spark is quite a different vehicle from Sponsored Reviews. There are more choices to monetize from as it also offers CPA and CPC opportunities besides sponsored reviews. The sponsored reviews here usually have higher requirements but some of them pay very well – occasionally up to the tune of a couple of thousand dollars.

Signing up for the network and waiting to be approved however can be a pain as it is quite a lengthy process. You need to drop codes into your blog and wait for the network to review your blog before they will approve it. Only then can you look for opportunities. The website has a robust backed system and keeps its opportunities well categorized, so you will be able to look for assignments quite easily. One problem is that the high paying assignments are usually very competitive as there are no lack of top bloggers here. But if you persevere, you will get good assignments finally. Social Spark is also prompt on payment and uses Paypal too.

As a bonus, I want to tell you about two other blog review networks.

The reason why I don’t go to them is because the payouts are usually very low, but if you are just starting out and just want to get some experience and pocket money to go with it, then these networks can be your starting grounds – Smorty and Review Me.

I hope this post has been helpful to you. When you get your first assignment, do drop me a comment here. Good luck!

Believe it or not, sponsored blog reviews earn you good money.

I know, because I do.

Following my post on Blogging For Money, I would now like to share where I go to get sponsored review assignments. (For those not in the know, sponsored reviews are assignments where you are commissioned by a 3rd party to write about their products/services/websites.)

Now, this is actually a very valuable post because I am sharing my actual experiences and sources from where I obtain assignments worth up to thousands of dollars. You will not see many internet marketers out there being so sharing. I hope you learn from my sharing and benefit through it. By subscribing to my blog and dropping me a nice comment that will be ample thanks for me.

Anyway, back to the topic.

There are actually several networks which match make reviewees (those who want their products reviewed) and reviewers (those who review products). I’ve been to all of them and from my experience, I can tell you that only two of these networks are truly worth your time.

Before I divulge which ones they are, I want to talk about how these networks work and how much you can expect to earn from each assignment.

How Blog Review Networks Work

Generally a product/service/website owner wants to generate publicity and word-of-mouth for their product, and they subscribe to the belief that the best way is to get blogs talking about it. So instead of approaching blogs one by one, they subscribe to a Blog Review network where there are hundreds of assignment-hungry blogs waiting to snap up the opportunity and post their opportunity.

On the other hand, bloggers who want to earn extra income through reviewing a product sign up with a Blog Review network and register their blogs. They will often be asked to classify their blogs under the appropriate categories.

Whenever there is somebody interested to have his product reviewed, he can then either look through the Blog Review network’s database to look for suitable candidates to review his product, or he can put up an assignment classified and let bloggers bid for his assignment.

How Much Does Each Review Pay?

Generally sponsored reviews can pay as little as a few bucks to as much as a few thousand dollars. Yes, a few thousand dollars!

From my experience, this depends on 3 factors.

1) the network you are subscribed to

Unfortunately not all networks are built equal. Some networks serve really low value assignments in the below ten bucks range while some other networks serve assignments worth up to a few thousand dollars.

2) the popularity of your blog and your web traffic credentials

If your blog enjoys high traffic, it means that the review will be read by many people, which translates to more potential word-of-mouth and sales for the customer. You can command a higher fee for your assignments then.

3) the niche your blog is catering to

Certain niches tend to believe in sponsored reviews more and thus tend to pay higher rates. If you are in the right niche, your assignments can be worth a lot of money.

In my next post, I will spill the beans on my 2 favorite Blog Review networks with which I have consistently earned hundreds of dollars (sometimes up to a thousand) per week. Stay tuned till then!

If you have not already done so, I recommend that you download my free guide on Blogging for Money.

In this post, I would like to touch briefly on a few ways to making money through blogging.

It won’t be an in-depth post, just an introductory one. But over the next few posts I will be covering these methods more in detail and sharing my personal experiences.

In no particular order of preference, here they are -

- sponsored reviews

- advertising

- affiliate marketing

- selling your own products

That’s it! The 4 main methods of making money through blogging.

I’ve personally done all the above with varying success. Some of my blogs perform better at some methods while some excel in other methods. All these really boil down to the niche and target market involved.

I’ll briefly touch on the 4 methods now.

Sponsored Reviews – You are commissioned by a 3rd party to write about their products/services/websites. While some people may argue that being paid to review something is hardly ethical, it is a fact that reviews are a very powerful form of word-of-mouth. If you see a positive recommendation for a product by an authoritative person or website, chances are you will form a good impression of that product. The opposite is true. Sponsors realize that, and that is why they are willing to pay good money to have sites write positively about their products. This can be a very good source of income for bloggers. The only catch to this method of blogging for money is that your site will have to be quite popular before you can command a premium fee for your reviews. Most small-time bloggers can earn between $5 – $20 per assignment. Popular bloggers can earn up to a few thousand dollars per assignment. I will be sharing where to go to get such opportunities over my next few posts.

Advertising – You sign up with advertising networks who will give you a piece of code to put on your site, and you are ready to start accepting advertisements. Some ad networks serve ads almost instantaneously while others take forever. Prices are usually set by the clients or the ad networks. As your blog becomes more popular, you can look for advertisers and broker deals yourself. Usually that earns you more money. For beginners, it is recommended that you  start out with Google Adsense, as the ads get served almost immediately and you are almost always guaranteed to get ads, unless you are in a very obscure niche. I will be sharing various ad networks and covering advertising more in depth over the next few posts.

Affiliate Marketing – You sell other people’s products and get a commission for your efforts. If you keep a particularly good blog with quality posts and have accumulated a loyal stream of followers, you can sign up with an affiliate network such as Clickbank and look for good products that are related to your niche to market and sell.  This can be very good money if your website is very popular. I will be sharing various affiliate networks and covering affiliate marketing more in depth over the next few posts.

Selling Your Own Products – This involves creating your own digital or physical product and selling it via your blog. The concept  is almost similar to affiliate marketing except that you are selling your own products, but the fundamentals remain that you have to keep a good blog with a healthy traffic with a niche relevant to your product in order to make sales. And of course, your product must be of quality. I will be covering more of this over my next few posts.

So there you have it. The 4 main methods of making money through blogging.

Over the next few posts, as promised, I will discuss these methods more in detail. Do watch out for them.

In the meantime, do download my free e-book on blogging if you have not already done so -  “Aldric’s Guide to Blogging for Money”. It will cover what I have just discussed and more

Till the next post then!

Some people wonder what a blog is, and how can it help them make money. Some people run a blog, but do not know how their blogging can make them money.

I’ve been blogging for some time now and I know how it feels like when you are first starting out, trying to understand what blogging is all about and how people actually make money through blogging.

For this reason, I’ve written “Aldric’s Guide to Blogging for Money“.

It is a no-fluff 26 page e-book in which I introduce the concepts of blogging and describe the various avenues with which one can make money through blogging. I’m not really one to sensationalize, so I won’t claim that this report would make you tons of money, because it will not.

What it will do however – is give you a firm grasp on the principles of blogging and how people make money through blogging.

I have listed the topics discussed in my e-book below.

WHY BLOGGING IS SO POPULAR
BLOGGING RESOURCES
WORDPRESS
CREATING A POPULAR BLOG
USING ADSENSE
EXAMPLES OF SITES USING ADSENSE
OTHER ADVERTISING OPTIONS
AFFILIATE MARKETING
REVIEW PRODUCTS
JOIN A BLOGGING NETWORK
CREATE A NEWSLETTER
CREATE YOUR OWN PRODUCT
DONATIONS
PICKING THE RIGHT CASH GENERATOR
RESOURCES – WEB HOSTING AND DOMAIN REGISTRATION
RESOURCES – AFFILIATE NETWORKS
RESOURCES – AUTO RESPONDERS

As you can see, this is a rather comprehensive e-book. and you can download it COMPLETELY FOR FREE!

All you have to do is to fill in your Name and Email above to get your free copy of “Aldric’s Guide to Blogging for Money“. You will also be subscribed to my newsletter and be rewarded with more useful information and free reports in the future.