Is your blog ready for monetization - Beginners guide

I’ll turn to writing bed-time stories for kids, if i’ll ever meet a blogger who does not want to make money from his blog.
Everybody wants to make money, even if your online-income is only a few cents daily, a blog is surely a source of extra income.
One among every three bloggers you find,is an online-money making guru too. Don’t you think it’s a bit over-done these days?

I’m wondering if one jumping into the bandwagon and embedding all those affiliate codes into his blog is actually making money or not.Seriously, if all bloggers were millionaires, then what’s the fun?

Well, it’s a fact that all of us can’t be millionaires through blogging but we all want to make that extra few bucks. Let’s see if there are any measurables available that will tell us exactly how ready your blog is for money making. These are pre-requisites before you sign up for all those affiliates, that will ensure that you are all geared up for the party!

- Your own domain name

Darren insists it, John insists it. Getting your domain name is cheap these days - then why should you stay away with a blogger/wordpress account? Many affiliates require you to have your own domain name and does not allow the free ones to be included in their publisher list.
Why a domain name for me?
- Your neighbor has it, your cubicle mate has it.
- It’s damn cheap.
- You can migrate from your blogger to new domain with ease.
- It’s your address, would you want to stay in a rented house or your own? (remember you are a money making guru)
- Other’s are not Einstein progeny, to remember your blogger address.
- It shows you are serious about blogging.
- You don’t want to be a loser in front of your kid who is likely to have his own domain name.

So, a domain name is one factor you need to have before you start monetizing your blog.(Well, you may argue that there are still blogspot urls that win 5 figure cheques from Google, I’m talking about new starters here, not exceptions.)

- Traffic

Only a blog with decent amount of traffic will be able to get you that cheque. The more the better. Personally, I prefer visitors from organic search(Google or Yahoo) who stays on my site for little time than ardent readers.Simply because they are likely to click on ads - while looking for an info. It’s important that a blogger ensures that he receives a decent amount of traffic before he adds the affiliate codes in his template.

- Related content

When you have all those electronic gadget affiliates code on your blog, your articles can’t be on paintings. Make sure that you have a blog that’s got enough content (related) that will interest readers who are likely to click on the affiliate ads.This can be done by researching on what are the affiliates available, and tweaking your content to relate to it. Don’t over do it as it may simply turn down your loyal readers who might have loved your earlier contents.So get a grab on this right from the start.

- Space

Ensure that you have a template that will fit affiliates and ads with ease.That it doesn’t stick out as an ad.Many bloggers starts blogging with a fancy template and later when they add the ads - they don’t gel together with the content. This is yet another point that should be taken care of right from the first day of posting.

Yes, there are more points to be listed out here - but to keep it clear and crisp I’m cutting it short into parts and this is the first part.If you have points to contribute, write them on the comments please.

So before you jump into the monetization bandwagon, plan ahead and think about what lies ahead and leave space for development.More things to check before monetizing your blog to follow.