Blogging has become a powerful addition to the internet marketing arena these past few years, although it's been around for pretty long.

Blogs are a great way to promote affiliate programs.

Most Bloggers out there aren't making commissions off there blogs. Of those doing so (usually internet marketers), many simply don't know what they are doing, and usually tread the 'dangerous' path by putting up 'spam blogs' that have no shelf life.

If you want an ever-growing profitable blog that is sustainable for the long-term, don't take risks - use the 'white hat' and correct approach.

How? By following these simple rules, that's how.

Here's my 5-Step Affiliate Blogging Blueprint which is as simple as it gets:

1. Select A Tightly Targeted Niche

First, make a list of topics that interest you a great deal. You are going to be spending a lot of time with your topic, so pick something you at least know a little about and are willing to learn more about. Pick a niche you might already be an expert at.

With that list, go to http://7search.com/scripts/searchterms/top_paying.asp to see what the highest paying keywords are. Do any of your topics match any of those keywords? If not, look at those keywords, and try to pick one that you can 'talk' about. Find a topic you can be passionate about.

If you don't find anything on that list that interests you, visit Yahoo Search Marketing at http://www.overture.com and use their resources to find high paying keywords, or to find out how popular the topics on your list are.

2. Find Affiliate Programs For Your Niche

Make a list of good paying and high converting affiliate programs in your chosen niche. Here are a few places you can research on: ClickBank Marketplace, AssociatePrograms.com, LinkShare.com, CJ.com etc.

After you've signed up for the relevant affiliate programs, collect all the marketing materials and organize them in one convenient folder. Marketing materials may include articles, text links, banner ads, classfied ads etc. that you can use on your blog.

3. Set Up Your Money-Making Blog

Once you have your niche and affiliate programs ready, it's time to set up your blog! There many places to look where you can set up a blog for free. If you don't have a website (and many successful bloggers don't) get a blog through a site such as http://www.blogger.com or http://www.wordpress.org.

One critical tip in blogging is. Whatever blogging host you use you neeed to make sure you can edit the templates for the blog so you can add your affiliate marketing materials

Here's the thing - if you're using Blogger.com for example, use your main keyword for the niche you've selected IN the blogger blog domain.

Next choose a name for your blog carefully. You don't want to just name it My Blog or something. Now you should also use your main keyword as it is in the title.

4. Posting Keyword Relevant Content

There are various methods of getting content for your blog. A few good ones are:

- Free reprint articles - Private Label Products - Write your own

Lets talk about the last method as it's something many have problems with. The best advice I can give is to "write like you talk". Don't forget that a blog is essentially for expressing your own opinion and to share your knowledge, while making good profits out of doing it of course.

The 'secret' though is to include your keywords in BOTH your post title and content for good rankings, and with the combination of keywords in domain and page title, you 'can't fail'. Basic SEO combined with relevant content and quality backlinks will do more wonders for your search engine traffic than any 'software'.

Once you're set up, it's advisable to follow a fixed schedule of posting new content every few days when your blog is new. Of course do remember to add in relevant affiliate recommendations within the content, this is why we are even discussing this remember? :-)

5. Promoting Your Blog For A Traffic Avalanche

You WILL need to promote your blog as opposed to common thinking (at least when you're starting out). This helps to get it ranked AND build a readership for your blog.

First thing to do is to submit your new blog into the main search engines and directories; link it to another indexed website; buy links, etc.

Next head on over to http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/, http://www.pingoat.com and http://www.pingomatic.com to submit your blog.

You should also re-submit your blog at the above directories each time you make new posts.

There you go. While it will take some time to see results and build up your readership, you've already created a brand new 'affiliate blog' which you can monetize easily.

If you have quality posts to your blog, that focus on your target market, and you promote your blog, you will really explode your autopilot affiliate commissions! It's really that easy.

About the Author

Brian Drogitis is a successful internet marketer helping others go from newbie-to-pro in a very short time. Free newsletter: http://tinyurl.com/2cfac3

Bookmark my Blog here: http://briandrogitis.blogspot.com/