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This is not going to be easy. Here I am writing a kind of blog which essentially says you should stop doing it. But I’m going to say it all the same. Deep breath…..blogging is wasting your time and draining your profitability. You should stop blogging right away. That’s it. Hang up your keyboard and give up blogging. It’s a has-been activity.

I’ve spent the past three and a bit years actively blogging with several personal and business blogs. In total I’ve spent over 105 full 24 hour days writing blogs. That means I’ve lost that time to income generation. While I was blogging I wasn’t earning money. A third of a year gone without cash. Not a pretty thought.

So I investigated blogging. I’ve spoken with bloggers of all kinds and discovered one common theme. Bloggers are spending hours each week writing thoughts, ideas, messages like this one instead of what they used to do before blogging was invented, which was earning money. Almost no-one I spoke with earned any money from their blogs.

If you are a regular blogger, you need to ask yourself does it help or hinder your business? Blogging is a cost to your business that doesn’t appear anywhere in your accounts. Your probably try to keep down your phone bill, your transport costs and your accountancy fees. But the time you spend blogging will almost certainly add up to much more than these.

Blogging only works if you make money from it. You need to measure the impact of blogging on web site traffic, search engine positioning and resulting sales. You could also try to use blogs to generate cash as a separate entity.

True enough, blogging may be therapeutic, enjoyable, perhaps cathartic for you. But if you are in business and it isn’t generating cash, it’s a waste of your time and money

Graham Jones is a psychologist who has investigated the way people use the Internet. His research can help you make the most of the Internet, particularly if you are hoping to make money online.

He also runs workshops on blogging http://www.bloggingworkshop.co.uk

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This article is designed to teach you how to profit from blogging, writing to a website in the form of regular posts, without spending anything. The keys to this idea lie in two of Google’s programs, Blogger.com and AdSense.

The first obvious step is to find a niche. While it is possible to have a general interest blog, it may not be as profitable as targeting a specific subject (click here to read the logic behind targeted advertising).

Once you settled on a subject you like, its time to set up your blog. Blogger.com is great for beginners. Not only is it free (and free of ads, unlike most free hosting services), it has integrated support for AdSense (more on this later). For now, pick a suitable but catchy name and choose one of the pre-made designs.

Of course, now you have to start making posts to your blog. There are two main types of posts. The most common type of content on blogs seems to be commentary plus a link to the actual news source or website of interest. Then there are original content posts which will have others link to you (much like you do in your commentary posts). Either way, make sure its interesting to have readers coming back.

Now its time to apply for Google’s AdSense program. AdSense is a pay per click program which matches ads to the content of your page. Every time a visitor to your site clicks on one of these links, you receive a small amount of revenue (the minimum advertisers can bid for a link is $0.05, of which you receive a percentage. Many phrases can have bids as high as several dollars per click).

The content of your site determines what ads appear, and therefore how much you will ultimately make. The placement and appearance of ads, however, can have just as great an impact on how much you make.

There are a few tips for maximizing ad revenue. First, the appearance of the add itself is important. Google clearly labels all its units as advertising, but allows you to determine the colors of the links and the background. It is important that this match the look of your site. The more blatant an ad is, the more likely it is to turn off visitors. Just as important is the location of the ad units. They should appear on the top half of your page, and preferably on the left side. This insures the ad is viewed by most visitors.

Having covered the basics, its now time for you to experiment to discover what works best for your new blog. The best part is, it costs nothing to try.

Chris Rivers is a writer for http://www.ClickForDeals.net. Visit the site to learn more about maximizing profits through affiliate and pay per click programs. Articles appear on the site exclusively one week before they are syndicated.

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If you haven’t set up a blog already - do it today. You’ll need to become an active blogger for several reasons. Yes, it’s true, blogging can be a waste of time. It can drain your profits and act against your business by taking time away from cash generation. Indeed, it can take your mind off what you should be doing and divert you into pointless activity.

But here’s another take on it. Consider how blogging can become a profit making activity in its own right. If you treat blogging as a separate profit centre within your business, it can be extremely valuable to you. Here’s how.

For a start, blogging can increase your profile and “presence” on the Internet. You’ll increase your search engine visibility, raise your ranking and gain more hits. That can create more business. But you need to know whether it actually does this, rather than thinking it does. That’s why you need to track click throughs from your blog right through to sales. The best way I’ve found of doing this is to use my shopping cart’s ad tracker feature. This allows me to track any clicks in any page I produce and see if an when that person buys from me. It’s a valuable way of seeing how profitable each blog entry becomes. It helps focus your mind and help you know what to write about and what to avoid within your blog.

So, true enough, used in this way blogs can help your business generally. However, many people only think it does this - they don’t know because they don’t measure blogging effectiveness. As in most things in business, only testing and measurement will reveal the truth to you.

But generating business for your existing products and services is not the only benefit of blogging. Blogs can raise cash on their own. For instance you can carry advertising, you can sell affiliate products such as those from Clickbank or books from Amazon.

For most people blogging is a waste of time and money because they use blogs to write their thoughts and just to add some content to their sites because they’ve been told it’s a good idea. For the vast majority of bloggers I have spoken with recently, blogging has been a tremendous cost to their business.

However, used properly, with planning and with testing. blogging can make you additional revenue. So, don’t hang up that keyboard just yet. Start your business blog as soon as you can.

Graham Jones is a psychologist who has investigated the way people use the Internet. His research can help you make the most of the Internet, particularly if you are hoping to make money online.

He also runs workshops on making money with a blog.

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