Where to start for getting PR and money?

I am new to the blogging world, although I have read hundreds of other blogs it is a lot more overwhelming to try building your own than I had thought! I am left with so many questions.

My main objectives right now, in order of importance, are to
1) make money from my blogs
2) remain useful to readers.

I don't mind putting off making money if i have to first invest in the quality of my blog. Where in the world should I start? I already have been updating at least once a day with blog entries and info I think my readers would find useful. I also try to browse other people's blogs every day and leave meaningful comments (not useless ones), and I even give them one-way links from my site if I really think they have a great blog or site. I don't really know how to do anything else, though!

So I guess my question is, what should I do next *after I already blog regularly and leave comments on other blogs*.

Should I:

- learn how to add buttons to my blog for Digg and Technorati, etc.
- write articles for article sites
- put Adsense on my blogs
- join the pay-per-post sites
- get my own domains and direct to my Blogspot blogs (or vice-versa?)

Note: I would like to eventually do all of these things, but I want to make sure I am investing my time wisely right off the bat on the marketing efforts that will bring me the highest payoff, in terms of making money but not turning away readers by being useless. So which things should I do first?

Does anyone have advice for me? I am basically lost! (BTW I have a Blogspot blog)

Also, I am planning on making some blog entries about this very topic of what to do first so hopefully you won't mind if I quote you and give you credit to your blog or website in the blog entries.

 

Start with claiming your blog in Technorati. That'll get them crawling it. Go ahead and ad adsense and any other ad stuff you want as most will tell you that doing it from the get go is better than dropping it in after you've been blogging for a year.
Try and get your site added to as many directories as you can. dmoz.org is the most popular, but be careful to not spam it and put your blog in a fitting category.
Use a service like pingoat.com to ping as many services as you can each time you do a post. If you are posting more than once a day, only use the service once per day, so use it after your last post of the day.
Most of all, be patient. Unless you're the next Mike Arrington, you probably will be a little guy for quite a while. Don't expect 1000's of visits anytime soon, but the more you post and the better you get at it, the more hits you will get and the more returning readers you will have.

good luck!

 

Thanks for the tips, rep added

 

I have the opposite strategy. Don't monetize early on if you're seriously interested in making your blog popular and familiar with many. If you're getting less than 1000+ uniques a day, you won't make much from Adsense anyway.

Try buying links to build up your PR. Sell text links for money. I think sponsored posts won't look good on your blog if you're aiming for the very top too. Text link sales should be fine though.

 

Just keep creating quality post, build links and don't worry about making money right away. Success will come as you page rank and popularity grow.

 

Now I am pinging and ......... its done. Thanks for the pingoat.com

 

No problem. Glad you found it useful. I don't have metrics on how useful it really is, but I know that when I use it, I see referrals from the engines that it pings.