Would you like to be able to make some extra cash from your new year resolutions? This is a reality thanks to the internet.

The idea I’m going to talk about involves set up a blog. This blog’s content will follow you as you embark on your battle of your new year resolutions. If you can make it useful, entertaining, interesting and inspirational then you can make money from it.

(If you don’t want to set up a blog, you can still make money online selling products without a website.)

Method

All you need is a blog. There are many free options, such as http://www.blogger.com (run by Google) and http://wordpress.com. They are both very reputable and relatively straight forward to set up. You don’t need to be a computer programmer. You just need a little patience and a willingness to learn.

Once you have a blog, you can start updating it. The idea is to show the world your progress with your new year’s resolutions. Like a diary you can keep track of your day to day journey. You can write about your thoughts and feelings as well as your methods. Pictures of your progress are also good as people love pictures that tell a story.

Weight loss in particular is perfect for this idea because your visitors can track your progress using before and after pictures and stats, such as your measurements and weight. You could even film yourself being weighed every week. This provides proof to your visitors about whether your methods are working or not. This is important for trust, which I will discuss later.

The public like to follow peoples’ journey when pursuing a goal. They like to hear about their inner thoughts and feelings. This inspires and informs them. They can follow what works and doesn’t work for you. You can be an inspiration to thousands of people.

People will get to know you, which is great for building trust. When you have trust online, you can make money.

Affiliate marketing

In order to make money from your blog you can do what is known as affiliate marketing. This is where you earn a commission for selling someone’s product for them. The great thing about this is that it requires no money up front. So you can never be out of pocket. The worst you can possibly do is sell nothing and break even. You have nothing to lose. The affiliate vendor sorts out everything such as stock and delivery. You just provide the website traffic.

Imagine you wanted to sell the HypnoBusters product Gastric Band Hypnotherapy. You join the affiliate program (for free) and get an affiliate link that is unique to you. Then place this link on your blog. This might be as part of a banner, or as a text link.

When your visitors clicks on your unique affiliate link, they are taken to the product’s sales page. This is automatically tracked by the affiliate software. You are automatically credited with a percentage of the sale (50% in the case of HypnoBusters products) when your visitor makes a purchase. It’s all automatic, so you can literally earn money in your sleep!

Review a product

A really good way to make money with affiliate marketing is to try out the product yourself. You could use a product that has an affiliate program and try it over a period of time. You can then detail your progress when using it. Stats, pictures and inner thoughts. Show as much proof as you can about your results.

If your new year resolution is to quit smoking, you could try a quit smoking product and detail what it did for you. Allow people to see for themselves how the product performed. If it worked well then you can recommend it based on your results. You can link to it with your special affiliate link and earn a percentage commission for every sale you generate.

HypnoBusters affiliate program is perfect for this. There is a product that can help with practically any new years resolution. The beauty is that even if a person clicks on your link and buys a different product to what you are selling (which happens quite often), you still get commission for the sale. This gives you more chance to sell than a website with just one product.

Promoting your blog

In order to make a good amount from your blog you must get lots of visitors. There are many ways to do this and I can’t possibly cover them all here. You can find a few more suggestions here – how to promote a blog post.

One of the best ways is to use social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Don’t just add a link to your content though. Write a few words that will grab peoples’ interest and will get a discussion going, then add your link with this.

Also if you publish a good picture on your blog post, this should appear on Facebook and Google +. This helps attract even more attention.

Be really active in discussing your post or anything else that people want to talk about. This massively helps increase interest in your content.

Final thoughts

Making a blog detailing your journey with your new year’s resolution can really gain you a loyal following. The good thing is that it is unique because it is about you. It will not be like any other blog out there.

You must do it with honesty and integrity. Put the effort in and lay yourself bare. People will become inspired by your efforts and hopefully will visit you often to see how you’re doing, and tell others about you too.

Remember that peoples’ time is precious online. There is almost an infinite amount of material for them to read, so you have to give them a good reason to visit you. Do good work and people will visit and you will make money. Allow them to get to know you, and be interested in your goals, and learn from you. Help them with their goals too, and you will have a loyal following of friends forever. Good luck!