Having a blog can be a great way for you to practice your writing and to allow others to find out more about you and to get to know you better. Moreover, in this day and age of Internet businesses, a blog can be a great way for you to make money.

In a system called affiliate marketing, you can get commissions whenever people click on ads that are posted on your site. In this way, you not only enjoy writing, you also get to make money from it. Of course, the only way that you can get money through this method is to get more visitors to your blog, and to have great content that everyone will want to avail of.

One way for you to get more visitors is to find an email group that you can use to promote your blog. An email group or mailing list is a great marketing vehicle: you can get in touch with a lot of people who have the same interests as yours, you can find a lot of people who may even have the same attitude as yours, and you can get the word out faster on a product or service that you like. In this same manner, you can get the word out much faster on your blog, and you may be able to spread the word if you know how to talk to people in your email group.

But how do you find the email groups? Here are a few tips that you may want to use as you search for a mailing list that will allow you to talk to a lot of people, keep in touch with people with whom you share interests, and have a lot of fun in promoting your blog!

- First, what are your interests?

Many email groups are built around common interests, be they movies, music, crafts, or even romance and love. List down all your interests. You can start with your hobbies, then your favorite songs, artists, movies, books, authors, and actors. You can use these interests as keywords when searching for email lists. Nearly all email list networks have a searchable database that you can use when looking for groups for you to be a member in. This way, you can be more sure to find people who have the same interests as yours.

- Second, what is your blog about?

Use keywords about your blog in order to find more email groups. For instance, if you have a blog about pets, you may want to look for email groups that talk about pets, feeding pets, grooming pets, veterinarian and vet visits, and just animals in general. You can be as specific as you like: there are whole mailing lists for proud owners of certain breeds of dogs, or for people who like a certain kind of reptile. You can also be as general as you like. However, you may have a harder time with large groups, as they can be filled with people who do not read carefully through all the posrs.

- Third, spread yourself evenly, but not too thin

The disadvantage with having too few mailing lists to be a member in is that you will also have fewer contacts in your network and a smaller range, as though you were putting all your eggs in one basket. The disadvantage with having too many mailing lists, however, is that they are much harder to manage on your part, and you could end up getting a lot of emails but not getting to respond quickly enough.