Noob questions on monetizing blog + traffic

I started my blog approximately 3 weeks ago as a project just to talk about common topics with Shiba Inus and give insight to help other dog owners with their dogs. I have decided to try to monetize it as my time is limited, and i could really use the money for personal reasons at the moment (couldn't we all? lol). I've been having trouble getting real traffic to the site even though i've submitted it to stumbleupon, technorati, and i've even been sharing each article on facebook. Still, the only real traffic i get is from family members and personal friends that visit the site upon request. I am new at this, and i have almost no knowledge of SEO or most of the other topics that go along with monetization and traffic.

I would just appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction to begin monetizing my blog successfully.

Use adsense for monetization. As far as traffic, make youtube videos and put your link in the description of them. That's my recommendation.

Also, search this site more and search google. Not to many people are going to go into great detail on this thread with you since there is plenty of information all over the internet with exactly what you need.

most of beginners opt for adsense but if you keep the same time,effort in cpa you will end up making good money with them.I was with adsense ,but even after having much traffic i was making peanuts with them so i switched with cpa

I have put adsense in the blog, but i can't seem to get the traffic to get the clicks. my last 7 days have brought 140 views and 17 ad clicks which has totalled $14 and some change (all but 1 are from family and friends). I've thought about joining a click ring, but i don't want to risk getting banned for it. Any opinions on it?

when it comes to traffic ,you have read the sticky threads posted by mod.You can learn seo and there are lot of threads shared by members here.Search the forum