The truth about how to make money blogging.
Let’s start with a little brutal truth, shall we? Passion alone does not equal profit. Neither does expertise.
Hard work is important if you are going to succeed in making money with your blog but it doesn’t guarantee success either.
Here’s what I mean:
Suppose your niche is animal/pets
You can be an expert on dog training tactics, wake up every morning with a burning passion to educate the public on tips and tricks of how to train their puppies, and write until your fingers bleed and your eyes fall out of your head, following all the right strategies for turning your new blog into a popular one, and…
Still not making headway, never having a chance to make any amount of money.
Here’s why:
- Not everyone cares about your dog training tactics
- Even if they did care, they wouldn’t spend any money
Basically what I mean is, that you need a large audience of people who buys things.
Without that, nothing you do really matters. Having a large/ relevant audience is a prerequisite for making money with a blog or making money online.
To start making money with your blog, start by following our free step by step guide
At the end of this article, you’ll know how to turn your blog into a legitimate business or at least be inspired to start one today.
Steps on how to make money blogging
- Choose a niche
- Put a blog /Website online
- Research your keywords, learn (SEO)
- Write, Write, Write
- Choose a traffic source.
- Join Affiliate networks.
- Website Monetisation
- Automate & Grow.
1. Choose a niche.
How To Choose A Niche For A Blog?
Choosing a niche is the first and the most important step.
A blog’s niche is a carefully selected topic area that you’ll be focusing your blog content around.
Many “online gurus” would tell you to choose a niche in something you are passionate or knowledgeable about.
This advice is valid but… it’s also a little misleading.
For example:
Let’s say you are passionate about nutrition/ health and Fitness.
Trust me, as a beginner, it’s almost certain that you are going to fail to make any money because of how oversaturated and competitive this niche is.
On the other hand, what if your “passion” doesn’t have enough audience to build your business around it’s almost certain you’ll not make any money either.
Since our goal is to make money blogging, my advice is to not only choose a topic you are passionate about but has to also be a profitable niche.
But…How do you find a profitable niche?
There are many ways to choose a profitable niche for your blogging business, one of the most common is to use Google Trends.
Go to https://trends.google.com/trends/ and just type your niche. For example, I searched for the word “home decor”.
This helps you determine the stability and relevance of the niche. It should not be seasonal or a fad!
Here is a very useful resource I found online that’ll help in finding a profitable niche.
2. Put your Blog or Website Online.
Do you need to have a website?
Most people ask; Is it really necessary to have a professional blogging website? when I can use free online platforms like Medium?
The simple answer to that question is.
Yes! it is necessary. If the goal is to make money blogging, then you want to be able to monetize your website as much as possible.
The holy grail of any online business model is reaching the point where you generate multiple streams of income from one website because you can.
Platforms like Medium / Linkedin are great for generating traffic to your website but are not optimised to help you make money with your blog.
I recommend setting up a WordPress website with BlueHost or NameCheap.
It is important to keep in mind to choose a relevant domain name for your blog.
Do you need help? checkout our professional web design services – we’ll help you build a fully optimised blogging website for less than $100.
3. Research your keywords.
To become a successful blogger you must know how to research keywords. And the first thing you’ll learn is this:
Obvious Keywords = Higher Competition Levels
To get started,
- Write out at least 10 keyword ideas for a topic you want to write about.
- Use keyword research tools like Ahref to gauge the competition level.
- Choose keywords with low competitors.
You can beat the competition by learning SEO Writing.
SEO writing is the process of writing content to rank on the first page of search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing.
This involves researching keywords, writing high-quality content that matches users’ search intent, and optimizing your headers for easy page crawling by search engine Web spiders.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is incredibly important for marketers and bloggers. When you optimize your blog posts — you’re making your blog more visible to people using search engines like Google and Bing to find solutions or answers to their queries.
4. Write, Write, Write
Now that you’ve chosen your winning niche category.
Built a professional blogging website.
Equipped yourself with the knowledge of SEO and Keyword Research.
It’s time to start writing/uploading your content. And don’t stop until you you’ve hit at least 30 blog posts. Then you can come back to continue the rest of this article.
….
Hopefully, that went well, in case you are wondering why? Early on when starting to learn how to make money blogging.
You need to populate your website with enough content (at least 30 blog posts) before you’ll begin to see any form of real traction.
Use tools like Grammarly to help improve your writing/ grammar.
5. Choose a Traffic Source
Google Search or Facebook?
When you’re a newbie, getting traffic is confusing.
Should you focus on optimizing your keywords? Growing your Facebook page? Leaving comments on blogs? Answering questions on Quora? Being active in Facebook groups? Creating videos for your YouTube channel? Starting a popular podcast?
And so on.
There are a gazillion traffic tactics out there. Everybody says theirs is the best.
However, I’ll recommend investing heavily in search engine optimization (SEO), because it’s a free source of traffic and pays dividends over time.
You probably got the link to this article by searching for keywords like “make money blogging”, “how to start a blog” or “how to make money blogging ” on Google, Bing etc…these are keywords I’ve researched and now trying to rank on the first page of search engines for.
Need to get me that free traffic for a foreseeable future.
If you have a Lil bit of cash to spend you can use Facebook ads, Search engine marketing (SEM) and pay per click (PPC) to drive traffic to your blog.
If your content is well written and offers to value it’s just a matter of time before you start building a real community or audience for your blog.
6. Join Affiliate Networks.
Now we’ve come to the juice of this, it’s time for the Money!.
The best to make money blogging is with affiliate marketing.
You’ve got your content in place, and by now it’s getting you constant traffic for relevant keywords.
Now it’s time to capitalise on the views you are getting.
joining affiliate network
John Chow- Who wouldn’t take advice from John Chow, a guy who turned his blog into a $40,000 a month revenue stream in just two years? His articles and videos span every marketing topic under the sun, and his content is a pleasure to read.
7. Monetize Your Website.
At this stage, you are getting constant traffic and your readers are eager for more.
It’s time to capitalise on this and monetize your website (if you want ).
Google Adsense would pay you a substantial amount for ads space on your site at this point.
The goal is to make money blogging right? So why not?
End of pt 1… leave a comment below if you want the full version of this article...