When you want to start a blog, it is normal to check out guides on how to monetize a blog – even before you open the blog itself. However, it can get very challenging when you are starting from scratch, because you do not have an established audience, and you are going to have to take time to build your reputation before you start making money.
You might even be wondering – how do people make a living online? Do they do it through ads alone?
Because of that, this guide will help you with tips you will need when you are starting your blog, and making some income from it – a very important skill I to acquire especially when you want to become a major authority.
Be sure that the niche you want to focus on is profitable
Blogging is nice. It gives you the chance to express your passion, and ensure you become a visible authority in your niche. However, when you want to generate income, there are certain facts you must keep in mind at all times.
One is that passion is not always equal to profit, hard work will not always guarantee you a seamless transition into making money, and expertise does not mean you will earn money. It is sad, but it is true.
You might have the biggest passion in the world for a certain topic. You might even write thousands of articles about it, while following all the tactics you need to make your blog popular, but guess what – you find that no one else really cares. Because they do not care, they will not spend their money.
At the end of the day, if you want to make money on your blog, you need a substantial number of people who will actually buy things. However, you will likely find that the number of bloggers in the ‘profitable niches’ is increasing at very high rates, which brings you to:
Making sure your content is excellent
Content is king.
A mistake numerous bloggers make is not planning their content ahead of time. They will mostly sit down and start thinking about topics they can write about, then they do their best to make it as entertaining and original as possible. However, this strategy never works.
Here is why: you never planned your content framework ahead of time, you failed to take into account that your audience wants different topics or content, and your content is not the best you have ever made. It is not your fault though, because you have likely made this mistake unknowingly – you just thought your content has to be interesting and then you publish.
The truth of money-making blogging is: it is a non-negotiable requirement to make the best content ever, and it must always be on topics people are interested in learning. Making interesting content alone is not enough, which gives us three levels of creating content.
One is that you must know your niche and the popular topics that are in it, then write about them frequently. Secondly, master the frameworks that are guaranteed to make your posts popular – for instance, how to articles, list articles, reviews on popular products, and so on. Third is that your content must always deliver value to the reader – even better than what other articles offer.
Well, you might look at these requirements and think about how difficult the journey is – and that is exactly why making money through blogging is a tough process. Before you grow enough to make great strides, you must go through the tough road of planning out your content and adding value to the reader – which is never easy.
Know the traffic sport you will play
It is understandable that getting traffic and how it works is very confusing when you are in the beginning stages of your blogging. You might even have so many questions about the whole process – how do you optimize keywords, and is it necessary? How do you create videos for YouTube? How about leaving comments and answering questions on your posts? What is SO, and how does it work?
There are so many people who will give you advice on traffic, and each of them claim their strategy is the best.
However, here is a fact not many people will tell you: most of your traffic will actually come from Facebook or Google. The rest of traffic sources cannot come close to these two. The next question you probably have is how do you make them send you traffic then?
One option is paying for it – which is advantageous, because they will alert as many people as possible that you have a blog with awesome content, without you having to do all the hard work on your own.
The other option is using any one of two approaches: the viral post (use it if you have a topic that focuses on what you have noticed people online discussing frequently), and SEO or search engine optimization (use it when you notice people are actively searching for your topic on Google, such as questions they would ask experts, or product reviews).
Growing your email list through pop-ups
Let us be honest, ads and popups are probably an annoyance to you. They get in the way of your reading, and you sometimes have to deal with multiple ones from the same site, making you feel harassed.
However, that is where a major chunk of the money you earn will come from. In fact, the best way to tell if a blog is big enough to earn significant revenue is looking at the size of their email list.
Therefore, growing the email list is top priority. If you feel conflicted over pop-ups, just remember that they are the only chance the visitor who comes to your site will come back when you post again. Just avoid being spammy, but use them whenever possible.
Final thoughts
This article will hopefully help you in your quest to make money through your bogs. Regardless of the niche you choose to work on, you must always treat it as your business – and that alone involves a lot of hard work. However, it is still enjoyable, especially if you love writing.
