When people talk about blogging, they’re really talking about freedom: freedom of expression of what’s on your mind. Freedom to discuss things you are passionate about at length. But for some people, blogging is not only about freedom. For many people, the goal is to make money blogging. Are you a beginner blogger looking to cash in and make money blogging?
Blogging is creating content in the form of articles to provide value, entertainment, and build trust between you and your readers. As a beginner to blogging, this might be a little challenging, after all, there are some epic requirements to becoming successful at blogging. Follow the steps below for our pointers on how to make money blogging easily.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the basics of turning blogging into an opportunity for making money. The article will introduce what you need to make money blogging and the different ways you can accomplish your dream of monetizing your blog. It will then bust some myths about blogging and how it might make you cash.
Step 1: A Professional Looking Blog Will Get You Far
To make money blogging, the first thing you need to do is…start a blog. Starting a blog as a beginner is actually pretty easy. Currently, there are many platforms with which you can get started in just a few minutes. Three common examples of such platforms are WordPress, Blogger, and Medium. All you need to do is choose a domain name, set up your blog site, and create content. Lots of starter options for blogging are free, though you might want to sign up for a premium account to unlock additional features as you go.
Okay, so, now you have a blog. Your work here is done. Right? Wrong! Starting a blog is the easy part. The real deal is making your blog look as professional as possible. Having a
A good way to set up a professional blog start is to benchmark your blog against your competitors. By looking at their blog designs, you can set up something different, better, and more dynamic. However, since you are just starting out, make sure you compare your blog site to those in your range in terms of resources. Find independent blogs with a couple of thousand subscribers to start out.
Step 2: Publish Awesome Content
After setting up a professional blog site, you are going to want to entice new readers and keep regular readers by writing excellent and authentic content. Writing great content will also improve your ranking on search engines.
What then counts as awesome content? An awesome content must help your readers get better at stuff, enjoy themselves, or achieve their objectives. Therefore, it possesses the following characteristics:
- It is unique.
- It is unbiased.
- It is easy to read.
- It is meaningful and insightful.
How to create awesome content?
As a beginner to blogging, to create content that possesses the above characteristics, you must do the following:
- Choose a niche that you understand fully and enjoy. By choosing a niche that you like, understand, and have passion for, it will be easy for you to create excellent content. Passion for that niche will make it easy for you to come up with ideas that make great content.
- Choose a niche that has a good audience. Having a niche that you love is not the only important thing. Since you are looking to make money blogging, you must find a niche to assist you in this capacity. If you choose a niche that doesn’t have such capability, you won’t be able to make money blogging.
- Choose very specific topics. It will be easier to explain this with an illustration. Here it goes. “Fitness” is a very lucrative niche. However, it is very broad, and many blogs, magazines have content ALREADY written on it. For example, if you search on Google about “weight loss,” you will see the amount of content ALREADY created. As a beginner, it is not ideal to compete with them if you want to make money blogging. Instead of competing by writing about already popular topics, you should narrow it down to something very specific in your niche. In other words, think of something you haven’t read about to write about. You can narrow it down by using the process called Keyword Research.
Step 3: Build Organic Traffic
Organic traffic comes from search engines such as Google, and they are always based on “user intent.” User intent is centered on the fact that a user that searches Google or other search engines is looking for an answer. Consequently, organic traffic is more valuable than other types of traffic, and they are important to make money blogging.
But how to build organic traffic?
You can build organic traffic in two ways. One is by writing great content, and the other is to understand and utilize SEO. Writing great content was explained in Step 2. However, understanding SEO can be broadly divided into Technical SEO,
Technical SEO
Technical SEO involves understanding blog structure, Schema markup, canonical URLs, website speed, etc. These terms can help in determining the
On-Page SEO
This involves making your content more appealing to Search Engines such as Google. Common steps include headings, internal links, external links, alt texts, keyword usage, etc. In addition, proper
Off-Page SEO
The two SEO terms discussed above are things you can do on your website. However,
There are many ways to do
- Guest posting
- Linking other websites and expecting them to do the same
- Contact web admins and bloggers to use your links
- Use online services to exchange content/knowledge for backlinks
Step 4: Build a Community Around Your Blog
A rookie mistake when trying to make money online is to skip this step. After fulfilling all the steps above, the next thing is to build a community around your blog. Building a community is important as it helps build trust around your content. You can build a community around your blog by doing the following:
- Get an email list
- Have a social media presence
- Use web push notification
- Reply to comments
To be successful here, you must think of your blog as a business and not just a “blog.”
Different Ways You Can Use to Make Money Blogging
Monetizing your blog is the fifth step on the way you can make money blogging. However, we want to talk about it extensively. Therefore, we made it a section on its own. Below are several ways to make money blogging for beginners.
Advertising
Before going on, you should know that advertising is not the right way to make money blogging if you are in a hurry. However, for beginners, it is an easy way to make money blogging. Advertising depends on the number of visitors to your site. Therefore, you only need to worry about giving your readers the best content and equally promote your site. Awesome content ensures that your readers stay and promote your blog in their way. Consequently, your blog site visitors increase, and advertising becomes more lucrative.
Top advertising platforms that you can use include:
- Google AdSense
- AdBrite
- Text Link Ads
- Kontera
However, before selecting one, make sure you are not using a platform that will affect your blog’s user experience. Poor user experience is a
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most common ways to make money blogging nowadays. Unlike advertising, it is also one of the fastest ways to make money blogging.
Affiliate marketing involves adding a unique link to your site about a product you want to promote. When a visitor clicks the unique link and buys the product within a set time frame, you get a commission. The commission you get majorly depends on the products. Also, the time frame depends on the program you are using.
There are many affiliate marketing programs you can work with. Top programmers include Amazon Associates, Rakuten Advertising, and eBay Affiliates.
Digital products
Making digital products such as eBooks and workbooks is another easy way to make money blogging as a beginner. This is because, unlike the previously discussed ways to make money blogging, you are in control of pricing, marketing, and positioning.
For example, affiliate marketing has many issues. Links might change, and competition can affect the commission you get. Therefore, you are looking at your income suddenly changing overnight. However, engaging with digital products is more stable.
Product reviews and giveaways
Depending on the credibility of your blog and how good your content is, as your blog grows, you will start getting offers from companies for product reviews. This is one of the most popular ways bloggers use to make money blogging.
The company will offer you money and sometimes allow you to keep the product for such reviews. However, there is a catch to this way to make money blogging. What do you do if the product is bad? There is a short answer to that. In the long run, the integrity of your content stands above all as it is what keeps fans dedicated to your page. Therefore, you must make sure the company knows about your stand on having your opinions reiterated.
Sponsored posts
Sponsored posts are like product reviews. However, instead of being your opinions, the company giving you the product will collaborate to write the review. So, we can call it an advert.
Sponsored posts are a valid way to make money. However, you should be selective and reduce the number of sponsored posts you do.
There are other ways to make money blogging. However, the above methods are easy to implement for beginners to the process.
Myths on How to Make Money Blogging
As a beginner to making money blogging, you must be familiar with many myths about the process. However, most of these myths are baseless. Therefore, we will try to shed light on some of them to make the process easy for you.
You can blog about any topic
No!!! You shouldn’t blog about any topic. Doing this will only confuse your reader and Google. Also, you won’t be able to build authority on any topic. It is better to write about a single niche as this will portray you as an authority in the niche. Also, Google will see you as an expert and help you rank on the first page.
You can make money from any niche
You cannot make money blogging on any niche. You can only make money from a niche where the audience spends money. Therefore, the niche that you will choose must have a large audience that spends money. Examples of such niches are yoga, interior design, food, fashion, parenting, travel, health & fitness.
You can make money from any niche
Not really. Many people do not make money blogging even though they blog regularly. Posting frequently won’t give you a dime if you don’t promote your posts. Therefore, while providing your audience awesome content, make sure you spend money on promoting your post.
You can make money from a free blogging platform
As a beginner, it is not ideal to start with a free blog. Using a free platform for blogging will affect the credibility of your content. Blogging platforms such as Blogger, WordPress, etc., have free versions. However, they are only ideal for testing your idea. Consider upgrading to the paid version as soon as you start feeling confident.
Conclusion
For a beginner, making money with blogging might seem like a complicated process. We hope the above information was helpful in you finding your way towards making money with your blog and website. To make money blogging, you must ensure content originality, have exceptional content for your audience, and promote your work. There are other things that you can gain from this article.
When properly followed, you might be surprised by just how much you can grow and (hopefully) earn!
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