Are you wondering how people make money from blogging, and whether you could do it yourself? Everyone who ever started a blog had a different reason for doing so.
They may have had a burning desire to teach the world how to cook, help people declutter their homes, or share expert tips on photography.
No matter what the subject matter, most bloggers would like to get paid for their efforts. A lot of bloggers make quite a good living out of their blogs, and some make many millions of dollars every month.
The good news is, anybody can start a blog, but the bad news (and it isn’t so bad) is that creating a blog that generates a tidy income takes education, time, and effort.
If you’re still up for it and aren’t afraid of hard work, read on to find out more about how to do blogging for money.
Choose Your Niche
Choose your niche carefully.
It’s good to have hobbies and passions, but if nobody is spending money in a niche you’re passionate about, then your blog’s income potential doesn’t have much of a chance at getting off the ground.
Choose a niche where you know your target audience gives their credit card a good workout every month.
A few topics which are proven money-makers are parenting, sewing, health and fitness, budgeting, and newborns to name just a few.
Get Skilled at Content Production
You don’t have to be super passionate about your blog’s subject matter, but you will need to at least enjoy it at some level because you are going to be creating a lot of content for your audience to soak up.
The key to creating an income is to find out what your audience most wants to know, and then start producing content that has the best answers ever published to attract them to your blog and establish you as an authority.
Certain types of content – called frameworks – have also proven themselves to be more effective than the standard blog post including:
* list posts – a list of tips, secrets, shortcuts, and strategies.
* How-to posts
* Instructional posts
If you consider yourself to be less than a prolific writer, then you will need to become one, or pony up the dough to pay someone who can.
Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to producing great content; it’s the lifeblood of every blog.
Find Your Traffic Source
There are a ton of ways to get traffic, but for the majority of established bloggers, their email lists provide their bread and butter, while organic and paid advertisements put the icing on the cake.
However, you need to start with traffic from other sources before you can grow your email list.
Organic traffic, which is the traffic you haven’t paid for via an advertisement, comes from Google and other search engines.
Other traffic sources include Pinterest, and social media sites like Facebook, and Instagram.
So, not only will you be filling your blog with content, but you will also need to be actively posting and promoting it on the other accounts you have set up on these other sites.
Getting traffic is a competition between bloggers, and you need to get good at it if you plan on being around for a long time, but which traffic method should you start with? It depends on the niche.
* Pets, parenting, health, self-help, cooking, sewing, and home decor are all popular topics on Pinterest and Facebook so start with those mediums first.
* If you know that the majority of your audience will be heading straight to Google to search for their information (how-to, questions for experts, and product reviews) then focus on fine-tuning your site, so it gets indexed by Google and Bing.
It’s called SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and it’s a whole other subject you will need to learn.
Grow Your Email List
Once you have organic traffic finding its way to your blog, every successful blogger under the sun will tell you to start building your email list as soon as your blog goes live.
Email consistently produces the biggest return on investment than any other traffic medium, including paid. Sites like MailChimp, Aweber, GetResponse, and MailerLite make it a relatively simple process to integrate an email service into your website.
A few of the services get you going with free plans, so it’s more affordable for starting bloggers.
However, you will want to make sure the service has the features you need, as it can be a pain to change providers later on after you have collected a few thousand emails.
Start Monetizing
An income stream for a blog can take many forms, but the main ones are:
* Sponsored and advertised content
* Online courses
* Sell your digital product (PDF how-to files, eBooks, and software)
* Providing a service (video editing, web design, software design, translation)
* Selling physical products (e-commerce)
You should never rely on a single income stream, so try to factor in a variety of strategies into your business model.
If one peters out, then you still have the other income streams earning and giving you time to refine your business plan.
How Much Money Can You Make From Blogging?
The potential income is different for every blog, so there isn’t a simple answer to this question. It depends on your level of commitment, dedication, and persistence.
The truth is, most bloggers make zero, zip, and nada.
Why?
Because they bought a course telling them how easy it was, realize how much hard work they need to put into it, so they pack it in and continue with their day job.
The fact that 99% of bloggers give up is good news in a way because it reduces the competition for traffic.
The truth is, there is no real limit to how much you can make from your blog.
You could end up making an extra few thousand to pay for an overseas trip every year, or you could soon find yourself blogging full-time and earning much more than you ever did, or could, at your regular job.
If you’ve decided that a blogging life is definitely your style then head out and find yourself a decent hosting provider, create your blog, and start filling it with good content.
Alternatively, there are plenty of free sites you can use which make it easy for you to get a feel for the medium such as LinkedIn, Squarespace, Blogger, and wordpress.com.
They are all excellent places to learn before you decide to jump in and figure out the technical details for hosting your site.
Learn More about Blogging for Money
This has been a brief foray into how to do blogging for money; there is much more to see, do, and learn so be sure to check out the other areas of our blog for expert tips and professional advice.
Recent Posts
Many consumers have divided or negative feelings about marketing practices. Unsustainable marketing breeds distrust—whether it’s the false promise of greater value or convincing customers to buy...
The most significant investment to think about is web hosting to get more traffic and higher performance and run your website successfully after you build it. So it's essential to select the best...