Often when you are considering a dream job, blogging comes up as a wonderful option.
You work from home, you work on topics that you are passionate about, and most importantly you work at hours that are most convenient for you.
You are your own boss, and there is absolutely no one to report to.
However, the point is can you make money from blogging?
Well, independent studies have indicated that while the number of people who earned above $30,000 annually was not more than 15% of the total bloggers, a whopping 55% earned less than $2500.
A lot, of course, depends on whether you are a full-time blogger or only part-time.
However, the fact is, it is not easy to make money from blogging.
Though theoretically the steps towards how to make money from blogging appear rather simple, it needs detailed execution and flawless implementation of the entire process.
Let’s face it; not all of us are Gwyneth Paltrow, and neither do all of us have a fairy-tale run, that’s seen by her blog, Goop.
Spun out of her Paltrow’s kitchen, the blog today has 1 million email subscribers and over 25-team member managing the site.
It is almost the same with Darren Rowse and his blogs.
He has been working on the same blog since 2002 I think.
He was among the first who used WordPress as his blogging platform.
But then again if you explore how to make money from blogging, you would realize that it is still possible for you to make a basic living from it for sure.
But it needs some strategic planning, a keen eye for details and inherent knack to So, here is the list of the 10 most important things you have to do to make money from blogging:
- Choice of Content Crucial to Make Money
- Utility Value of Your Content
- Connect with Your Readers
- Don’t Ignore Your Email List-While Blogging
- The Magic of Affiliate Marketing
- Sell Popular, Easy to Use Digital Content
- Effective Cross Promotion Works
- Review Products
- Search Engine Optimization
- Share Your Story
1. Choice of Blog Content Is Crucial to Make Money
Most importantly if you want to make money from blogging, you have to be careful about the kind of content you create.
Ultimately this is the first point of contact with your readers and potential subscribers.
Now the question is how exactly would you decide on the most appropriate topic?
Anyone would tell you it has to be niche topic if you want to make money.
But let’s be practical.
The blogging scene has been expanding in the past decade or so and there is hardly any topic that can be considered niche.
From food to lifestyle, health awareness to software, book reviews to ways to write a book, almost every single topic now has enough representation on the world wide web.
In this context, the challenge is to identify the most appropriate niche within a niche.
For example, food is a widely covered topic, but let’s targets a niche like recipes to tackle some health problem.
Well, this is something that would garner interest.
It is a common genre but surely unique.
So to make money from blogging, you would have to devote a considerable amount of time in research.
The research should be about the topic that you would want to write on and the kind of response that you can expect from it.
The response expectation is what will decide on the kind of potential viewers that you can hope to generate.
Also, don’t just decide on a topic based on its blogging merit.
It is important to pay due attention to the overall make money aspect.
So the blog topics need to be a happy mix of elements you can monetize easily.
However, at the same time a topic that also interests readers to explore their curiosity and passion to learn suitably.
A happy marriage of two would garner a reasonably strong content for your blog and enhance its money making abilities.
2. Utility Value of Your Blog Content
Another key factor that should help in deciding the content of your blog is decidedly the utility value of it.
How much of useful information are you able to churn out in your blog can go a long way in deciding the kind of money you can make for blogging.
Actually, this addresses one of the most basic reasons that commands readership.
The amount of value addition that can happen through your blog is almost as necessary as the possibility of monetizing it.
So, you will make money from your blog when people can make use of the information that you are giving in your blog.
Look at ways in which you can make perceptible changes in people’s life through your blog.
Think of the blogs written by David Burkus.
The Ted Talk speaker and celebrated author specializes in creating that unique connect with his readers.
He simplifies technical and academic ideas for common people to relate to these on a day to day basis.
Even his podcasts on creating leadership skills provide some indicators on ways to incorporate the concept of value addition in your blogging to make money.
Trust is one of the most important factors to build up a sizeable volume of readers, and one of the key factors that can help you in garnering this while blogging is undoubtedly your ability to pass on useful information.
Therefore, when a specific reader keeps coming back to your blogs for getting relevant information, it becomes your opportunity to make money blogging.
So the utility factor is deeply associated with the value addition element and the ultimate gain that you can make from the blog.
This becomes a key catalyst for driving traffic towards your blog.
3. Connect with Your Blog Readers
Readers returning to your blog site for follow-up reading are assets as precious as gold in your safe.
You must take special care in nurturing them as well as you can.
There are multiple levels that you can connect with them.
Pay attention to the feedback that your blogging attracts and try responding to them in absolutely constructive manner.
Undertake regular email contact with your subscribers and keep updating content at regular intervals to keep churning out relevant stuff to engage with the readers more meaningfully.
Also, use your existing base of readers to help spread word about your blogs to help make money.
You could even offer some inexpensive but absolutely useful gifts in return like 6 months of free subscription or perhaps a tote bag with your signature and make sure you deliver the promise.
That is invariably a sure and certain manner to get the readership that sustains over the longer term and helps you make money from blogging.
Moreover establishing the key connect with your readers also helps you connect with other fellow bloggers.
Now you must be wondering how you can make money interacting with others who blog?
The long and short reply of this basic fact is that you develop contacts, understand the basics of business and the monetary aspect of it through these interactions.
Often in your effort to create this connect with readers, you can establish a meaningful bond with other bloggers in the same space or otherwise.
Sometimes they can even help you find a solution for common blogging issues that might come across as a difficult proposition for many others who are not associated with the blogging world.
The ultimate idea behind enhancing these communication channels is to make money from blogging in a significantly sustainable format.
4. Don’t Ignore Your Email List-While Blogging
Emails are undeniably one of the oldest techniques to propagate awareness but the growing number if newsletters and email-based subscription stand testimony to their efficacy in blogging.
In plain analytics term, it is often referred to that ‘one metric that matters’.
It is that single tool that can not help make/mar your business and also give you a definitive indicator in terms of the direction that the blog takes up.
Finally, it is these email based subscribers who can undertake meaningful promotion of your blog in an unobtrusive but effective manner.
Often the number of emails is the number of readers that you would have.
In this context, it is quite unnecessary to fool yourself about the kind of viewers that you might be getting via RSS feed and the like.
You must understand that these may sound fancy and very credible.
However, in the longer run, there is hardly any viewership that’s generated through it in a sustainable fashion.
Therefore, it is worthwhile to consider your email numbers sacrosanct and look at ways to increase subscription to these email based newsletters.
Even if you charge about $1 per newsletter, you can end up with $5000 per month if you have 5000 subscribers.
Therefore in plain monetary sense, while exploring how to make money from blogging, this can be a straightforward and direct way to rake in the necessary moolah.
After this, even if you do not engage in any other type of promotional, you will still be able to make a reasonable sum of money every month.
So emails serve a double purpose.
They get you a realistic viewership perspective and at the same time, help you promote your blog to a much larger audience than you ever imagined.
5. The Magic of Affiliate Marketing
That said, I am sure when you are considering how to make money from blogging, you will always consider advertisements.
One way to go ahead with an advertisement and make money would be the AdSense way.
You create an account with them and then place the maximum possible ads in an effort to earn more money.
While this is one of the most sustainable forms of earning money for any kind of online venture, the problem is it works a lot better for established setups, relatively larger organizations which have a strong lineup of followers and equally good marketable products.
But what happens if you are just starting a blog, have a handful of dedicated viewers and want to make money from blogging?
Well, the answer to that would be affiliate marketing.
Well, most recent studies have indicated that affiliate marketing is a great way to start making your blog profitable and earn money for it in a sustainable fashion.
In fact, it is the most common type of income that a majority of bloggers start with.
As the blog grows, so does the affiliate marketing initiatives that they undertake.
In very simple words, here you are a promoting a product on another website and earn commission on every click that gets converted into the sale.
Though technically, you would think the mode of operation is similar, there are some basic differences between the two.
- Creating an AdSense account is not simple, there are many pre-conditions. In comparison, whether you liaison with Amazon or private players, creating an affiliate channel is simpler.
- If you analyze the earning trends amongst various types of bloggers, data indicates that with affiliate marketing, you tend to make money better and faster.
- One of the reasons for this is that a majority of the affiliate marketing accounts offer PayPal as a mode of payment while it is not available for AdSense.
- There are many niche players that AdSense does not allow, but affiliate marketing promises you a far better and deeper reach.
- Moreover, AdSense ads can’t be tinkered with a lot, but affiliate marketing is relatively more flexible in enhancing the visual elements.
Though it doesn’t mean that you should not consider AdSense to make money blogging, it is a more useful option when you have relatively established products with a strong user line-up.
In the initial stage, affiliate marketing is more successful in guaranteeing long-term gains.
6. Sell Popular, Easy to Use Digital Content
However, as a blogger, you have your vision of the entire blog and how you want to go about earning money.
Let’s say that just because you cater to young men, you do not want to put up an X-box ad or just because too many girls read your blog about effective ways to lose weight you do not want to put up apparel ads.
That is perfectly an acceptable situation.
But the question in this context is that, how do you monetize your blog?
How exactly do you make money from blogging?
Apart from subscription revenue, another simple option is to sell relevant digital products that do not clash with the inherent ethos of your blog.
For example, if you are blogging about leadership abilities, you could perhaps put up ads of related e-books, online workshops, long-distance courses, various apps and plug-ins.
In this way, you can finalize on a revenue channel without disturbing the ethos of the blog and maintaining a certain unique and signature style of operations.
However, never lose sight of the utility aspect if you want to make money from blogging.
So, even the digital products you choose should address the reader’s utility expectations effectively.
This step could help your blogging in many ways. Many times, readers stop following a specific blog as a result of a whole host of unconnected blogs.
They look at these as unnecessary interruptions to their reading experience.
Your choice of these type of digital options will make that experience a lot more interesting for you and enjoyable for your readers.
You increase the chance of retaining readers significantly more through this.
Also, your readers would appreciate your commitment and passion in maintaining the basic ethos of the blog and not sacrificing the core concept to make money.
7. Effective Cross Promotion Works
When you are wondering how to make money from blogging, one option would be to use your blog to kindle another talent in you and in return, that promotes your blog.
Let’s say you blog about the benefits of yoga is helping handle stress and it becomes very popular.
A lot of people are now beginning to adopt the model suggested by you in their daily lives
And as a result, you are close to becoming a cult figure.
Now the question is how to make the most of this opportunity?
One option would be to begin to hold workshops and seminars for live demonstrations, discussion and implementation of the ideas that you have been blogging about.
It will help a lot more people to go back to your blogs and help you make money from blogging by adding to the subscription kitty.
They, in turn, promote your blog and inspire a lot more people to go and read it.
It is needless to mention this kind of activity enhances both credibility and flow of willing readers to your blog and thereby enhances the ability to make money.
You should supplement this with quality content to maintain this increase.
8. Review Products
One of the popular and extremely effective means to make money from blogging would be to review products.
Now don’t get alarmed.
I do not mean that you must review a skincare product just because you have a lot of women readers.
Well, reviewing products can be extremely profitable if the right kind of alternatives and you can make money rather swiftly through these initiatives as well.
But the point is you need to be extremely careful and strategic in choosing the product that you choose to review.
This will work on creating cohesiveness of concept.
So if you have a blog on ‘yoga helping to handle stress’ you could perhaps review e-books on stress management or workshops aimed at helping you handle stress.
To help make money, you could also discuss and list out the important events being held across the city on the topic.
You can charge a certain amount of commission from the host of these organizations and help them leverage your reach.
In this way, you would be both making money as well as create a brand new bunch of contacts in the race to make money from blogging.
You could also put up photographs that you might have clicked with off them on the blog and offer them up for sale.
These are essentially your pictures and videos that are put up to substantiate the content in your blog.
In addition, you can look at monetizing these pictures make money.
Also, you can look for related products like meditation music and review these as well.
This kind of related easy to buy alternatives provide for sustained means of money flow from blogging.
Additionally, it also reduces the boredom in the content and helps add a different kind of flavor.
9. Search Engine Optimization
Blogging essentially is all about making most of the niche available in the market.
In this context, it is important to mention that the quality of your blog is extremely crucial.
To keep a sustained flow of viewers and stop them from drifting away, you need to keep updating your content with fresh and quality content.
Mere copying pasting or peddling of stolen content won’t take you anywhere too far.
On the contrary, if your readers get a whiff of it, you could end up losing a lot many readers.
But generating fresh content to make money blogging is not enough.
You must remember that only when your blog comes up higher in Google rankings and shows up quite often in Google searches, you can hope to garner a steady stream of viewers.
It is ultimately these viewers who can make a significant contribution to your profitability and sustainability of the blog.
There are many ways to achieve it.
One of the most pertinent options in this regard is no doubt search engine optimization.
Look for all the relevant words that Google throws up when you search for your specific content.
Well, there exactly is your cue.
When you are blogging, you have to make sure that you include all these words.
This increases the chance of your blog showing up more often when the related keywords are searched for.
It serves a dual purpose, increases the channels through which you can get more viewers and also it enhances the ranking of the site by the better use of keywords.
As a result, the performance of the ads on your blog also increases dramatically.
So you are able to better your prospects to make money from all possible channels and make it a far more long-term option for you.
10. Share Your Story
Blogging is never just a means to give away discourses.
There are many ways of attracting your reader and potential subscribers.
One interesting option is sharing your story on the blog and help you make money.
It no doubt gives a lot more personal touch to your entire write-up and helps the readers connect t you almost instantly.
The idea is to get eyeballs, and this is an approach that is sure to generate plenty of those.
Just keep a lucid style of writing as you share your journey, and the blog too matures with you.
There is a blog about DIY crafts, ‘make something Monday’.
Here the blogger takes a simple narrative style and connects each draft that she is teaching with a personal experience.
She also adds a lot more photographs and candid instances to grab the reader’s attention almost instantly.
The result is the readers instantly connect with these experiences and try looking for those spots and moments in their own life.
They subscribe to the newsletter and now look forward to every Monday morning for a meaningful update to their craft skills on a Monday morning every week.
Another fact that you must never lose track of while blogging about your experiences is to not put in unhappy or rather painful experiences to just garner sympathy.
I can understand if there are times when it becomes important for the whole narrative.
But for rest of the time, it is better avoided. The idea is to keep your blog as active, buzzing and chirpy as possible.
Adding unrelated unhappy events could, however, bring down the tempo unannounced.
You could even run the risk of losing some regular subscribers in the bargain.
That you would agree, is never a happy place.
Another interesting fact in your tryst to understand how to make money from blogging is you must pay close attention to your viewers’ feedback on your stories and understand what appeals to them and what doesn’t.
Moreover, you must decide on a pre-decided day and time for your updates almost like a soap opera.
This will add a unique, cohesive element to your blogs and help you make money blogging a lot more effectively.
You must remember that creating viewer base is a continuous process.
All these steps will help you create a longer-term sustainable model to maintain this trend.
Conclusion
Last but not the least, important factor in helping you understand how to make money from blogging is keeping a close eye to the overall tracking data.
This helps you in identifying blogging trends, viewer response to ads and throws up alternatives to help you make money blogging a lot more effectively.
This is also an interesting avenue that allows you to adopt course correction and boost the revenue that you might be earning from the blog.
Therefore, we can surely conclude that you can make money from blogging if you are careful about the certain basic principles of creating and running a blog.
You must look at yourself as an entrepreneur and the blog as your start-up.
This will no longer help you combine your passion with the business sense a lot more effectively and bring out a strategically pointed product for you.
This, then, becomes a sure recipe for success and helps you make money in a decidedly more constructive fashion.
Therefore, it can be stretched over the longer-term as well. source www.luckscout.com
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