Blogging is something anyone can do but not everyone can ace it. If you are someone who knows how to play with words and has a nice choice of words and a great knowledge of vocabulary, you can use your skills to earn a fair amount of money. Heard of the quote, “If you are good at something, never do it for free”. Identify your skills, polish them and turn your hobby into a profession- way of earning. Making money with blogs is very easy, all that it requires is patience and dedication. Though it is not a quick process, in case you want to see the result, you need to pot continuous efforts and give time to your blogs regularly.
Start a Blog
If you still haven’t set up a blog, do it now. You have two main options for setting up a blog – you can use a free blogging platform like WordPress or blogger.com or you can create your own website as well. For the former one, you need to choose a blogging platform first. There are a variety of free blogging platforms that are super easy to set up and use but they don’t allow you to express yourself fully. They limit your customization as most of them have a storage limit, where you cannot upload large images and videos. Not being able to create a custom domain is another drawback of these free blogging platforms.
However, if you are new to blogging, these platforms can be the best option for you to start with. Here are the three most popular blogging platforms that are mostly used by boggers for free:
WordPress
WordPress is the most widely used blogging and website creation tool and also an equally powerful Content Management System. It lets you create pages or posts without having to learn the complicated HTML code. Also, it is very easy to use and setup.
Blogger
Google’s free blog hosting service, Blogger, is really simple to use though the customization and design options are quite limited. It allows multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries.
Medium
Medium is mostly used by journalists, writers, and experts. It’s a great way to share your work with a particular community. The main focus of the medium is always on the writing rather than the design.
While creating your own website gives you complete control over the design and customization and customization of your blog, along with the facility of creating custom URLs, they are not very pocket-friendly as you have to pay for both hosting and URL.
Choose a Blog Topic
Once you have set up your blog, the next task is to decide what to write. Deciding the blog topic is the most crucial part of blogging. Remember the quote, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax”, a blogger also needs to do the most research on deciding the blog topic.
Here are a few tips that might help you out with deciding the blog topic:
- Google – look for what people are looking for and searching. Use Google suggested searches and auto-complete know what people are looking for. This helps you find out the trending topics that are in demand and would attract huge traffic.
- Read popular blogs– reading other popular blogs can help you to know what made them so popular, what is missing in it that you can add in your blogs or what are the different styles and ideas you can take inspiration from.
- Search forums for common FAQs – When people can’t find answers to their questions, they go to forums. You need to find the frequently asked questions and provide the best answers to them. This shows what people are interested in and where there is a lack of available information.
- Track current trends – writing on the topics with longevity always helps but if you choose trending topics, you can get results quickly. Search for trending topics, write the blogs before the trend goes off as the life duration of these trends is not fixed.
- Variety of content – there is a wide variety of content available for you to try your hands on, from tutorials, how-to guides, Reviews, Interviews, Lists, etc. It is not always what you write about but also how you write it which sets you apart from others.
- Interest and passion – While all of the above are important, there’s no point in blogging about something you don’t have any interest in. Even if you try writing something you are not interested in, people will spot your lack of enthusiasm in the blogs. Always go to the topics that you like and are interested in, for the best blogging experience.
Increasing Readership
Writing or monetizing a blog is easiest when you already have a good reader base. But for the ones who just started and don’t really have a lot of readers, it is very important to make the most of each reader you have. You need to make sure that every reader of your blog not only reads it but also comes back. The returning readers help in building a sizable audience. The easiest way to update them about new blogs and content is to mail them. Collecting your readers’ email addresses from the beginning of your blog can help you build the biggest mailing list possible.
There is a very popular saying in marketing that “money is in the mailing list”. It is because a mailing list allows you to contact people over and over again so that they don’t forget you and can come back to you easily. Even if this won’t increase a lot of readers it will at least make them constant and loyal.
Promoting the Content
Even if you are writing the best blogs with the most relevant information, no one will come to know about it unless they are told or shown it. Here are a few ways to attract traffic to your blogging site:
Go Social
Set up pages/accounts for your blog on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and even LinkedIn. Post regular updates and posts to keep your account consistent and easily recognizable, also design the color scheme or theme of these accounts in accordance with the blog site so that they can easily relate. Use these accounts to share new posts and tag fellow bloggers, influencers, companies who might share the content to reach a bigger audience. Don’t forget to use trending hashtags and catchy captions.
You could also try paid advertising to reach a wider audience. Once you’ve got the followers, keep them interested by posting on a regular basis.
Collaborations
The blogger community is surprisingly quite supportive despite the competition. Try to get to know other bloggers who blog about similar topics. Many bloggers even have a ‘links’ page on their site where they link the works of their friends or other people of the community. You can engage with other bloggers and share their content and ask them for the same.
Respond to current news and stories
You can share your views on any current topic or event that is happening around the world. You can also research them and put all the relevant information in your blogs. Once you have done that, you can hype your reaction/response or content on social media with the use of relevant hashtags. You can also get involved in discussions and reach out to journalists to give your views.
Monetizing the Blog
Monetizing simply means converting a non-revenue generating asset into a profitable source. While there are hundreds of ways to do that, we have shared the most result-proven ideas to monetize a blog in the right way:
CPM or CPC Ads
Placing ads on blogging sites is one of the easiest ways of making money. There are two types of advertisements:
- CPC/PPC Ads: Cost per click, also known as pay per click ads are usually banners that you place in your content or sidebar. Each time a reader clicks on the ad, the blogger gets paid for that click.
- CPM Ads: CPM Ads or cost per 1,000 impressions are ads that pay you a fixed amount of money based on how many people viewed your ad. Basically they keep a record of the viewer’s impression and pay accordingly.
The best platform for placing advertisements is without any doubt AdSense. With AdSense, you don’t need to do anything or even reach the marketors, Google chooses ads that are relevant to your content and readers and places it on your blog site in the form of banners from where the readers can simply click on it. If AdSense doesn’t work for you, you can choose from the other popular programs such as Chitika, Infolinks, Media.net, etc.
Private Ads
Selling ads is not only limited to advertising networks. If your blog site attracts decent pairs of eyeballs, advertisers may come to you directly to place their ads on your site. You can also contact advertisers yourself. The biggest advantage of selling private ads is that you get to set your own rates as there is no middle-man involved. These private ads are also placed in the form of banners, buttons or links. You can charge for the monthly or as per your choices.
However, one thing you must keep in mind while placing the ads is that it does not annoy the readers. We have all visited blogs where it’s more advertisements than content making it difficult to read. This delicate balance has to be maintained while placing advertisements on your blog site.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing works by adding tracked affiliate links into the text of your blog. You can utilize affiliate marketing through ad networks like Amazon Associates, you can also create private partnerships with advertisers and businesses with an affiliate program.
This is how affiliate marketing works:
- An advertiser has a product to be sold and he agrees to give you a commission from each sale when the buyer is coming from your site.
- You are given a unique link that tracks your affiliate code. That way, the advertiser knows when a buyer used your link to make a purchase.
- You can add the affiliate link on your site, either directly in the content or through banner ads. If a reader clicks on your unique link and buys the products recommended by you, you earn a percentage of the purchase.
Write Sponsored Content
This monetization method usually works best when you have a strong niche audience. Once you’ve grown your readership, brands will often approach you to discuss sponsored posts. You can write sponsored content for top Brands. You can also write articles and blogs related to some new launches of the company or Brand, and add the affiliate links or ads on the blog. This is one of the most effective monetizing techniques
Guest blog posts
Be the ace of what you do, once you create a remarkable identity of your blog site on a specific genre or topic; the similar kinds of brands will start approaching you to write for them. Members of the press and magazines can also reach out to you if you’re an authority on a certain topic, asking you to make a cameo appearance on their website. Remember that you are your own brand.
For instance, If you’re particularly knowledgeable on fashion and shopping are known for creating awesome content on the same; a fashion magazine might come and ask you to write an article on shopping in the budget for their magazine. Even if you are not approached, feel free to take the first move; a quick email intro is a great way of reaching to publications.
These were the few ideas that we think will surely help you out, if you know some other ways for making money while blogging, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
