How to Start a Blog to Make Money: A Simple Guide for Beginners
Blogging for a living is hard work, but so is any job it takes time and dedication but for a residual income, its obviously worth it. Really, blogging for profit has become a trend in this new era. All the people wants to earn the second income to lead the happy life. Some are interested because they want to earn while they are studying. Most students are earning money by this way as they wanted to spend money on their own education without depending on parents or others.
In case anyone is considering starting a Blog to earn a little extra, here's a few things You need to know about it:
- It's hard work and can take a long time to even earn a few dollars from blogging. You need to be serious about it, and follow it through for the long term. It's a proven fact that most new blogs are abandoned within the first 3 months. Which is a great pity, since it takes at least 6 months for a good blog to get a readership and start earning a little money. Think long term.
- You'll probably need about an hour a day to blog (if not more) when you first start blogging. It's not only about writing posts. With blogging, the saying "build it and they will come" does not apply. You need to market the hell out of your blog and get people to visit it! Even the best writer on the planet would have a helluva job earning a blogging income unless they can get backlinks/referrals and get people to visit.
- Blogs which do earn a reasonable income tend to write on a specific subject, rather than personal musings. Make something people will actually want to see / want to read and you'll get more people coming to it. What makes a book a bestseller for example?
Here’s How to Make Money From a Blog: Steps to Get Started
1. Step - Choose a Profitable Niche
The first step in creating a blog that makes money is choosing a profitable niche. A niche is a specific topic or area of interest that your blog will focus on. To make money, it's important to select a niche that has both high demand and low competition. Some popular, low-competition niche ideas include:
- Personal finance tips for beginners
- Sustainable living on a budget
- Simple DIY home improvement projects
- Healthy recipes for busy professionals
- Minimalist lifestyle and organization
When choosing your niche, make sure to research the competition and target audience to ensure there's potential for monetization.
Or choose a subject which interests you as then you are more likely to be motivated to write stuff. Of course if your primary goal is to earn extra income then also make sure there is a viable market (searchers and advertisers) around your topic. If you use the adwords keyword tool Keyword Planner and type in a few keywords you will get an idea of what advertisers are paying per click for those keywords. Then search Google for those keywords and see how many sponsored links (right hand side) show up. That will give you an idea if there is adsense revenue potential. Then check affiliate networks to see if there are relevant affiliate programs which will give you an idea of potential affiliate income and possible programs to join. Also see what the competition is like for popular search phrases - long tail keywords (phrases with 3, 4 or more words) are likely to have less competition. See how many competing sites there are and how well optimised they are (keyword phrase in page title, pagerank, backlinks etc).A blog about credit cards might be very profitable but writing articles /posts about credit cards would send me to sleep (plus it's a very competitive market). So choose a less obvious (and more narrowly focused topic - or niche / nitch as the Americans like to call it)
2. Step - Set Up Your Blog
Once you've chosen your niche, it's time to set up your blog. Here are the basic steps:
Choose a Domain Name: Your domain name should be short, memorable, and related to your niche.
Pick a Hosting Service: Choose a reliable hosting service, such as Bluehost, which also offers affordable plans for beginners. I highly recommend Bluehost because this Hosting is Reliable, Easy to Use and Fast and You can Get Free Custom Domain! I could only offer a Limited Time Offer: A Special Bluehost Discount ($2.95/month + Free Domain Name and more)
Step 3: Create High-Quality Content
Content is king when it comes to blogging. To attract readers and monetize your blog, you'll need to consistently produce high-quality, valuable content. Focus on creating blog posts that solve problems, answer questions, or provide insightful advice.
Some content ideas include:
- How-to guides
- Product reviews
- Case studies or success stories
- Personal experiences and lessons learned
Step 4: Make Your Blog Popular!
Promotion is key to growing your audience. Here are some effective ways to promote your blog:
- Social Media: Share your blog posts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to drive traffic.
- Email Marketing: Build an email list by offering freebies like eBooks or checklists in exchange for email sign-ups.
- Guest Posting: Write guest posts for other blogs in your niche to increase exposure and drive traffic back to your site.
- SEO: Optimize your blog posts for search engines to improve organic traffic. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner and Yoast SEO for WordPress.
Get Backlinks. Include your blog URL anywhere you can (signatures on forums, email sig, etc). Make useful and interesting comments on other related blogs and include a link back to your blog. If you have colleagues or associates in your field, ask them up front to put a link to your site on theirs, and offer a link to their site in return. Avoid buying bulk links from sites! Avoid site wide link from footer (WordPress themes or plugins).
Finding some other blogs/bloggers who write on a similar subject and get to know them by reading these blogs, commenting, joining networks (Twitter for example). Once you get to know other bloggers in your niche/get some visitors to your blog, ask them to help you market it too (votes/mentions in social networks, possible mentions in their blogs, etc). Tread lightly with this, and be sure to do the same in return. I highly recommend joining up with blogging networks (who often run regular internal promotions to drive up your reader numbers as well as offering useful advice) and I have recently upped my readership hugely simply by joining Network Blogs on Facebook and posting a live feed everytime I post a new post to my wall! It's amazing how many of my friends didn't even know my blog was there, or didn't get around to reading it until prompted!
Offer something of value for your readers, such as a download/pdf/other freebie relevant to your site. This REALLY works, and is what will help your main blog to become so popular (You could offer free templates, ebooks and other goodies). What you may offer depends on what you write about.
Update it regularly and make sure that the title and url of your posts contain keywords that people are actually searching for (use the Google keywords tool to check). It can take a while to get indexed by search engines but once you do they like blogs which are regularly updated with fresh content.
- SEO. Search Engine Optimisation making it so that you get Googled more, there are whole sites dedicated to info on this subject. Semrush and WebCEO are the best SEO & Digital Marketing Tools.
- Traffic. High traffic but also targeted low traffic can work well, e.g. you could spam your website about and get 10,000 hits but if 9,000 of those have no interest in e.g. Travel when visiting your Travel-related site/blog you won't get as much ad interest. This all comes about from marketing / advertising / promotion. Again a big topic that has whole sites dedicated to it. The Digital Point and WebMaster World forums have categories dedicated to it along with other webmaster related forums. Getting traffic is not easy you have to work extra hard and have patience. Blogs take time to pick up traffic, they say minimum 3 months that speed depends on you.
- Playing The Numbers Game. Once you have one site generating e.g. 5$ a day. Remember what you learnt from that site and duplicate it a few times for other popular topics/ideas. e.g. 5$ multiplied by x sites = xx$ multiplied by 30 days in a month = xxx$? But as everyone will say, the hardest part is figuring out getting that first x$ amount a day figure rolling. Its a case of trial and error.
Ways to Market Your Blog For Free / Free Marketing Tools for Blogs:
- Google forums in your niche and see if they allow signature.
- Read Googles Guide to the Basics of SEO
- The best free marketing tool is article marketing, there are few places that accept articles, and Google love them. Most are against putting affiliate link to your signature but you can put your blog link.
Ezine - this is the best of all as soon as they publish your post google index them fast but they come with a catch, your article has to be original and for new members they take up to 7 days to accept them, once they accept them you can submit the same article to other places like Go article, article city and many more, the more you can submit to the better for your site to be picked up in search engines.
Social book marking is good way to market but you have to learn the inns and out before you go ahead and use them places like delicious, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Stumbleupon, Tumbrl.
Make use of Discussion Boards by linking to your blog in threads: Quora
Digg is a social news website, people share news clips and if you get alot of diggs i.e votes your site can be in top of the page, with exposure to thousands of people. Again it is not easy to reach to the top page in digg there are several things to learn, before you can master it.
Step 5: Monetize Your Blog
Once your blog starts to gain traffic, it's time to monetize it. Here are several ways to make money blogging:
Affiliate Marketing: Once you have a decent amount of visitors you can also add links to relevant affiliate programs which earn you a commission when someone clicks on your referral link and goes on to make a purchase.
Ad Revenue: Use platforms like Google AdSense to display ads on your blog and earn money from clicks or impressions. Sign up for Adsense: https://www.google.com/adsense/ As for earning money you just click a 'monetize' button and then register for an adwords account and ads will display. Probably best to wait until you have some content first though as you are more likely to get approved. When visitors click on your ads you get paid. Never ever click on your own ads or encourage anyone else to do so as you risk getting banned by adsense for click fraud.
Another option if / when you have a lot of visitors is to sell advertising space on your site.
Ad Placement / Type. There are some articles around that go on about some of the 'ad hotspots' whether that be left-side, right-side etc. And making use of the different ad-types whether it be text or banners or any of the others in the right places. A Google search for "Adsense Heatmap" to show you what I mean.
Sponsored Posts: Partner with companies to write sponsored content or reviews for a fee.
Sell Your Products or Services: Create and sell digital products like eBooks, online courses, or printables. You can also offer consulting or coaching services.
Step 6: Track and Improve Your Performance
To ensure your blog continues to make money, it’s essential to track your performance. Use free tools like Google Analytics to monitor traffic, identify popular content, and see where your visitors are coming from. Regularly update old blog posts, test new strategies, and optimize your content to improve your results.
Conclusion
Starting a blog to make money is a rewarding but challenging endeavor. By choosing the right niche, creating high-quality content, promoting your blog, and using various monetization strategies, you can build a successful blog that generates income. Patience and consistency are key - keep learning and experimenting, and soon you'll be on your way to making money from your blog!
Great Post!
ReplyDeleteGoogle Adsense is an easy way to make money from your blog. All you need to do is add a script from Google to your website and start displaying ads.
ReplyDeleteYou will get paid for every time a user clicks on the ad. These are called CPC ads.
What is CPC? CPC stands for “cost per click.” By displaying CPC ads with Google Adsense, you receive a set fee every time an ad on your website is clicked by a visitor. The cost per click is set by the advertiser. (This is in contrast to CPM ads, where you’re paid for ad views instead of clicks. CPM means “cost per thousand impressions,” where M is the roman numeral for 1,000.)
Google Adsense is a good way to start earning money online when you are first starting out.
You can see our guide on how to monetize a WordPress blog with Google AdSense to get started, and this tutorial on how to optimize your AdSense revenue for more tips.