How you make money from blogging
Do you think blogging is just a hobby? Think again - it can actually make you a lot of
money. Note, blogging is not only thing that can give money online, there are other ways
to make money online.
Here's how to get started, find your niche and turn your blog into a small revenue stream.
Let's face it - blogging isn't an easy way to make money. But, the good thing is that anyone can do it, and it looks amazing on your CV.
What you need is something interesting to say and enough patience and commitment to build traffic and the next.
But how do successful bloggers make their money?
We interviewed a few of them to reveal their monetary secrets.
Our guide gives you a practical plan to get your blog off the ground and grow it into a profitable small home business.
What is in this blogging guide?
- How to start a blog
- What to blog about
- How to increase traffic to your blog
- How you make money with blogging
- The biggest challenges to making money
How to start a blog
You have two main options when it comes to setting up a blog - you can use a free blogging forum, or you can create your own website.
We will take you from both, and explain to you the good and the bad.
Free blogging forums.
Regular bloggers and those who are not interested in monetizing their blog.
Advantages: Very easy to set up and completely free.
Disadvantages: Customization restrictions and video / image uploads, you usually can't place ads or use hosted links, you can't create a custom URL and the forum reserves the right to delete your blog.
Many forums will allow you to set up a blog for free, and are very easy to use. If you just want to blog in the beginning, this might be worth it.
However, free blogging forums can be very limited. You will only be able to customize it to a limited extent, and your blog will have limited storage capacity that may make it difficult to upload large videos and photos.
Another setback is that the URL of your blog will be something like 'www.yourblog.wordpress.com' or ' www.yourblog.blogspot.com with a platform symbol.
Many free blogging sites also do not allow you to place ads or links under your site, which are the main sources of revenue for most bloggers.
However, if these things don't bother you, here's a quick summary of the best free online blogging forums.
This is a free easy-to-use blog hosting app. You will have to tolerate WordPress ads and branding unless you pay a monthly fee, and you cannot place ads on your site.
There are also limited options for customization and optimization.
Google's free blog hosting service, Blogger, is really easy to use. However, the customization and design options are very limited, and there are not many options if you want to add new features but you monetize it with Adsense.
Medium, with emphasis on writing rather than design. It is used by many journalists, writers and professionals and is a great way to share your work with a particular community. You can't Include any ads and it's hard to create your own brand.
Create your own website
Best of all: Dedicated bloggers and those who want to make money with their blog
Advantages: Complete control of custom design and customization, your custom URL and the ability to use relevant ads and links as you like.
Disadvantages: You will have to pay - first with your domain name (URL) and then hosting, but we have cheap web hosting tips.
If you are not particularly tech-savvy, the idea of making your own website may seem daunting - but it is actually very easy to do, and you can create it in just 20 minutes.
The founder of Prudentj2, Prudent Joshua, has written an easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide to show you how to start a website.
With your website, you will be able to create a unique personal logo (with your URL), and there is no risk of your blog being removed by the forum - you will own the site and take full control of it.
WordPress has an insane number of templates or ‘themes’ to choose from - take your time to decide on the one that best suits both your personality and the theme of your blog.
Choose something clear and simple, with space for large pictures and easy-to-read fonts (Comic Sans and Courier fonts no-nos).
How to choose a blog title
This can be the easiest or most difficult part of starting your blog.
The most important thing in this category is to choose a niche that you can call authority - the biggest mistake made by new bloggers in the blogosphere so full of starting a blog without trying to do something amazing or different.
For example, if sports is your thing, instead of Blogging on a Niche (topic) you don't like or not familiar with, you invest All your energy in sports.
Here are some ways to find out more about your new blog:
Check out other blogs - This should be your first phone call. What has been successful? And more importantly, what is missing? Find vacancies in the market.
Use Google - What do people want? Use Google's suggested search and auto-complete to find what people are looking for - when they search for it, indicating the need.
Search forums for FAQs - If people can't find answers to their questions, they go to forums. What are they asking? What do they need advice on? This will show what people are interested in and what they lack information about.
Track current trends - What topics are currently available in the media? It’s good to choose a long-lasting theme, but if you can’t get back to the trend early, you can quickly prove yourself as an expert in it before anyone else.
Think about different types of content - Can you make tutorials / guidelines? Updates? Conversations? List? It may not be what you write about, but the way you write makes you different.
Identify your interests and interests - While all of the above are important, there is no need to blog about something you have no interest in. You will soon become bored and people will notice your lack of enthusiasm. Write about something that you really care about.
Check out our extensive list of small business ideas - get your business juice flowing and bring cash!
How to increase traffic to your blog.
Once you’ve created your website, come up with a kick-ass blog title and publish your first post, the big question is - where are all the readers?
You can’t just expect people to find your blog magically and start reading it. You have to promote!
Here are some of the best and easiest ways to get more readers to your blog:
Promote your blog on social media
Like any business today, you can't be recognized if you don't have social media accounts.
We recommend setting up your blog pages / accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and even LinkedIn (it's your business anyway, right?).
Design these accounts with the same color scheme / theme on your blog so that your product is more relevant and visible.
Use it to share new posts and tag other bloggers / promoters / companies that might share your content and help you reach a much larger audience.
You can also enter paid advertising to help your blog reach more audiences, or run a contest to generate more popularity.
Once you have followers, keep them interested by posting regularly (not just on new blog posts).
Connect with other bloggers
Introduce yourself to other people who write on similar topics. Despite the fact that you are a competitor, you will probably be surprised at how much the blogger community can support you.
Many bloggers have a 'links' page on their site that they use to link with a lot of their friends in the community to find a link to your blog. This will be very helpful with your SEO (search engine optimization - how likely it is for your blog to appear in Google search).
If you join other bloggers and share their content, they will probably give you back a favor - you could even work on some collaborations!
Reply to the news on your blog
If something happens in the news related to your niche, get involved. This is what we call 'news theft' and can work well to get good exposure.
For example, if you are writing a blog about cheap student recipes, keep an eye out for things like the latest Student Money Survey disclosure. Students may spend an average of £101 a month on shopping, but you can tell them how to spend less money (while eating better food!).
You can go on social media to comment on important hashtags, participate in discussions and reach out to journalists who say they are available to comment.
If you are really good at having your own niche, journalists may come to you.
Create a viral content.
Creating viral content will help you reach new markets and, in turn, expand your learning.
This may be easier said than done, but the key to creating viral content is getting into controversial or highly debated topics related to your niche blogging field - as you can imagine, this often involves news theft, as mentioned above.
Since this is your niche, you will be enthusiastic, have ideas and be aware of it, so you will be able to post an idea that people want to read, share and talk about.
Most profitable ways to make money from blogging.
Work with an agency to build your blog.
Believe it or not, blogging has become so popular in the advertising world that there are now agencies that specialize in promoting bloggers to large companies.
Working with an agency can be very rewarding and give you security, but you will need to follow the best course to get it original.
Agency fees are also surprisingly high, which means that only large companies will be able to afford to work with you, and small private companies will be intimidated.
Depending on the type of blogging business you are looking for, this may or may not work for you - to use the example of genuine fashion blogging too, agency funding may prevent you from working with small independent designers who you really want to promote.
The biggest challenges when making money with a blog
There is nothing wrong with having a hard time and a few challenges.
Don't be fooled that blogging takes time. Many bloggers make only cents by making money through their blogs every month - and this is after working on their blogs for a while.
In order to have the opportunity to create full-time revenue through blogging, you also need to have multiple sources of revenue from selected sources. Making money with a blog takes time and depends on having some traffic.
The more students you have, the more attractive you are to the advertisers.
Many bloggers decide to make money early on their blogging journey.
I started blogging [...] when I was in college. I decided to make money with my blog because I put a lot of time and effort into creating posts, paying photographers to take pictures, and I also wanted to be a full-time blogger.
I love blogging and wanted to follow my passion for doing full-time blogging work; it brought me joy.
Read: how to build a website on bluehost for Everyone: Beginner's Guide.
Another major challenge bloggers face is competition. It is challenging to compete with many bloggers in the same area as me for opportunities; the work of bloggers is very rare.
The blogging market is full of many bloggers who want to be seen. However, with dedication and consistency, it is possible.
Blogging is a real challenge because it takes a lot of dedication and consistency to make money. My only regret is that I did not start sooner.
I was able to make my first £ 50 in my first month of making money, and this month I made more than £ 200. Now I’m starting to be approached by companies to get sponsored positions, so I hope my monthly salary will continue to grow!
Conclusion
Can you really make money with blogging?
As we have seen, the answer is yes! But how much money you can make on blogging varies.
That’s the nature of making money with a blog in the beginning, however over time bloggers can do very well.
Making money with a blog takes time and depends on having some traffic. The more readers you have, the more attractive you are to the advertisers.
To make a decent living blogging, consider having multiple revenue streams from different sources and in different ways.