How Do I Make Money Blogging?
That’s one of the most common questions we all hear nowadays. Everybody wants an easy get rich quick scheme. If you think like that, then this post isn’t for you.
For the past couple of months, I have been talking about how you can start putting up your blog as well as the different ways you can make money online.
This month, I’d like to talk about how you can make money with your blog.
I know, I know.
There are a lot of ways and it’s impossible for me to show you how to do each one but for this post, I will show you a specific way just so you’d have an idea that it is indeed possible to make money online using your blog.
Seriously, it’s not a fantasy. People all over the world are doing it. You can do it, too.
The Start
The easiest way to make money through a blog right now is basically just putting up ads using ad networks.
You’ll get a few cents per click so in order to scale your earnings, you either have to create a lot of other sites like that or increase your traffic a LOT.
Another way is to create a product or promote a product as an affiliate AKA affiliate marketing.
Here’s a sample site that survived using affiliate marketing. Competitors back then weren’t that good so it was easy for me to rank this old niche site. That’s one of them.
Note: Alternative Route
If you’d like to take a different route in making money with your blog, then you might like this part.
I’ve done this and can attest that it works.
The idea is simple.
I figured that I knew something that others didn’t, which is how to put up a website and get found online.
The challenge now is to look for a service or a product that I could build a site around and offer.
If you think about it, you can do it multiple ways.
- Create my own blog and write about the service on my blog. Put up my phone number so they can call me and I’ll then forward leads (commissions)
- Create a blog completely dedicated to the product/service where I’ll have regular content created. Get enough traffic and rent the site out.
- Create a blog, get paid to promote their content/products.
- Create a blog and sell products like an e-commerce site.
- Combinations of the 4 above: Slight variations in website design/structure, product styles and combining monetization strategies.
Now, it’s up to you to decide on what kind of route you want to take.
Example: I’ve rented out sites in the interior design market in the US. Since the site is ranking, the leads are valuable to them so they will be willing to rent the spot.
The Niche
It’s simple, I have a new passion for Blackstrap Molasses.
It’s like, the best thing discovered… ever…after coffee…music…the Transformers and babies.
So I went with that one.
For you, you can start with products, services, a topic that you’d like to continuously talk about. Don’t complicate this too much. Just pick a few then move to the next phase.
The Research
Now that you have some ideas for the niche you want to blog about, then you need to start with research.
Obviously, the market will be smaller that many of the mainstream ones. The good thing is, people are ready to buy for most niches.
I now did some keyword research which I talked about more here on Carol’s blog.
Stick with a free tool like Google’s Keyword Planner. It will get the job done.
Put Up The Site
Follow my guide here and how to set up the basics. That’s exactly what I did for the new blackstrap molasses website.
So that’s our current sample website. Consider this an ongoing case study.
Get Traffic
To get traffic, since I already did keyword research and have good on-page SEO, I now have to start with off-page work and link building.
I am dead set on doing just SEO for it but there are a LOT of ways to get traffic. My current fav is media buying. It’s super cool but that’s a topic for another day.
Anyway, I will be using SEO for the website, using this SEO Checklist and will start link building once I have 5 articles on it.
Monetize
The process of looking for an affiliate program should be done during the initial research stage but since the thing that I will be promoting is an actual product (Molasses) then it’s easy to find an affiliate program.
Heck, I can even use Amazon if I had to.
For the current experimental site, there’s already traffic and I can slap on AdSense there now and get some cents (officially, that blog can make money now) but I will not do that.
I want to preserve the site as it is and only recommend products next time as the main way to monetize it. I will only add in AdSense/banners ONLY when I get to a point where I have a lot more traffic.
Anyway, for previous niche sites, I already had an idea on how I was going to monetize the site right from the start which makes it rather easy to implement.
I also test my offer (during the time that I was waiting for it to rank) by sending direct traffic to it and looking at the conversion rate.
As I know that the offer converts, it was easy for me to decide on how I will be montetizing the site.
Maintenance
As with any website and SEO work, we have to secure it, keep optimizing and keep promoting.
Once you rank within the top 1–10, you should NOT stop. Keep promoting and connecting with people. You want to be the #1 guy for the niche and you should never stop.
In no time, you will dominate the niche as your topic is very focused. You’ll be an authority for that topic. That’s the biggest advantage of starting with a niche site.
Conclusion
I will be using that niche site as a case study. I’m still currently swamped at the moment so I’ll need to take a bit of time off to start working on it.
Currently, I am in the process of creating 5 articles for that niche site and once those are up, we can start with link building and sending that site to the top.
Be sure to check back here in the future to see what happens!
UPDATE: The site made it to top 7. I’ve stopped with it completely a couple months after putting it up. I’ll be selling the site so please don’t follow the link anymore :p
Papa
Great guide for beginners. The difficult part is maintaining what you have in your website. You need to watch over your website’s performance and do the very basic works consistently. The basic guide is clear. SEO optimization and monetizing blog should take care very well. Making money through blogging is easier said than done. Reading and preparing yourself is a big advantage before entering the blogging world.