There’s a very big gap between thinking of starting a blog for fun and intending to start a blog to make real money. By real money, I’m talking about your own personal standards regarding what real money is. However, like with anything in life, your success depends on certain requirements. Passion, knowledge, skills, a positive mindset, and a high commitment to take consistent action are just a few of the most important requirements you’ll have to attain.
Otherwise, if you’re not truly passionate about it and you’re not ready to sacrifice your time, money, and energy, then perhaps blogging is not really for you. You really need to understand that money doesn’t grow on trees and that a successful and profitable blogging experience requires your 100%.
Now for those of you who are truly committed, let’s get further into details and see how the ones you can start generating real revenues from your own blog. Don’t forget that there’s no “magic pill” or no “overnight-success formula”. Therefore, stay away from shortcuts and put in the necessary work!
Find the Niche and Establish the Marketing Strategy
The first and most important thing that you need to decide when embarking on this journey is the niche you’ll approach. If you’re passionate about animals, start writing about something related to animals. If you love marketing, start a marketing blog. No matter what you do, choose something that you enjoy!
Try to avoid the most targeted niches like “how to lose weight” or “how to make money online” as you’ll encounter a lot of strong competitors that will outrank you.
Once you have decided what you want to blog about, you’ll need to decide your business strategy. You’ll need to drive traffic to your website from various distribution channels such as social media networks, video networks such as YouTube, forums, and also from other blogs.
Target Your Traffic
Next, you’ll have to develop your target audience. Your marketing efforts will be insufficient unless you carefully select who you’re targeting first. Why exactly? Well, once you have chosen your audience, you’ll know how to attract that kind of people while perfectly emphasizing their problems (and the solutions. Therefore, know your audience first and then target it accordingly using the best ad copies.
Indeed, paid to advertise is a goldmine resource if used properly. Every social network and search engine offers paid promotion opportunities. You’ll need to learn how to use each paid traffic option, test your performance consistently, and optimize the campaigns on a regular basis.
Build Your Email List
Building an active email list is something that every great blogger does and it’s no wonder why. Email marketing can be a blogger’s greatest business asset. There’s a lot you can do by its means, like creating a follower’s community, sell your services or products, and promote your blog posts. Most importantly, you can strengthen the connection between you and your prospects and customers, improving the long-term success of your blog.
‘When people are interested in what you have to say and share, they will be eager to subscribe to your email list with the hopes of receiving more and more value from you’, says Linda Jones, an executive manager from Essays.ScholarAdvisor. It would be wise if you’d start building your email list way before your actual blog launch.
Use Different Monetization Options to Make Money
There are some specific tactics that bloggers mostly leverage to generate income. Here are three helpful monetization tactics for starters:
• Use Google’s AdSense Service
This is perhaps the most popular advertising platform based on cost per click. Even though some say that is no longer so profitable, it’s still a good and easy to manage tactic to make money. This is how it works:
You allow Google to place ads on your website. Advertisers that are interested in your blog’s audience will bid a certain amount of $ in order to win the advertising space opportunity on your blog. Google takes their ads, places them on your pages, and whenever someone clicks or views those ads, you’ll be making money!
• Develop a Membership Site
What if you could get paid for something that you create once on a monthly basis? Well, you can offer exclusive content through a membership-based service, which involves charging your customers a specific amount of money each month. As long as you can offer more value than you would offer on your free blog, try the membership site option!
• Sell Other People Products for a Commission
Selling other people’s products for a cut, a.k.a affiliate marketing, is an extremely convenient way of making money online without building your own products. Every time one of your readers purchases a product through your referral link (unique link), you’ll be paid a specific percent. It’s as simple as that. The more readers you convince the more money you make.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that these are just the main things you can do to make a living as a blogger Once you start earning your first money you can always step up the game. Study the marketplace and keep updated with the new strategies that will come along and stay consistent with all your efforts. Treat blogging as a journey to success – don’t rush and never give up.
