How to make money with a blog?
Blogging is one of those things that most people today look up to. It is not only a way of fulfilling your hobby but also a great way of sharing important stuff with people on a particular subject.
Another good thing about blogging is that you can make money online through it. Yes, you heard that right and it can even become your full-time career! Many successful bloggers today are making money in good figures just by blogging.
So if you are passionate about writing, want to earn that extra income, or just want to switch to blogging as your full-time career, then this post is going to be very helpful for you.
However, you must know the fact that nothing comes to you overnight and you really need to work hard in order to achieve something.
The same is the case with blogging, you cannot start making money from your blog from day 1, but once you start working in the right direction and have successfully established yourself, then you are more likely to start earning from it.
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Have a quick look at these steps on how to start making money, if you do not own a blog:
- Find inspiration and start a blog
- Create excellent and useful content on your blog based on your niche
- Choose your income streams and start finding readers
- Interact and engage with your readers online to always keep your blog on top of their minds
- Repeat the steps from point no.2 and start making money from your readership and other income streams
Sounds easy? The initial steps are simple indeed, but there is a lot in each step as you start moving ahead and I will be discussing all of these steps below so that you get a clearer understanding about what exactly needs to be done.
Start your blog
This is pretty obvious that in order to make money from blogging you need to own a blog. There are many platforms such as WordPress through which you can start your own blog and that too for free. If you do not own a blog or are new to blogging and need help with how to begin, then you can refer to this article on how to start a blog to get a detailed description of it.
Create excellent and useful content
Do not blog just for the sake of blogging, concentrate and pay extra attention to the quality of your content. Once you have created your own blog, focus on creating useful content based on your niche or interest for your readers.
The more your content is useful and focused on changing people’s lives in one way or another, the more they will value your content and build trust in you.
In order to make money from your blog, it is important to engage your readers, and powerful content is the first and the most important step towards doing so.
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Start finding readers and choose your income streams
So now that you have created good and useful content, it is really important to promote it as well. How would people come to know about an amazing blog written by you until and unless you promote it?
The idea of promoting your blog here is not to engage in any sort of spammy practices but to add value and build your online presence by reaching out to your readers.
The next important thing that comes here is deciding your income streams. Here are some of the basic income streams, having many possibilities under each, that you can choose from:
- Affiliate marketing
- Advertising
- Physical products
- Events
- Other services
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is basically a source through which you promote a product or service of someone else to your readers. You simply add a link to that particular product with the help of your affiliate link.
If someone makes a purchase through that link, then you earn a commission from it. There are many affiliate programs that you can be a part of such as the Amazon Influencer Program.
Advertising
This is something where most bloggers start. There are many companies out there who want their products to reach their potential customers. This is almost similar to what newspapers and magazines do by selling ads.
And if your traffic grows then you will find many advertisers who would be willing to pay you in order to get exposure. Here are a few ways of earning through advertising:
- Reviews and giveaways– Companies offer you free products to review and highlight on your blog. They even ask you to conduct giveaways, wherein you ask your readers to do a certain task and assure a gift at the end of the contest to the winner. This way you not just earn money through it but also gain a few more readers.
- Selling ad space– This is something that most bloggers do to earn money. Selling space in the sidebar, footer, or header in your content for ads.
- Sponsored posts– Many brands and companies pay you to write a post about them or any of their products.
Physical products/ services
Some bloggers sell physical products too. It could be anything- merchandise such as a t-shirt, handmade products/DIYs, books, courses, tutorials, or even software. Selling physical products is also a great way of earning but it requires a lot of your work and time to create them.
Events
Most of bloggers earn money by being a part of or conducting/running events. It could be anything from a blogger’s meet to big conferences, wherein, a lot of bloggers come for a meet and greet with the readers, and money is made either by finding a sponsor for the event or by charging the readers for attending the event.
Other services
There are several other sources as well through which bloggers earn such as offering services to startups, selling their blogs, asking for donations, collaborating with any popular food chain, becoming a virtual assistant, and more.
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Interact and build engagement with your readers
With your efforts, focus on creating great content, and finding readers for it you will start observing people visiting your blog and liking your content.
This is the point where you need to shift your focus to building your community and engaging with your readers. You need to do everything that you can, apart from posting good stuff to keep them coming back to you again and again.
Be active in replying to your readers’ comments, and build relationships with them on social media. Yes, social media is a great way of engaging with your readers. Create your own page on Facebook and Instagram.
Connect with your readers on these platforms and share other interesting stuff on these platforms. This way your readers will come to know about your versatility as well and spread the word about your blog with others.
If you have engaged readers then you are more likely to earn more money since you will have other people besides you to promote you in a way or another.
Start making money from your income streams and readership
The first four steps mentioned and described above are the important foundations of having a successful blog. You really need to get these things in place to ensure that you are able to fetch a long-term income from your blog.
The whole process would require you to put in a lot of efforts and if you do it well, you will be giving yourself a chance of making good money from your blog.
When all of these steps are in place you can begin with attempting to make money from your blog. However, always bear this in mind that money won’t just start flowing automatically just because you have good content, good strategies, or engaged readers.
You need to keep on experimenting and work really hard in order to start earning from your blog.
Some extra tips to make money from blogging:
- If you don’t get a good response on your blog for any particular niche, be willing to change the subject instead of sticking to it.
- Use only those income streams which you can easily manage instead of taking up everything in the quest of making money. You will end up doing nothing.
- Find combinations of income streams that work best for you.
- Don’t copy from some other blogger. Be different and unique.
- Money should never be your focus, rather blogging about something you enjoy writing about should be. If your posts are good and helpful for readers, you will naturally start earning money for them over a period of time.
I hope this post helps all the bloggers out there and even the ones who are yet to start one. If you know any other tips and tricks that I haven’t mentioned in this post, then do let me know in the comments section below.
Happy Blogging!