In the nowadays competitive business environment, employees from all over the world are in a constant scramble for ways to escalate the corporate ladder in a valid manner to obtain consistent benefits. So, they work really hard and unfailingly put in all the effort in order for superiors to notice and “appreciate” them. This kind of rat race is what drives the creatives out of this never-ending war of wits. And one ardent question pops up – how to make money blogging for dummies?
These are some questions that need answers, depending on where you are on this journey. Whether you want to make money blogging full-time or as a side hustle, you will be required to produce quality content. Lots of work goes into attracting and retaining readers’ attention before you can start to make money by blogging.
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There is a good amount of information that you need to know and understand on the technical side of blogging and this is what you will need to integrate with your creativity in order to bring your blog to life. It’s a bit of a steep curve but remember to the victor goes the spoils.
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Before getting into the strategies you can use to earn some income by blogging and working from your home office, here are a few considerations to position you in the right mind frame.
Pre-requisites for a Fun and Successful Blogging Adventure
Success starts with a passion
Are you passionate about writing? Would you still write even if you didn’t earn a dime? Creativity is a process and not a product. Would you still love what you do even if it made you bleed? And then when you put in the work, the reward shall be a byproduct. Thus, pursue your passion.
Trust and respect the process
As said above, some work will have to be done before you can experience the reward. An old saying sustains that you should enjoy the journey, not the destination.
Give your blog the consistency and commitment that you would give your career
Put in the necessary hours and go the extra mile.
Give it a muscle for a strong start
Do some investments, what does this mean? This means starting with a few things on your side like getting knowledge about blogging (like you’re doing now), you can read some eBooks or do some e-courses, and if you want to take it further you can hire a blogging coach. Of course, much more will be learned on the go.
Be organized!
Plan your posts in advance; gather all the content you will need, when blogging, a certain degree of consistency will be required. Have a planner to help you remember every activity you need to undertake.
Decide on a niche
This is essentially your first step, deciding on what angle you want your content to take. What do you want to write about, what messages do you want to convey? In which industry do you want to venture? Whichever it is, make these decisions now.
If you don’t have a specific idea in mind, here is how you can narrow it down, mass appeal to a huge number of audiences is every blogger’s goal, think of your idea in a broader form, for example, if you want to talk about hair products, you may broaden your blog to be about beauty in general. This will give you a larger audience.
Give it a good domain name
First of all, Google does not like domain names that have over 15 characters, what does this mean? Use a short descriptive domain name with a keyword that will help you be found easily within your niche, this will in the future be a bonus for SEO. These could be a maximum of 3 words. Avoid hyphens because they’re often associated with spam content. Finally, choose a dot.com domain extension to avoid limiting your blog reach.
With these important factors in mind, here are the main ways:
How to Make Money Blogging for Dummies
1. Affiliate Marketing
This is the first method on how to make money blogging because it is the easiest one. It’s all about making money by promoting other persons’ products on your blog; you earn money when your promotion or recommendation results in a sale.
This method can bring you money if you learn some market secrets, including the process, how payment is done, the channels used, and other tips for success. Be aware, in order for affiliate marketing to work, you need a loyal audience or a good amount of traffic. You can boost your traffic through the use of social media; SEO and encouraging readers to share your content.
Finally, stay up to date on affiliate marketing strategies that are bringing results, and don’t shy away from trying them. As a newbie, there are many affiliate platforms you can start with, you can check out several of them here. The ones you pick first may be determined by the type of products or services that you trust and are related to your niche. The next step will be to sign up with these platforms and subsequently create great content that will support you in promoting their products. It’s really that simple.
2. Google AdSense
Google has an advertising platform called AdSense. It’s one of the most popular platforms used by newbie bloggers. The first thing you need to do is sign up for it, then allow it to place ads on your blog. You have the option to pick the number of ads you plan to allow.
As a newbie, your first step will be to sign up for AdSense. It’s free and offers plenty of guidelines and options. The next stage will be to create the ad placements on your blog. Remember do not suffocate your readers with too many ads. Choose strategic positioning of the ads within the blog. With all these set, boost your traffic by promoting your content on various platforms.
Once this is in place, you can get paid if someone clicks on the ad, or by the number of views the ad gets on your blog. One reason why this works is that Google places ads that are relevant to your content, therefore your readers are likely to resonate with them. The other good thing is that even though the ads may not relate to your content necessarily, they will relate to the reader’s browsing history, so they will still resonate with them.
Just like in affiliate marketing, the amount of traffic you get on your blog will determine how much you earn from AdSense, the more traffic you have, the more you’re likely to get paid.
3. Create an eBook
Even the thought of writing a book can be so overwhelming and can thoroughly induce anxiety for most people. But, don’t worry too much, here is why. This book isn’t a novel, it’s neither long nor complex, rather, look at it as a platform to speak about the subject you’re an expert on, whatever that is. There are 3 advantages of an eBook especially for you as a newbie:
– it will give you credibility, that’s what everyone is looking for
– it will give you an opportunity to tap into Amazon
– if you like speaking to people in public, then this will earn you gigs, and the more gigs the more you’ll be able to promote your blog, and this translates into more traffic. Doesn’t it sound really good?
Creating an eBook will eventually bring in some bucks in revenue, it’s a win-win situation. Hence your question might be what to write about. Here’s a simple approach, pick one subject you’re an expert in and expound on it. If you have an existing blog post that got some really good engagement, you can expand it or just give it a few chapters and you’ll be good to go. Most people today are gravitating towards eBooks instead of novels because they’re short and precise.
The secret to your success here is to make it as compelling as possible. Give it value to be able to pack a punch for your audience, make it practical, something that can teach them something new.
Finally, promote this e-Book. You can do it on your blog by using banners on your sidebars. As said earlier, you can also self-publish it on Amazon. And lastly, you can promote it through your social media platforms.
4. Consultancy
If you are an expert in a particular field, whether you’re a newbie blogger or not, you can still find people that would be willing to pay you for your counsel. People are moving away from big things into smaller relatable ones. Some of the top money-making blogs have behind some great consultants in their fields. You can be one too!
Sticking with the example above, if you’re a beauty blogger, you can be a style consultant. All you need to do is pick a niche of what services you want to offer. Then promote yourself through every platform possible.
5. Podcasting
This is another fun way on how to make money blogging – via integration with podcasting. Podcasting and blogging go along very well, it’s like tea and cookies. You can use your podcast platform to gain more readers, sponsors, and even advertisers. A great example of this is “The Entrepreneur on Fire” podcast hosted by John Lee Dumas who made $400,000 dollars in March 2018!
The key thing to the success of your podcast is sticking to the same niche as your blog. This will help your audience and advertisers, or sponsors identify you easily. Podcasting may not be the easiest thing to do because of the work that goes into production, but it really worth a try.
If you have the budget, you can start by buying video/sound equipment, it’ll ease your task and reduce quality issues. Then identify a topic within your niche, and if possible, invite a guest to make it livelier, record, edit then upload. Here are some simple guidelines on how to approach it:
· Start with the intro of who you are and what you’re talking about- this may take between 30-60 seconds.
· Have some intro music that your audience can identify you with, for about 30- 40 seconds
· Start your first topic, which may take about 3 minutes
· Get to topic 2, which may involve another 3 minutes
· An interlude (music or ads) for 30 seconds
· Topic 3 for about 3 minutes
· Topic 4 for another 3 minutes
· Finally, your closing remarks for about 2 minutes, may involve reading out comments for a good engagement with your audience.
· Closing music.
You can find some of the best podcast platforms here
6. Secure Sponsored Posts
This is another great way on how to make money blogging for beginners because it’s pretty easy just like the affiliate marketing method. Even though your niche may be small or your audience still growing, you still can find sponsors willing to partner with you.
But, establish from the start what a sponsored blog means, it’s when a company or a brand pays you to write about them on your blog. They want to present themselves or their products or services to your audience. These posts can be anything from product or service reviews to recommendations or any useful information about the brand and not necessarily an advertisement.
So, how can you find or be found by sponsors? You could be a bit proactive and find brands that you can work with, come up with a professional media kit, and pitch it to these prospective clients. The second thing would be to create exceptional quality content that will attract potential sponsors. You can borrow ideas from bloggers in your niche to see which sponsors they’re working with.
Once you get these sponsors, maintain a good professional relationship with them to keep earning.
Can You Really Make Money Blogging?
Yes, if you do it right and if you are willing to put in the effort.
Here Are Some Extra Tips on How to Make Money Blogging as a Dummy:
Get Social
Take advantage of social media. It is one of the ways your sponsors can get to know about you, you can boost your blog by using social media. When you grow a sizeable number of followers, you will be considered a social media influencer, 54% of internet customers are using social media to search for products and 49% of consumers depend on recommendations by their influencers.
With this type of statistics, it’s enough to say that even though your goal was not to get into social media, your presence and activity there will draw people to your blog.
Hone Your Video Skills
It’s always good to keep up with the trends. 83% of marketers said that video gave them a good ROI. 99% of them said they would keep using it in their campaigns. This is because video brings good engagement, has longer retention of customer’s attention and it’s simply fun. So, incorporate it in your blog content as often as you can, it will help grow your audience and eventually earn some money.
Connect with Blogging Networks
Find blogging networks within your niche and join them. Most of these networks may require you to have a certain number of views or other sorts of requirements. Don’t get discouraged, they too started somewhere. Just take it into consideration for when you can qualify. There you can learn one or two tricks that can help you be the owner of those types of blogs that make money.
Embrace Trends & Change
Nothing remains the same, not even in the world of blogging. Keep up with the trends as said at the beginning of the article, and stay educated and informed.
How Long Does It Take to Make Money Blogging as a Beginner?
It’s going to depend on how well you execute all the techniques and tips written above. With that said, it’s evident that making money blogging requires a bit of time. The important thing is to keep your focus on how to appeal to your readers and keep them coming for more.
Making money blogging is challenging but may be also more than rewarding. Just give it a try!
