You’ve probably heard about the bloggers that have made a career out of their blog. Some claim to be earning twice the amount than they would at their regular nine to five job. You’ve also probably wondered how they have achieved such success. And how you can actually make money from starting your own blog. The short answer is yes, it’s more than possible to quit your nine to five and start a profitable job, and here’s how.
This is a contributed post. Please refer to my disclosure for more information.
Choose The Right Platform
You don’t need to be a tech whiz to start a blog, as there are many popular platforms like WordPress and Blogger in which you can host your blog from. If you’re not sure on whether you want to dedicate money or time to it straight away, they even offer free versions that are still totally customisable. Your first step would be to create an account with a blogging platform. Begin playing around by creating the look that you want for your blog.
Pick A Domain Name
Next you will need to think about whether or not you’d like to have your own domain to use for your blog. Whichever blogging platform you choose to use will offer you the chance to use their domain. For example, you’d have example.wordpress.com if you went with not paying for a domain. But it’s always better to get a dedicated domain.
If you’d like to use a personalised domain, head over to GoDaddy and pick the perfect domain name. Domains don’t usually cost much if the name isn’t widely used, so try to go for something that’s unique. A good idea would be to link your domain name to what you’re going to be blogging about so that people don’t get confused.
Create Your Content
Now that you’ve got yourself a blog to work with, you need to concentrate on the content that you’re going to be putting onto your blog. You want to have a few different bits of content to upload to make your blog seem finished. However, uploading something for the sake of it won’t be of any use to the audience that you’re reaching out to. Make sure that the content you’re putting onto your blog gives your audience something to take away with them. Because unless you’re a celebrity it’s unlikely that you’ll get a lot of traffic for just writing a glorified diary.
Get Traffic Through Good SEO
Here’s some tips on how to make sure your content is worthy and will bring traffic to your blog:
- Use click savvy titles to get people interested in what you’ve got to say.
- Search engine optimisation is your best friend, use it wherever possible. Also known as SEO
- Use internal and external links within your blog, this will heighten your credibility and make it likely for external sources to use your content in their own writing.
- Always use pictures. There’s tons of free picture sites like Pixabay that you can use if you don’t have your own.
- Use services like https://www.templafy.com for document and image management. It will save you massively by keeping everything in check and also keep everything looking professional.
- Use social media to promote the content that you’ve uploaded. It’s a really powerful tool in getting your blog noticed, and can help make posts go viral within a matter of minutes. Use scheduling tools like Crowdfire to grow and line up posts so that you’re always active on social media.
Making Money From Your Blog
Now that you’ve got great content on your blog you’re ready to start making money from it. There are many different ways that you can make money, and here’s how:
- Use Google AdSense within your blog to display adverts. The more times these adverts are viewed, the more you earn. Also, if you happen to get a click through from your blog you will get a larger amount through to your AdSense account. The great thing about Google adverts is that they display adverts that are tailored to each user, so it’s likely that you will get some clicks. You can monitor this on the Google AdSense dashboard.
- Placing affiliate links on your blog can make you an unbelievable amount of money. It works on commission, and you will display links, photos, or anything that can be clicked on for companies that are trying to sell their products. If someone clicks through and buys that product the company will reward you by paying you commission. Here’s a great article about how affiliate can work for you.
- As your blog grows and your content is being noticed, you will have companies contact you asking if you’d like to place sponsored or guest posts on your blog. Many won’t mention payment, but if you give them a fee a lot of them are more than willing to pay for the exposure you will be giving them on your blog. They will then send you content and you upload it, it’s as simple as that. The process works the other way around too, you could email companies and offer your services!
- As well as Google AdSense, companies may get in contact and ask you to advertise directly for them. This is where you can set your personal fees for them and make money that way too.
- You could sell a product on your blog. This might be you teaching others valuable information, or even items that you have made.
Next Steps
As you can see, making money from your blog can come from many different sources and more often than not, you will find your own contacts and different ways to make money from the website that you run. Remember that it takes hard work, dedication and great content to make a successful blog so be patient as nothing will kick off when you first start (unless you’re really lucky). Good luck with building a profitable blog!
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