How Can I Make Money Blogging?

Introduction

I have been blogging since 2003 and have over 1,500 blog post.  My first blogs were really bad.  Over time they began to get better.  Now with over 1,500 blog post I sometime get asked “How can I make money with blogging?”

Making a blog post is really easy, however making money with a blog is more challenging.

Challenging because you need to post articles people are looking for. You need to insert keywords to make it easy for Google to find you.  You should have some knowledge about writing.

Some knowledge about writing….the keyword here is SOME.  You don’t need to an author or a writing expert, just some knowledge about structure.

One basic skill is to write short paragraphs.  Long paragraphs tends to get your readers to wander.

Another quick tip is to write as we speak.  What does that mean?

You want to write to ONE person, just as if they were sitting next to you.

The idea here is One -On-One conversation.

With practice this is really easy.

How Do You Make Money Blogging?

To answer the question, I’ll lay out some very basic steps that I see most successful bloggers do to make money with their blog.

Before I begin what is a blog?

Blog

Now that you know what a Blog is, how do you make money with your blog?

There are 6 basic steps to your blog.

1. Set up your blog
2. Creating useful content
3. Use social media to find readers
4. Build engagement with the readers that visit
5. Start making money from the readership you have through one or more of a variety of income streams
6. Repeat steps 2,3 and 4

Sounds easy doesn’t it! On some levels the process is simple – but you need to know up front that there’s a lot to each step and below I’m going to give you some pointers on each including some further reading.

Here’s how to make money blogging.  Image provided by ProBlogger

As you see from the diagram, there are many way to make money blogging.

For me I chose Affiliate Marketing.

I avoided Advertising because it didn’t fit my objective.

The same with Events, Services, and other income streams.

You noticed, I left out Products, and Recurring Revenue.

I do write about products and coaching.

Blogging Is Easy To Start

More people are realizing that blogging is one of the best ways to start your own online business and make money blogging.

The best part is it requires minimal start up costs.

You can build an impressive and loyal readership over time and once you know how to monetize your blog it can also bring in a decent income that will keep on coming even on the days when you decide to take time off.

One advantage is once you post your blog or article, it’s out there for years and years.

As an example:  I wrote blog articles years ago, and still get responses even today.

Your blog article will be there until you delete it.

Since it is easy to start, what is the cost?

ZERO!

Well not ZERO.  You need a computer and an Internet connection.  You will also need some media to use as your platform.

Most bloggers use WordPress.

You could use WordPress, Blogger, or another free site that hosts your blog for you; or alternatively you can set up your own blog under your own domain name.

If you want to make serious money blogging, you must have complete control over your blog – and that’s something the free blogging accounts won’t give you. You’ll be bound by their terms and conditions and that usually includes not being able to actively promote what ever you you want..

There are plenty of people who have established a blog only to have it removed without notice some weeks or months later.

Since You Have Read This Far, Here Is A Commercial:

I have 3 blog sites that was set-up and ready to go with some minor adjustments to lanch the site.

The company I chose to use for my blog sites is Wealthy Affiliates.

Not only did they have hundreds of formats to choose from, Wealth Affiliates also coached, and trained me on how, why and do to make the blog reach people who were looking for what I had to offer.

Now the best part:  Wealthy Affiliate is free to start.  Like what you see, and only if you like what you see, you can become a member for a very low monthly price or save even more with an annual price.

Wealthy Affiliate is an Affiliate Marketing course and online entrepreneur certification program.

Its core training, web hosting, website building and keyword research tools help you rank in the search engines to build a successful online business earning passive income with your own affiliate websites.

The goal of a Wealthy Affiliate student is to make money online by promoting other people’s products on their niche websites.

Once you’re ready to set your blog up you’ll need to choose a good theme and layout there are hundreds of templates available for you to use, which Wealthy Affiliate will help you.

What Are You Going To Write About?

The whole world is your oyster here – some people blog about their lives in general; some blog about their jobs; some blog about their hobbies; some tell the world about their kids and what it’s like to be a parent, and still others blog about “How To Articles,” “Making Money Articles,” “Affiliate Marketing Articles.”  “Network Marketing Articles.”  Articles just about any subjects.

But whatever you choose to blog about it needs to be something you are passionate about.

Don’t forget, you are going to be writing about this topic several times a week, and if you don’t have the enthusiasm for it, that will show in your posts – and no one else will have the enthusiasm to read them.

Okay – so you’ve got your subject. Now you have to start writing your blog posts.

If you take a look at just a few of the blogs already online, you’ll notice that the length of the posts varies a lot.

Some people only write a paragraph or two each time, but you’ll get better results if you go for something a little longer than this.

My suggestions is around 500 to 1,000 words makes for a good post with a lot of information in it; some people write hugely long posts that are thousands of words long and could be called an e-book by another name.

TIP:  In your article provide links to other articles, resources, and websites.

If you notices in this blog article I have given several resources to enhance the article….Blog, Affiliate Marketing.

There Are No Real Rules

You should remember however that there are no real rules when it comes to blogging.

Over time you will naturally find what works for you, and your blog will settle down into a nice pattern that both you and your readers will enjoy.

You’ll find your character and personality will start to come through in your writing.

So you’ve got your blog up and running and you’re posting to it on a regular basis. The next step is to get it in front of as many interested eyeballs as possible.

One great way to do this is to submit it to as many of the social bookmarking sites as possible.

You can also join social networking sites and build a profile which contains a link to your blog.

Other no cost ways to generate traffic include writing free articles for article directories with a link to your blog at the end, and creating signatures at the end of any posts you make to internet forums, and also in all the emails you send out.

When you really start thinking about it, you don’t actually need to spend anything to generate traffic.

All we need to do now is monetize the blog itself. You’ll want to generate some money from all the visitors you’ll start getting, and there are plenty of ways to do this easily.

Google Adsense, and Facebook is probably the most well known method.  YouTube is the second most search platform today.

There are also a handful of websites which give you the opportunity to get paid for each blog post you make on a specific subject.

Pay Per Post and Review Me are two such examples, and they will pay you a certain amount of money to review a product or website for the owner. In a similar vein you can also review and recommend other people’s products through affiliate links inserted into your blog posts, and earn money on commissions earned through any purchases people make.

So that’s it – How Can I Make Money Blogging in a nutshell.

Wealthy Affiliate: If you are interested in starting a blog but don’t know where to begin. I highly recommend Wealthy Affiliate.

Easy to start, well known, many features and probably the best support you will ever see.

Click this link for more information.

Other Articles:

Blogging A Tool For Your Business

Heres to your success.