You want to know what it takes to run a profitable blog. But where do you get started? What skills and tools do you need to make your blogging career a success? How do you diversify your income when your blog gets monetized? These are the same questions I asked myself before I figured out how to make money blogging. But thankfully, you don’t have to be clueless like me when I began as a blogger.
In this post, I will teach you the step-by-step plan I used to launch my blog and build a community on the internet.
You will also learn how to turn your blog into a money-making venture. Over time, blogging can become a passive income stream. With enough visitors flooding the site to read your content constantly, you will keep generating money even without publishing new content for a long time.
Ready to get paid blogging? Let’s dive in to see how it works.
How Do Bloggers Make Money?
Primarily, bloggers make money when they register their sites on the Google AdSense program. However, there are other creative ways to earn even more cash. For example, providing special advert placements for business owners and service providers will boost your income.
How Much Money Can You Make Blogging?
An average blogger can easily make hundreds of dollars every month through Google AdSense. But to significantly increase your earnings to thousands of dollars monthly, explore other money-making opportunities on your blog such as affiliate marketing and offering consulting services.
How To Get Started Making Money Blogging For Beginners: Step-By-Step Guide
Setting up a blog for the first time can be overwhelming when you don’t know the right steps to take. Here’s the basic guide for building a blog and taking it online to a global audience:
1. Choose A Profitable Niche
Before anyone learns how to make money blogging, finding a profitable niche is key. A niche refers to the subject or area your blog will be about. For example, your niche can be fashion, cooking, tech, music, agriculture, business strategy, etc.
Ideally, you are expected to publish content that is relevant to the niche you’ve chosen. This makes your audience trust your blog, knowing that you are seasoned in your niche.
But more importantly, since we are talking about how to make money from a blog, you must ensure that the niche you write on has the potential to make you a ton of cash.
A niche is considered profitable when it attracts lots of readers. So, think about a subject or field that you know millions of people are enthusiastic about. That’s where you’ll find your gold.
2. Get Domain And Hosting
A domain name and web hosting are two essential things your blog must have before it goes live. A domain name refers to your web address. For example, www.makemoneyonline.com. You’ll be the one to determine the name of your blog and if the address ends with “.com”, “.ui”, “.edu”, “.org”, etc.
Web hosting, on the other hand, is a service that allows your blog to be available and accessible to visitors on the World Wide Web. Some of the best web hosting providers are GoDaddy, Namecheap, and Hostinger. These companies offer a free domain when you purchase any of their hosting service packages.
3. Design Your Blog
Designing your blog is where things get quite interesting. You’ll have to apply some level of creativity to set up the site and make it look beautiful.
However, this is not a difficult process. Content Management Systems like WordPress make it incredibly easy to design a blog. This is because the platform offers you different blog templates to choose from. All you have to do is edit your chosen template to your preference.
When it’s time to start publishing content, WordPress has a set of tools you can use to format your articles, add media, post, and even respond to comments.
4. Create A Content Calendar
When you eventually start publishing content on your blog, it is paramount that you remain consistent. You have to decide whether you want to post daily, a few times a week, or once a week. This is why you need to create a content calendar: a posting schedule that tells you when and what to publish on your blog.
Make a list of topics you intend to write on, do your research, and then arrange the topics in a particular order (including the date and time they are meant to be published).
Blogging with a content calendar is one of the simple strategies that will help you grow faster.
5. Promote Your Blog
Let’s assume your blog is set up and your first post has been published. Promotion should be the next important item on the agenda.
As a new blog, it will be difficult to rank up in search engines since it has very little data and no traffic. You need to attract a significant number of visitors who find your content valuable. Hence, spread the word! Tell as many people as you can that you have just launched your blog.
When you make a post, share the link across your socials. Send it to friends and family members. This promotion will give your blog the boost it needs to get off the ground.
10 Legit Ways To Make Money Blogging
It’s much easier to solve a problem when you know several approaches to use. When it comes to figuring out how to monetize your blog, there are various strategies to employ. Here are 10 helpful ideas for you:
1. Sponsored Product Reviews
One way companies boost sales is by promoting positive product reviews across various channels, including blogs.
As your blog grows bigger, you can contact small brands that are willing to pay for sponsored product reviews. All you have to do is examine a product or service and then share your opinion on it with a blog post.
However, you must make sure your audience is aware that the product review is not a regular post. They should know you were paid for it.
2. Google AdSense
This is the common money-making opportunity that every blogger can tap into. When you sign up with Google AdSense, the service displays adverts on your blog. You then get paid based on the number of visitors that see the ads.
As the owner of the blog, you will be the one to determine the ad sizes, shapes, and where they are placed on the site. However, you can’t apply for Google AdSense immediately after launching your blog. To be eligible, you need a certain number of views and visitors.
3. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is probably the fastest way to make money blogging. This is because you don’t even need to attract a lot of visitors to be qualified. Anyone can stumble on your blog and be interested in a brand you’re promoting.
By including affiliate links to your blog posts, you can earn commissions when you generate sales of a company’s products or services.
There are several affiliate networks to join such as Amazon Associates, eBay Partner Network, and CJ Affiliate. You don’t need to pay any membership fee to sign up on these platforms.
4. Sell Sponsored Content
Both big and small brands are interested in increasing their reach through different types of paid advertisements. When it comes to digital marketing, companies don’t only use social media adverts. They also work with blogs to reach a larger audience. It’s one of the best ways to make money as a blogger.
If your blog is performing well, advertising agencies may approach you to pay for sponsored content. If no brand approaches you, then you will be the one to send a proposal. If you are convincing enough, some companies will be willing to work with you.
5. Offer Services
Having a successful blog gives you the opportunity to sell relevant services to a target audience.
For example, if you possess digital skills like graphic design and video editing, you can promote these freelance services on your site and earn a good amount of money. Besides, this is a great thing to do if your niche is relevant to the skill sets you have. Prospects will easily assume that you are an expert in the field.
6. Sell Digital Products
Digital products like online courses, ebooks, and templates can be sold via your blog. The good thing about creating a digital product to sell is very simple. For example, if you are good at cooking, there are so many lousy cooks out there willing to learn from someone like you. You can create an ebook that contains various food recipes or you can create an online course instead.
Ebooks can be published on Amazon KDP while online courses can be hosted on platforms like Udemy and Teachable. Once you successfully create your digital products, advertise them on the site. This is how to make money blogging without selling sponsored content or advert placements.
7. Sell Physical Products
Just as you sell digital products, you can sell physical goods as well. It’s one of the simple ideas to make money blogging.
T-shirts, hoodies, tote bags, stickers, coffee mugs, and posters are perfect examples of merchandise you can sell. Besides, you don’t need to have these products physically in a store somewhere.
You can use a print-on-demand service like Printify, Etsy, or Redbubble. This means that when a product is ordered, you don’t have to worry about printing, packaging, and delivery. These companies will handle it while you get paid a share of the sale.
8. Speaking Gigs
If you have a fair for public speaking, you can use your blog to build the brand.
Since blogging allows you to reach out to a large audience, you never can tell when someone would be interested in offering you a speaking gig. In case you don’t know, an opportunity like this can make you a lot of money.
You also have the chance to travel to different cities and counties, get acquainted with amazing people, and share insightful ideas to educate communities.
So while thinking about how to make money blogging, you might want to consider this opportunity.
9. Promote Content Creators
Content creators on YouTube and social media platforms like Instagram need all the promotion they can get, especially when they are just starting out.
If your niche is relevant to the content that some of these creators put out, you can offer to promote their brand to your audience. Based on the agreement you have with your clients, you can choose to advertise their content with a one-off offer or you can have a recurring deal.
10. Teach Others
There are millions of blogs on the internet, and more blogs are being hosted continuously. This means that another way you can figure out how to make money blogging is by teaching others to set up their own blogs.
From designing the site to writing optimized content, newbies need support and adequate knowledge to find their way. Seize this opportunity by organizing paid online training for interested participants.
Don’t forget that you can still promote this training via your blog.
4 Skills You Need To Succeed Blogging
Blogging is not rocket science. It’s not some high-tech activity for exceptionally intelligent people. Almost anyone can become a blogger. However, here are some essential skills you must possess if you want to succeed in your blogging career:
1. Writing
You shouldn’t bother learning how to make money blogging if you aren’t a competent writer.
Blogging is all about writing. You need to be able to communicate your ideas in clear, engaging, and well-written content. So, improve your writing skills if you haven’t.
There are thousands of free writing courses online that you can get started with. For example, YouTube has more than enough resources for enthusiastic writers. Start learning while you can.
2. Editing
Editing is also another relevant skill you need if you want to learn how to get paid as a blogger.
While writing, you are bound to make mistakes with spelling, punctuation, and grammar. That’s okay. But you must always come back to your work and painstakingly go through it to find any errors.
Fortunately, editing doesn’t have to be very difficult anymore since there are AI tools like Grammarly and Wordtune. Within a few minutes, you can use any of these proofreading tools to efficiently scan your articles for any errors.
3. SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most important skills when it comes to blogging.
If you want your site to be visible in Google rankings, you must maximize SEO. This means your blog posts should contain relevant keywords and phrases that are frequently searched on Google. When your content is optimized with the right keywords, you will organically drive traffic to your blog.
To learn more about how to use SEO, you can sign up for a paid online course on platforms like Udemy or Coursera. If you can’t afford premium training, there are free resources for beginners you can find on YouTube.
4. Analytical Skills
Analytics is very vital when tracking your blog’s performance. If you want to know the number of visitors you attract, how you rank in search engines, and how long people stay on your blog, you have to get all that information by checking your analytics.
However, you need to be able to interpret and evaluate the analytical data presented to you. This is why it’s a skill. Not everyone can decipher it.
By understanding your analytics, you can discern the various aspects of your blog that need improvement. This is an important area to look at when learning how to make money as a blogger.
Quick Summary On How To Make Money Blogging
Mastering diverse ways to monetize your blog is very important. It’s like having multiple streams of income as an individual.
If you choose to rely only on Google AdSense ads, it will take a long time before you make a substantial amount of money. You must be resourceful. Think outside the box and develop creative ways to boost your income as a blogger. That’s how you succeed remarkably in this business.
Pin this for later!
