Think blogging's only a hobby? Think again – it could surely make you pretty desirable cash. Here's a way to get started, locate your niche, and flip your weblog into a pleasing little cash earner.
Let's be honest, blogging isn't the easiest way to make money. But the good thing is that anyone can do it and it looks great on your resume. All you need is something worth saying and enough patience and dedication to generate traffic and follow-up - but how do successful bloggers make money?
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| How To Start a Blog and make passive income |
We interviewed a few to reveal their monetization secrets. Our guide gives you a concrete action plan to start your blog and become a profitable small home business.
1. How to Start a Blog
You have two main options for starting a blog: you can use a free blogging platform or create your own website. We'll walk you through both, outlining their pros and cons.
Free Blogging Plateform
Best for: Casual bloggers and those who don't want to make money from their blog.
Pros: super easy to install and completely free.
Cons: Limits on customizing and uploading videos/images, often not possible to place ads or use affiliate links, you cannot create a custom URL and the platform reserves the right to delete your blog.
Many platforms will let you blog for free and are super easy to use. If you just want to blog casually at first, this might be fine for you.
But free blogging platforms can be very limiting. You will only be able to customize to a limited extent and your blog will have a storage limit which may make it harder to upload large videos and images.
Another downside is that your blog URL will be something like “www. Autoblog .wordpress.com” with the platform brand. Most free blogging platforms also don't allow you to place banner ads or affiliate links on your blog. your site, which is the main source of income for most bloggers.
However, if you don't mind those things, here's a quick rundown of the best free online blogging platforms.
Best Blogging Sites
Blogger: Google's free blog hosting service, Blogger, is really easy to use. But the customization and design options are very limited, and there aren't many options if you want to add new features.
WordPress.com:This is a free and easy-to-use basic blog hosting service. You will have to bear the WordPress ads and branding unless you pay a monthly fee and cannot place ads on your site. Customization and expansion options are also limited.
Medium: With Medium, the emphasis is on writing rather than design. It is used by many journalists, writers, and experts and is a great way to share your work with a particular community. You can't post ads, and it's hard to build your own personal brand.
Create Your Own Website
Good for: bloggers who want to make money from with the help of their blog or website
Pros: Full control over design and customization, your own custom URL, and the ability to use ads and affiliate links as you see fit
Cons: you will have to pay, first for your domain name (URL), then for hosting, but did I have any advice on cheap web hosting.
If you're not particularly tech-savvy, the idea of building your own website might sound pretty scary, but it's actually pretty easy to do and you can set one up in just 20 minutes.
Save the Student founder Owen has written an easy-to-follow step-by-step guide to show you how to start a website.
With your own website, you will be able to create a unique personal brand (with your URL), and no. a risk that your blog will be deleted from the platform: you will own the site and have full control over it.
WordPress has an incredible amount of templates or 'themes' to choose from - take your time choosing the one that matches both your personality.
you Choose something simple and clear, with room for large images and easy-to-read fonts (Comic Sans and Courier fonts are nonsense).
Create your Professional website
2. How To Choose a Blog Topic
This can be the easiest or the hardest part of starting your blog.
The most important thing at this point is to choose a niche where you can call yourself an authority - the biggest mistake new bloggers make in such a crowded blogosphere is to start a blog without trying to do something surprising or surprising different.
For example, if fashion is your thing, instead of combining generic fashion content, could you combine your love of clothes with your great concern for the environment, writing on an environmentally conscious designer blog instead. ?
Here are the best ways to find a topic for your new blog:
Check out other blogs: this should be your first point of reference. What is already happening? And above all, what is missing? Find gaps in the market.
Use Google: What are people looking for? Use Google suggested searches and autocomplete to find out what people are looking for - if they search for it, it shows there is a question.
Search Forums for Common FAQs - When people can't find answers to their questions, they go to forums. What are they asking for? What do they need advice on? This will show what people are interested in and what information they are lacking.
Keep track of current trends - what are the topics in the media right now? It's fine to pick a topic that has longevity, but if you can tap into a trend early on, you can quickly establish yourself as a subject matter expert ahead of everyone else. Researching #journorequest on Twitter shows what kind of stories reporters are currently reporting.
Think about different types of content - could you do some tutorials / how-to guides? Comments? Interviews? Lists? It might not be what you write about, but the way you write sets you apart. You will quickly get bored and people will notice your lack of enthusiasm. Write about something you really care about.
3. How To Increase Of Your Blog Traffic
Once you've built your website, found a great blog topic, and published your first few posts, the big question is, where are all the readers?
You can't expect people to magically find your blog and start reading it, you need to promote it!
The best and easiest ways to get more readers for your blog:
Promote your blog on social media
As with any business these days, you're unlikely to be noticed if you don't have a social media account.
We recommend that you create pages/accounts for your blog on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and even LinkedIn (You're basically your business anyway, right? Design these accounts with a color scheme / a similar theme to your blog so that your branding is consistent and easily recognizable.
Use them to share new articles and tag other bloggers/influencers/businesses who can share your content and help reach an audience even wider. You can even do paid advertising to help your blog reach a larger audience or run a contest to generate more likes.
Once you have subscribers, keep them interested by posting regularly (not only for new blog posts).
Connect with other bloggers
Find out about other people posting blogs on similar topics. Despite being technically a competitor, you might be surprised at how supportive the blogging community is.
Many bloggers even have a "Links" page on their website which they use to link to their many friends in the community in exchange for a link on their own blog. This will really help your SEO (this is search engine optimization - how likely is your blog to show up in Google searches).
If you interact with other bloggers and share their content, chances are they will return the favor - you could even work on some collaborations!
Respond to news stories on your blog
If something happens to news related to your niche, move on. This is what we call “message stealing” and it can help you get a lot of attention.
For example, if you blog about cheap student kitchens, pay attention to things like our recent publication of student money surveys. Students can spend an average of £101 a month on groceries, but you can tell them how to spend less (with better nutrition!).
You can log on to social media to talk a bit about relevant hashtags, join the discussion, and even reach out to reporters to say you're willing to comment.
If you really have your niche, journalists can even come to you.
Create viral content
Creating viral content will help you reach new markets and increase your readership.
This may be easier said than done, but the key to creating viral content is dealing with controversial or highly debated topics related to a niche area of your blog - as you can imagine, this happens a lot.
Since this is your niche, you will be passionate, thoughtful, and knowledgeable about the subject so you can post opinions that people want to read, share and talk about.
4. How To Make Money From Blogging
Once you've started your blog, you can (finally!) start looking for ways to profit from it.
Here are the best and easiest ways to make money blogging:
Use affiliate marketing on your blog
Affiliate marketing works by adding followed affiliate links to the body of your blog. You can earn a small commission every time a reader clicks on a website you recommend and makes a purchase.
The link takes readers to the brand's website, and the money you earn is a thank you for sending some of your great readers to their website.
Almost all online e-commerce websites have some kind of affiliate programs like Amazon, ASOS, and Apple.
Join the Affiliate Window - a huge affiliate network where you can promote thousands of well-known brands and services from around the world.
We mostly use affiliate marketing as our main source of income, although Google AdSense is also available for a few pounds more a month.
Affiliate marketing is certainly suitable for many bloggers. As writer Carrie Jones wrote:
As a blogger, you are always recommending products and services to your readers. Many companies offer affiliate programs so it is very easy to find the right program to join and earn commissions.
The key is to be authentic and authentic in affiliate marketing. Write reviews and articles with your honest opinion and encourage your readers to only buy something if you think it's a good product or service for them.
Add banner adverts to your website
As a more visual form of advertising, you can sell banner ad space on your blog pages to brands that relate to your readers.
Ads can be placed anywhere, but usually at the top of the blog page or in the sidebar.
There are two ways to earn. CPC (cost per click) means you get a flat payment for every reader who clicks on your ad, while CPM (cost per 1000) means you get a flat payment for every 1000 negotiated ad "impressions". accept.
As the AdBlocker plugin evolves, CPC and CPM can be below, but it depends on your industry and it can't hurt to give it a try.
A quick way to get started is to create a Google AdSense account.
Write advertorials and sponsored content
According to the bloggers we spoke to, one of the best ways to generate blog revenue is by offering sponsored content (or advertising) opportunities. This is basically an advertisement in the form of a paid article or blog post.
For example, if Adidas is launching a new line of swimwear and you have a blog about women's sportswear, they might offer to pay you to write articles about their range. You might be able to add some partnerships too.
This monetization method usually works best when you have a strong custom audience. Once you increase your readership, brands will often turn to you to discuss sponsored posts.
As Kenzi Harvey of beauty, fashion, lifestyle, and travel blog LemonaidLies says:
''I always have sponsored content opportunities, whether it's from a PR firm, in person, or through an app like the Instagram agency Takumi.''
5. Charge for sponsored social media posts
When you have a strong presence on social media, you become highly attractive to brands. Some people actually do their entire blog through sponsored posts on social media. You can charge for publication/republish and the fees can be very high.
You just need to work hard to build your following first - your "social proof" (or how many people follow you on social media) will be perceived by brands as proof that readers like what you post about them too.
Can you really make money from blogging?
As we have seen, the answer is yes! But how much money you can make blogging is variable. This is how blogs are monetized at first, but over time bloggers can do very well.
Monetizing a blog takes time and depends on you having traffic. The more readers you have, the more attractive you are to advertisers.
To earn a decent income from blogging, consider different sources of income from different sources and in different ways.