With social media on the rise, as well as blogs and online articles being the way that majority of people get their news and information, is there really space for more blogs in 2018 and beyond? And if there is space, can you start one that is going to be profitable when the market is quite saturated? For starters, if you are thinking of getting into blogging to generate an income from home, or want to turn a business’ blog into something that is more professional and can generate an income, then there are some things that you need to know. Otherwise, it could take you a while to get there if you don’t. They are:
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Blogging is a way to make good money. It is the way forward for marketing, and brands and businesses know that. They know who the audience the blog is targeting, and they will pay for that. Plus, large companies have a budget for things like marketing, so if you do it well, you can stand to earn quite a large sum of money. It definitely can be a good way to make money from home.
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Blogging is often seen as quite an easy job. And yes, while it isn’t brain surgery, it is still time consuming. If you want to blog for a profit, then it can end up being like a full-time job to keep the money coming in. After all, if you are not working, then the money won’t come in. So you can’t think that you can just do a couple of hours a week and then be earning the big bucks, it really does take time to get things going.
Starting a blog is hard work and will take up a lot of your time. So you need to bear those things in mind if you are wanting to take your blog to the next level and start to earn from it. But the thing is, that you still can. But in a crowded market, you might have to work that bit harder in order to stand out from the crowd.
Here are some of the things that you need to be thinking about and doing when it comes to a blog and taking it to the next level. If you don’t, then it can be a slow journey to get to where you want to be.
CONTENT
At the end of the day, the content is king. And if you are writing good content, then people will keep coming back for it. It is much better to look at producing one amazing article per week, than one kind of crappy post daily. Make sure that you are writing the kind of content that is within your niche, and the kind of content that your followers want to read. If you write a travel blog, for example, and then churn out a recipe post just to get a new post live, then it isn’t likely to be what your audience follow you for. So stick to what you know and make sure that you are writing regularly.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
It can be all well and good writing some amazing articles. But if people don’t know how to find you, or your posts aren’t coming up very high on a search engine search, then the amazing content can be kind of wasted. Which is where search engine optimisation (or SEO) comes in. This is all about helping search engines to find your site and making sure that you have the kind of content that is relevant to the search. If you wanted to do things quite quickly for your blog, then you could start looking into working with an SEO company to get things going. But for hobby bloggers, rather than professional bloggers, you can make a difference by doing things yourselves.
For starters, you can include internal links in your posts, as well as choosing blog post titles that are relevant to your content and is searched for often. A good Keyword tool like Jaaxy can help you find these. Then if someone found your site after looking for a particular thing on a search engine and they click through, but it isn’t answering their question or it wasn’t what they were looking for, then they will just click away and it can make your bounce rate quite high. So these are some things that you start off with, and you can build up your SEO from there. Read my post on SEO for more tips to increase your chances of being found in the search engines.
GROWING AN AUDIENCE
Like with SEO, it can be hard to build your stats and start to make money if you don’t have anyone that is regularly stopping by to read your content. So one of the best things that you can do is to think about your ideal reader. Are they like you? Do they have any particular needs? What does their life look like? When you know who your blog is aimed at, then you can hone your content to be suitable for them. For example, mommy bloggers will aim their content to be relevant to parents and those with young children. They could share recipes for toddler meals, toy reviews, and general tips for rearing children that their audience, also parents, would want to read. Parenting tips aren’t going to work well on a mostly fashion blog that has teenagers as the target audience, though. So focus on your ideal reader, and then go from there. You are likely to get them to keep coming back when the content is exactly what they are looking for.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is kind of like another search engine. So it is a good idea to be on there. It can help you to grow your audience too. There are a lot of channels out there, though, so don’t try to do all of them all atthe same time to begin with. While having a profile on them can be a good idea for people to get in touch with you, it is a good idea to think about two that you are really going to focus on, and then two that you are going to just maintain. But the ones that you choose to focus on or maintain will again, depend on your target audience. If your ideal reader is teens or students, then Snapchat and Instagram are likely to be the best social sites to capture them. If your blog is a business blog, then Twitter is going to be the best social platform to be on. Does that make sense? Choose the platforms that your ideal reader will be on, and make sure that you are on there, you are present, and you are able to share your content for people to easily view and read themselves.
I personally advise to always use Pinterest no matter what your niche as it does work more like the actual search engines and your content never disappears in favour of newer postings.
All of this is how you can start to build your blog and take things further.
But how can you actually make money from a blog?
If you know how to make money, then it can change your strategy of how you might want to go about doing things. Here are the most common ways that people make money through blogging:
AFFILIATE LINKS
Affiliate links are a way of advertising products and sharing the link to that product. Then if you are signed up to a retailer’s affiliate scheme, and someone clicks through your link and buys the item, then you earn a commission, at no extra cost to the buyer. Some of the blogs that do best with affiliate links are fashion and beauty blogs, as well as parenting blogs. If people see a dress on you that they just adore, then they are likely to click through and buy it. Same goes for a recommended baby products, for instance. If your readership know and trust you then they will want to buy what you are using, buying, or wearing.
It doesn’t really matter what your niche is there is always affiliate programs you can join and earn money from. I use Viglink as a way to make sure my site is optimised for as many affiliate programs as possible. Viglink is like a broker as it matches its merchants with content on your site and creates an affiliate link for you so you and the merchants don’t miss out on advertising opportunities.
SPONSORED CONTENT
One of the most common ways to generate an income through blogging is through sponsored content. This is where a brand gets in touch about a particular campaign, and they will pay you a certain amount of money to share a post about a particular topic, including a link back to their site or sharing it all on social media. If you love to write and want to make money, then this would be the best option for you. Twitter is a good place to look for paid work, as well as getting in touch with PR agencies, or signing up to blogger networks.
ADVERTISEMENTS
In a way, sponsored content is a way to advertise. But it is much less in your face. But you can also advertise through your sidebar, within a post, as well as on social media, usually through images. Some of the ads can pay a certain amount if people click on the ads. Others will pay per page view. So they can be something to get set up on your blog and seeing how it goes. It isn’t a huge money maker, but it is a good way to generate a small passive income, especially if your site is getting good traffic.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Good luck with taking your blog to the next level, or just getting started. It can be a very worthwhile opportunity. Blogging for profit is still totally possible even if you are just starting out. If you have not yet started blogging then I suggest taking a look at Wealthy Affiliate which is where I host my blogs and got step by step training in the basics of setting up my websites and blogs and everything beyond.
I hope you have found this post useful and given you the confidence to either start or improve your blog. If you have please give it a share on your favourite social media platform.
As ever if you have any questions or just want to share your thoughts, please leave a comment below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
With Grace and Gratitude
Karen
This post may contain affiliate links which means if you click on one and then go on to make a purchase, I will earn a commission but it will not cost you any more