One of the best ways to earn money online is by making a blog. However, creating one, running it and effectively maintaining it to ensure financial returns is not easy. It takes time and a lot of work. If you’ve decided to start a blog this year, here are a few tips to keep in mind:
Think of a topic you genuinely curious about
Search for a niche that you are passionate about and write about it in an innovative way. Listen to your inner voice, write creatively and inspire your readers.
Don’t start a blog with just the idea of making money as that may make you lose sight. If you are passionate about cars, start an auto blog. Check sites like motorauthority, autoblog, caranddriver for inspiration. Whatever topic you want to write about, there are a lot of amazing blogs you can find to inspire you and learn from.
Don’t compromise on quality content
Abide by the motto of “quality over quantity”. Don’t overstuff your blog with meaningless content in an effort to generate traffic, always go for high stuff. Quality content gets recognized by Google and sites sporting such stuff always make it to the top.
Money making techniques
Here is how most bloggers make money from their blogs.
- They focus on content that gets lots of traffic.
- And then convert the visitors into email subscribers by offering something of value to their visitors e.g. ebooks.
- They consistently send those subscribers content that builds trust over time.
- And at some point when they have established trust and confidence, they sell products or services (ebooks, webinars, online courses etc.) their audience can buy or recommend affiliate products to them and get commissions.
The process is simple but it’s hard to consistently work on. Each step requires time, perseverance and a lot of work. That’s why the topic you choose is really important. If you don’t enjoy doing it, you will lose momentum and stop.
This chart by ProBlogger gives you a better view of your money making options as a blogger.
Once you have set up your blog, employ the following 5 tactics to get exposure and earn money:
1. Use Backlinking
If you want to create an authority blog, create links to other websites. Start a page by creating awareness amongst people, just as product review sites do. They easily attract high amounts of traffic because of being the source pages that merge information from other websites.
2. Automate your blog
A great way of maintaining your blog is to automate it. Many bloggers don’t have the time to update their blogs daily, which is why automating them is an effective technique. You can schedule out the content in bulk, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your blog as well as ensuring that it is moving ahead.
There are many things that can be automated on a blog, i.e. scheduling, notifications for updates, tracking of traffic, notifications of a new post and additional features such as videos can also be planned ahead.
3. Google AdSense and other advertisements
One way of making money from your blog is to add Google AdSense to it. Google AdSense displays advertisements that match with the content on your blog. Blog visitors will see matching advertisements and click on those that interest them, thus helping you generate money.
Instead of sticking to Google AdSense only, you can also raise money by choosing other ads including product photos, banner ads, in-text web link advertisements, eBooks ads, exit ads and more.
4. Try different promotion systems
A great way to generate income through your blog is by trying new promotion systems. However, bear in mind that you don’t copy what other bloggers do or apply techniques that worked for them, as they might not work for you.
Net promotion systems that can be used include Commission Junction, AdBrite, Chitika, LinkShare, ClickBank, Search Engine Affiliate Systems and Kontera to name a few.
5. Apply the latest SEO techniques
SEO is the key to increase your blog’s popularity and generate income. However, due to the overuse of such strategies, every site doesn’t make its way to the top, as Google easily identifies pages with poor SEO techniques. Search for the latest SEO techniques and apply them on your website.