How to make money blogging

How To Make Money Blogging

Do you want to make money blogging? If you do – you’re not alone. More and more people are finding that blogging can be a profitable business.

Whether it's just earning a few extra dollars a month, or make enough money to make a full time living from blogging – there are tens of thousands of bloggers who make money by blogging.

Are you ready to start a blog and make money? Why not try out our 30 Day Blog Challenge, where we give you a small task every day for a month and by the end of the month you will have built a solid foundation for your blogging career!

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Can anyone make money blogging?

No. Blogging requires some sort of creative skill, you have to be able to make content that is interesting enough for readers to want to come back again. Whether that's giving fashion advice or blogging about your daily life is completely up to you.

A blog is really about building a relationship with your readers. If you aren't able to catch any readers for your blog, that means no traffic and no money to be made.

But can you keep your visitors coming back to your blog more than once, then you've got a really solid starting point for monetizing your traffic.

There are a few things you need before you start making money blogging.

A blog

If you want to monetize a blog, obviously you’ll need a blog first of all and your first task in the 30 day blog challenge is to create your blog and set it up the right way for long term success.

Time

Once you’re set up, you’ll need to take time to write your blog posts.

That's really your biggest expense. The time you use on your blog posts. A blog post can take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours to produce, depending on what you're blogging about.

When someone learns that blogging can make money, people immediately ask, “How do bloggers make money blogging?”

Before I started, I had the same question. The answer is simple, either bloggers build themselves a brandname, or they use their blog as a ‘property' to advertise. Much like a giant billboard or a regular magazine.

There are 3 key points a successful blogger needs to follow

1 – Create excellent content

Once you have a blog, you must add high-quality content. On a blog, this content comes in the form of blog posts. Your blog posts have to be excellent. In order to make money, you have to have visitors, but in order to have visitors, you must have content worthwhile to visit.

2 – Build and promote your brand

While you create your content, start building sincere, no-strings-attached relationships via social media, commenting, forums, promoting others and the like.

If no one knows you exist, it’s unlikely you’ll get many visitors. People won’t naturally find you if you don’t put yourself out there.

3 – Choose and implement streams of income

Developing income streams is the last key point. Many people want to focus only on this point, but without the other three, it won’t work. Trust me on this.

Successful bloggers are constantly exploring new ways to make money. The key to making good money as a blogger is to have multiple streams of income. Even small trickles of money coming from various places over time can really add up.

Bloggers often also use their blogs as springboards to launch other projects that bring in income, such as ebooks, books, speaking, other products, etc. (more below).

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Each blogger has a different combination of income streams. Knowing what types of income streams there are is helpful and can spark ideas, but if you try to dive into monetizing your blog before you’ve really built it, you run the risk of damaging the reputation you so desperately need.

The following are the main categories of income streams for bloggers.

Display Ads

Display ads are graphics or images similar to billboards or ads in a magazine. Typically they are positioned on your site in the sidebar, header, footer or within your content. They are also known as banner ads.

They are meant to complement your blog’s content, making them attractive and relevant to visitors. Advertisers hope that your visitors will then click on those images to explore and purchase the products or services they offer.

Google Adsense is probably the most popular ad network and a good place for beginning bloggers to start if they want to pursue display ads because it’s so easy to set up.

Private Ads

Private ads are similar to display ads in that they also come in the form of buttons or graphics and usually appear in the sidebars of blogs. They are unique in that there is no middle man (ad network) to negotiate the partnership. Partnerships are arranged directly between a blogger and an individual, small business or company.

Initial contact can be made by the blogger or by the advertiser. Be clear on what’s expected by both parties.

Giveaways & Reviews

If you’ve read blogs for any length of time, you’ve surely seen a review or giveaway and maybe participated yourself. A company supplies a product to a blogger to be reviewed and/or given away to readers.

I list giveaways here because some bloggers charge to run giveaways in addition to the expected free product to keep for themselves.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing involves promoting someone else’s product or service and earning a commission when one of your readers clicks through your unique affiliate link and makes a purchase.

Digital Products

In this case, you’re using your blog to market a product that you created. Ebooks, online courses, workshops, premium content for members are great examples that you can market with a blog. If someone is reading your blog, chances are they are already interested in what you have to offer. So your chances of turning your readers to your customers are higher.

Physical Products

Selling a physical product is one of the most traditional and popular ways to make money online. Now you could be selling a physical product on your blog. In-person classes/events, books, retail products, handmade and custom products etc.. are all great examples of physical products that you can sell with a blog.

Services

You can create a blog with the sole purpose of promoting your work. You can focus your blog's content on your services to establish your authority and your readers are more likely to become your customers since they will trust you.

The bottom line is, making money as a blogger is possible and actually very straightforward. Keep my 3 key points in mind that I mentioned earlier and you have a solid foundation for becoming a successful blogger!

So, what does this mean for you?

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