If you want to know how to make money from blogging successfully, you are in the right place.
This is a complete walk-through of steps you need to take to make your blog profitable.
We will not only see the different ways to monetize your blog but also some of the key factors that make a blog successful.
I’m sure you might have heard about many bloggers making a fortune online while most people struggle to make even a dollar.
What are the key things that separate successful bloggers from the ones who are struggling?
The answer to this question lies in some of the basics that we will see today.
Recommended Reading:
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners: The Ultimate Guide
For the sake of your convenience this article is divided between 2 Parts; Pre-Monetization and Monetization Phase.
We will go through all the steps required in each phase to ensure you are on the right path.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
Part 1: Pre-Monetization Phase (Building Blocks of a Profitable Blog)
Blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme but a long-term game.
The reason many people struggle to make money from blogging is not that they are not committed, but because they are not able to see the bigger picture.
Making money from Blogging is like solving different pieces of a puzzle and once each piece is solved, you just need to arrange or connect all the pieces.
The following steps are the building blocks on which the foundation of a profitable blog is laid.
And the stronger your foundation, more successful your blog will be.
1. The Right Mindset
Having a right mindset is the secret of making your blog profitable.
Making money out of your blog is just a consequence if you do all the steps correctly.
Most people who struggle to make money from blogging share a very common characteristic.
They are more concerned about how to make money blogging than blogging itself and this is the biggest reason that they struggle.
If you need fruits from a tree then you need to take care of the soil, manure, sunlight, water and none of these things will look like fruits.
But if you do these things correctly, you will definitely get to enjoy the fruits.
Blogging is just like that.
You can’t navigate your way to a destination if only one eye is used for navigation while the other is fixed at the destination.
You need both eyes and complete commitment to each of the steps.
And the second most important step is to spend more time taking action than “thinking about taking action”.
It does not matter how much information you consume, there is no substitute for actually doing things yourself.
Minor Failures and setbacks are inevitable, the only thing that matters is how quickly you can learn from it and correct the mistakes.
2. Start a blog
The first rule to make money from blogging is to first start your own blog.
But you don’t have to wait for divine intervention or hire a web designer to make it happen.
This is a common misconception that you need to know coding and what-not to start your own blog, but it’s so NOT true.
Starting a blog is really easy these days and you just need one hour of spare time to follow 5 Simple steps and by the end of it, you will have your own blog.
Having no experience of doing this can be a bit overwhelming at first.
But if you can just keep your overwhelm aside for an hour, you will be proud of what you create.
You can follow this guide to start your own blog in 5 Simple Steps.
You can go through these related articles to assist you in starting your own blog:
Blogging for Beginners: The Ultimate Guide
Blogging FAQ: All your Questions about Blogging Finally Answered
How to Choose a Blog Niche that you won’t Regret
How to come up with a future-proof Blog Name in 30 minutes
Top 10 Blogging Tips For Beginners
3. Create Quality Content
Content is the backbone of your blog.
I can show you many blogs with a very simple design but really awesome content, that are making tons of money.
But it’s tough to find profitable blogs which have “perfect everything” but really sub-standard content.
Quality Content is the single most deciding factor in establishing trust with your readers which leads to more traffic on your blog and this ultimately leads to you making more money.
Creating Quality Content is both of an art and science.
The best content that you can create is the one that resonates with your audience and addresses their concerns and queries by speaking to them directly.
If you can step into your reader’s shoes and look for ways to satisfy their intent with which they clicked on your headline in the best way possible, you will automatically create awesome content.
For example, this blog post takes you through a complete journey a blogger goes through, to make money from blogging.
You can use this fundamental principle to write about any topic that you wish.
You can never go wrong when the reader is the prime focus of your article.
4. Important Factors to set up your blog for success
These factors play a significant role while setting up your blog but are often overlooked.
You need a good, fast and responsive theme to support your blog.
Because of budget reasons, you might want to start with a free WordPress theme, but having a paid theme which is fast and responsive and gives you plenty of freedom to customize is an investment that pays for itself.
You can check the speed of your blog by using GTmetrix and Google Page Speed Insights.
Visitors might leave your site if it takes any longer than 8 seconds to load.
You can improve the speed of your blog further by installing plugins like W3 Total Cache. Even your web hosting plays a role in your load time, that’s why it’s better to invest in a good one beforehand.
Another important factor is very simple and easy to use navigation.
You need to ensure that visitors can find what they are looking for very easily, otherwise, they might leave your blog.
Just ensure that all the essential plugins are installed.
And one of the most important factors is to capture emails of your visitors as Email Marketing is the best way to engage with your readers and to build a relationship.
There is a direct correlation between the number of people in your Email List and the amount of money that you make.
There are 2 components of Email Marketing you need to take care of; The Optin Plugin to capture Emails of Visitors and The Email Marketing Provider to help you send Emails.
Sumo Me (Free) and Thrive Leads are two best options to capture Emails of your visitors.
MailChimp (Free), MailerLite (Free) or Covertkit are the best tools that will allow you to do Email Marketing efficiently.
5. Drive Traffic
Traffic is what gives life to your blog.
Without it, your blog would cease to exist.
Most beginners make the mistake of adopting the “wait and watch approach”.
Nowadays it’s important for you to actively engage in bringing traffic to your blog and ensure that your articles get viewed by many people.
Depending on the niche in which you are blogging, the tactics of bringing traffic would be different.
For example, if you run a blog for job seekers and professionals looking to upgrade their careers it’s most likely that these people will hang out on LinkedIn.
It becomes your responsibility to develop a strategy to engage with these people on LinkedIn and bring them to your blog.
Similarly, you can figure out ways to engage with your potential readers on other social media platforms.
Google may be the biggest source of traffic for most blogs, but it’s not the only one.
You can use Pinterest, Quora, Reddit, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and other such platforms to drive traffic to your blog.
Once you have a steady inflow of traffic to your blog, it should not take much time to make money from your blog.
Part 2: Monetization Phase (Different Ways to Make Money Blogging)
There are multiple ways of making an income from your blog.
We will be looking at some of the best ways to make money from blogging.
If you have taken care of the foundation steps, monetizing your blog becomes very easy.
I’ll be listing all the major monetization methods to turn your blog profitable.
You just need to be mindful in choosing the ones which will work in your niche.
Once you have zeroed in on a monetization method, go all in and execute it completely.
If you are in doubt about which method will be suitable for your blog, you can always check out your competitors to see which method are they using.
This will save you a lot of time with experimentation.
We will also see how you can effectively connect foundation steps with different methods of monetizing your blog.
1. Advertising
Advertising is the most basic method of monetizing your blog.
You get paid for each time a visitor sees an ad on your website and also each time the user clicks on it.
Excess advertising is known to negatively impact the user experience on your blog. This is the reason you should be mindful of using them.
Moreover, income through Ads is negligible if there isn’t much traffic on your blog.
So there’s no point of displaying ads on your blog, at least initially.
Google Adsense is often the first choice of bloggers who want to display ads on their website. You just need to get your Adsense account approved by Google to start showing ads to your visitors.
But there are better Ad Networks available which give you a much better payout and also display ads relevant to your audience.
But you need stable traffic before you can apply to these Ad Networks.
Some of the popular Ad Networks are Tap Influence, Media.net, Infolinks, and Chitika.
I’m personally not a big fan of using advertising on my blogs, but there are many other bloggers who use it successfully to generate stable passive income each month.
In case you want to make an income by displaying ads to your visitors, my advice would be to wait until you have enough stable traffic on your blog.
2. Affiliate Marketing
This is the best way to make money from blogging.
There are so many people and companies who are looking to sell something to people online.
If you can help these people or companies by promoting their products to your audience, these companies will be more than happy to give you a commission.
This is the essence of Affiliate marketing.
Now let’s take an example, Amazon runs the biggest Affiliate Network which hands out the most commissions to the people who promote their products, i.e, Affiliates.
How it works?
Suppose you run a health and fitness blog and you sign up as an Affiliate on Amazon and promote one of their highly rated nutritional supplement to your audience.
Each time a reader clicks on the “trackable affiliate link” to make a purchase, you get a flat commission of 4-20%
There are multiple Affiliate Networks which can even give commissions up to 90%.
Some of the most popular affiliate networks are Clickbank, Shareasale, Commission Junction, JvZoo etc.
You can also go to individual sites that are selling something online and look for any affiliate program they might offer.
Some of the bloggers run their very own affiliate programs to sell their own digital and physical products.
You need to directly get in touch with them to join them.
Each Affiliate program has its own set of rules and commission rates, you need to individually check these terms and conditions before applying to any of the programs.
3. Brand Promotion
Your blog is your digital asset.
Once your blog gets a bit popular and people start noticing it, you will be approached by brands who want to sell and promote their products to your audience.
Similarly, even you can approach these brands directly to collaborate with them.
You can pitch their products or services to your audience in exchange for a fee that you may demand.
These collaborations usually work in 2 different ways.
Either you get directly paid to write a sponsored post in which you pitch what they are offering or else you can pitch their products or services somewhere in the middle of your blog post.
Brand Promotions are also a good PR for your blog as its reputation increases once it is associated with some big brands.
4. Selling Digital Products
If you are willing, you can share your knowledge with the audience in the form of paid content.
Once you have established trust with your readers, it becomes easier for them to make a purchase decision.
Selling your own digital products is the most profitable method of monetization as you get to keep the entire amount to yourself.
Digital products can be informational content in any format like E-Books, Videos, and Courses.
You can create such content in whichever niche you wish.
The important thing to keep in mind while creating any type of content is to focus on transformation rather than information.
Each person is looking to achieve something or get somewhere in their life.
If you can focus on the before and after state of your reader and create content that can help them get from State A to State B easily, you will have no issues in selling your content.
Some of the examples of Digital products are as follows:
- E-books – You can publish and sell your own E-book using your blog or Kindle Publishing.
- E-courses – You can also create paid content to share knowledge with readers or help them with any transformation.
- Premium Content or Webinars – You can create this for limited users for which they need to pay to access this content.
- Membership – Selling Membership for a program through your blog can also be a good idea.
- Photo, Audio & Video – Everything from quality photos, audio jingles, podcasts, audio-books, and videos can be used to monetize your blog.
- Apps, plugins or themes – These type of products require coding knowledge but it can be extremely profitable.
5. Indirect Income Sources
Popular blogs are visited by thousands of visitors each day.
Instead of advertising products of other people or companies, you can use this as an opportunity to promote your own services or products.
This method is being increasingly used by individuals and companies alike.
For example, a job-seeking platform running a blog to educate its audience about the best ways one can get a job or a blog about Yoga also using it as a way to promote their Yoga classes.
This also gives you an opportunity to showcase some other skills that you might have and making an income out of it.
Some of the examples of Indirect Income Sources are as follows:
Freelance Writing– You can make decent income writing for other blogs or companies.
Paid Reviews – You can get paid to use and write a review of products and services.
Consulting- You can also offer consulting services to people who might need it.
Freelance Services- Freelance services like Photography, Graphic design, Web design etc can be promoted using your blog.
Influencer Marketing- Influencers can make a lot of money by collaborating with brands.
6. Blog Flipping
Blogs are being sold these days like any other property or asset.
The 2 major things which determine the value of a blog is its past performance which includes traffic and income over the past 6 months and also the revenue generating potential a blog might have.
Your blog needs to be at least six months old to demand a good price.
The 2 most popular sites for buying and selling blogs are Empire Flippers and Flippa.
These sites can also be used to do research and find data to help you with your monetization strategy.
Final Words
There are multiple options for you to choose from to make money from your blog.
The only thing that you need to keep in mind is that your method should be coherent with your niche.
It’s also not a wise decision, to try all the ways to monetize at once.
Just focus on one method at a time and execute it completely.
Simultaneously, you also need to work on your content and driving traffic to your blog to see results.
Many top bloggers are making thousands of dollars from just a combination one or two methods.
I hope this article helped to understand the art of making money from your blogs.
If you have any further questions. please feel free to leave a comment.
I’d be happy to help you with any further queries on making money from blogging.
Recommended Reading:
14 Popular Blog Niche Ideas That Make Real Money
Affiliate Marketing For Beginners: The Ultimate Step By Step guide
