Blogging to make money requires a few simple steps that need to be implemented.
One of the best ways to achieve success when you are starting out as a beginner is to duplicate what the successful bloggers do. There are a huge number of resources on the web that will help you with your blogging career but I would recommend that you choose one and stick to it, so that you don’t find yourself repeating steps or missing out on important stages of progression
Choose your niche
We all have one. Something that we specialise in or are very good at. Whether its baking cupcakes or building boats all the way to writing code for browser or website plugins. Once you have decided on what it is that you know best and that you can blog about, do some research.
Have a look at what other bloggers in the same niche are blogging about and research their visibility, success and popularity.
Choose your platform
When starting from scratch and particularly for the newcomer a ready-made platform is usually the best way to begin. I recommend using Blogger or WordPress.com and do so for reasons aside from the ease of access and use. For a start the hosting is free. Then there’s a lot of good documentation on these platforms when a blogger needs help formatting the look of the website or to add additional functions for their readers.
Developing Visibility
We all know that it’s no use opening a huge supermarket in the middle of the jungle where there is no civilisation for a hundred miles in any direction. Blogging is much the same. We can write all we want, but if it’s not being read, it’s a fruitless exercise.
There are two mainstream methods to develop visibility. One is called organic search and the other is paid search.
Social Media
When blogging for money the first step is to build all the foundations for organic search. These include setting up and populating Social Media platforms with relevant content. Currently developing and posting image and video content is what drives the rankings for most blogs. The really obvious Social Media Channels to develop are as follows:
- YouTube
- Vine
There are several other online social platforms that will depend on the niche in which you are blogging.You will find more about these when researching your niche.
Content Development
When referring to content online the context usually means, video, image, written or interactive materials that the visitor to your blog engages with. Apart from setting up your blog and the other platforms where your content will be hosted, you will need to build content development skills and these are quickly learned.
There are some fantastic online tools for developing quick professional looking videos and plenty of resources for creative commons images. just be sure that you understand the copyright rules when using someone else’s work.
Once you’ve set up your Blog site, social media assets and started to create content you want to make sure that they are all connected and have become visible to the search engines. This task is called SEO
SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and is the strategy you implement that makes sure you come up when someone searches for you on Google, Yahoo or elsewhere on the web.
Find a good resource that includes guidance on both keyword and competitor research so that you create a plan on how to became just that little more visible than your competitors.
Good SEO is made up on the backbone of building good links, where quality not quantity matters and there are a number of places to start. Content curation such as Scoop.it and content management with suggestions such as drum.up are very good resources. You will also want to carry out social bookmarking on sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit, which will all increase the indexing quality of your blog as well as the traffic that goes there.
Monetising
There are three really good ways to monetise your blog. The first is through affiliate marketing. This means to sell someone elses product for commission, This is the easiest method of online marketing because it involves links to a partner site only. There are no logistics, payment gateways or anything else to worry about. It’s as straightforward as inserting an identifying link that your readers click on to buy a product and the commission is yours.
The second method is through Advertising on your blog using a third party provider such as Google AdSense. You get paid every time someone clicks on a link. Once you are established and have a successful visibility strategy, click throughs will increase considerably.
The third method is to sell your own products although to begin with I recommend that this is left til last or you initially sell digital products only. I have however seen crafters develop the Etsy and Dawanda shops very successfully using their blogs as a springboard.
Finally. If you really want your blog to pay your bills, build a mailing list. Dont buy one. build one. There are plenty of easy DIY form widgets that enable you to collect subscribers as they come to your blog and the method for ensuring a sign up is to offer something in return.
Start by looking at blogging resources developed by specialists in the field. You;ll find that fellow bloggers are generally very supportive. It may also help to search resource sites for basic blogging tutorials to get you going.