How to start a blog and make money?
You tried blogging and you truly enjoyed it. The next step is to start making money from your blog. Though it seems difficult to achieve, many bloggers are able to make some additional income through their favorite activity.
Starting a blog to make money requires regular effort and dedication on your behalf. As long as you manage to provide quality, well-targeted content, the process will get started and will soon gain momentum.
If you want to make money through your blog, you will have to undertake several steps. Deciding on the type of content is the first and most important thing that you will have to do in order to monetize your blog.
FIND A SPECIFIC, NICHE TOPIC
General blogs can rarely generate a fortune. If you want to make money, you will have to discover a niche theme that few people are writing about.
Discovering a specific topic that you have knowledge in and that few websites are presenting will enable you to attract a targeted audience. These people will hold specific interest in the theme and will keep coming back to your blog, as long as you provide quality and informative content.
Perform a basic research about the topics you have knowledge in. See which ones attract the interest of readers and which ones are less popular among authors. These are the topics that you will have to concentrate on.
BE A PROLIFIC BLOGGER
If you want to make money through your blog, you will have to become a prolific writer.
Updating your blog once a month will probably provide you with the funds needed to buy a coffee and a bottle of water once per month. When it comes to sensible income, you will have to work hard on producing content.
Writing on a regular basis will keep your audience interested and will improve your search engine positioning. Ranking high up in search engine results will guarantee you further audience increase. In order to make money, you need a large and stable audience.
Being prolific does not signify diminishing the quality of your articles. If you fail keeping the standards high, you will lose some of your readers and your good search engine positioning.
BLOG MARKETING
Before you start making money, you will have to further increase your blog’s popularity.
Work on a marketing strategy. Fortunately, the web lets you utilize a number of free or inexpensive channels to advertise your work.
Utilize the power of social media. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter will let you find new fans for your writing. Popularize the blog and specific pieces of content that
you find exceptionally intriguing. Create awareness and make people remember your blog’s name.
Include a link to your blog in your e-mail signature. You can add it in offline materials like business cards, t-shirts or cups.
High popularity will ultimately increase your traffic and will provide you with the chance to make more money from affiliate advertising programs.
AFFILIATE MARKETING PROGRAMS FOR YOUR BLOG
Affiliate programs are a simple way to monetize your blog. This is the first step that you can undertake towards generating an income.
These programs, like Google Adsense or Amazon’s program, let you publish ads on your blog. You receive some cash for each click or each product sale that was referred from your blog.
As you can imagine, the money that you can make this way is insignificant if your traffic is low. You need to have many readers in order to make some real money through affiliate programs. Marketing efforts and being a prolific writer play an important role here.
OTHER WAYS TO MONETIZE YOUR BLOG?
You can always discover additional ways to make money from your blog. Have you considered selling content? It can be both text and photos. Turn your blog into your writing portfolio. It will give you the chance to get hired for new freelance projects.
Once your blog becomes popular, you can start working with individual advertisers. Target companies that operate in the sphere you are writing about. Believe it or not, you can attract companies and convince them to put banners in your blog. It requires effort and strenuous work but once you establish the contacts, you can rely on continuous financial benefits.
Company sponsorships or getting hired to write about a specific topic can also let you make decent income. This is why marketing and building your contacts network is essential.
You can also offer links for sale or have a donations options available.
The manners in which you can make money from your blog are numerous. Yes, this could sometimes resemble a full-day job. In the beginning, you will have to sweat hard while expecting minimal or no returns at all. As time passes and your blog gains popularity, the situation will start changing. Have faith and be stubborn. If you are serious about it, you will make it work.