Is it possible to earn a living blogging? While earning a living from your blog is hard, and will take some time, it is possible. Many bloggers make their blogs into a full time income. However, there are thousands who make next to nothing from their blogs or nothing at all. Like any other ‘business’, blogging takes time and effort. To make it pay, you need to build up a good flow of traffic to your blog. Not only that, but you need to either monetize your blog with adverts or promote products through it.
Earn A Living Blogging -Â Traffic
Before we get ahead of ourselves and think about monetizing our blogs we need to make sure we have traffic. Focusing on the money first i
s what make a lot of blogs fail. Focus on content first and get the traffic. Without traffic to your blog you will never make any money however good your products are. Just having good content is not enough either sadly, you also need to market your content either through social media, paid advertising, Google or a blend of them all.
Link Building
Building the right links to your blog is a sure fire way to generate traffic to your blog, both from the sites which link to you and from the increase in site authority which comes from having a good link profile. Write good content which leaders in your field would want to share. Contact them and ask for shares or links. Â Contact other bloggers in your niche and offer to blog for them in exchange for a link to your blog. If you don’t want to build links yourself you can hire someone to do it for you on fiverr.com. You can also build link by commenting on other blogs within your niche.
Earn A Living Blogging – Writing for Google
Researching your keywords with Google’s free Keyword planner, or using any of the other keyword tools can definitely help you find the right keywords to rank on Google. It will depend on the niche you have chosen to write about. More competitive subjects like affiliate marketing, online dating and heath and fitness will be much more competitive than subjects such as knitting, drawing, scrap- booking and chi gung, for example. See my article on Finding Long Tail Keywords for more on keyword planning and getting your articles found on Google search. Also see niche blogging for profit.
Earn A Living Blogging – Monetization
It can take some time to build up a steady steam of visitors to your site, get them to share your articles on social media, and build a following. This will only happen by creating and sharing good content and offering value. In order to earn a living blogging you will need to monetize your blog in some way.
Adsense
You can do this with Google’s Adsense program. Google gives you some code and you place it on your website. Each time a visitor clicks on your adverts you make a small commission. Adsense can make you a small ‘trickle’ income on top of using other methods. It will only earn you a living if you have thousands of visitors to your site every day. You usually only earn a few pence each time someone clicks your advert but this will depend on your particular topic or niche.
Affiliate Products
Affiliate products allow you to sell someone else’s products on your website. Choose products from anywhere on the web with an affiliate program to suit your particular blog. You can then join their affiliate program and sell their items. Most affiliate programs already have banners and advertising materials which you can use on your blog. Simple search for “‘(your topic)‘” affiliate program” on Google to find products which match your blog niche. Choosing the right affiliate products is a vital part of whether your blog will make money.
Your Own Products
Many bloggers create their own products to sell on their website or give away for free in exchange for an email address. Creating your own products will mean you can set your own price and make more profit on each item you sell. However, it takes time to create your own products and you should ideally learn how to generate traffic first rather than waste time creating products which may never sell! Products bloggers make themselves might be e-books, videos, membership programs and even physical products. However, digital products are the best because they allow you to automate the process of purchase and delivery.
Affiliate Products – Choosing The Right Business Model
Having the right business model built into your products can make all the difference to a blogger. You can either sell 1000 e-books priced at $10 each and make $10,000 (100% profit), or you can sell ten seminars at $2000 each (based on 50% commission) for the same profit. Which do you think would be easier?
Selling high ticket items might be a little more difficult than selling a $10 e-book, but it isn’t 100 times more difficult. Selling 10 seminars is much easier than selling 1000 e-books. Using this idea it is therefore better for the blogger to have a high ticket program to sell on their blog. You can also benefit by selling membership programs which give you monthly commission on sales rather than a ‘one hit’ sale. Choose also products with a built in up-selling sales team who do the selling for you. Take a look at this for more information.
Earn A Living Blogging – List Building
List building is a vital tactic for bloggers. If you have a blog and no list you should get one. Building a list of subscribers means you can send an email out to your list at any time. Relying on Google, social media and paid traffic is costly and precarious. Google can update their algorithms any time and hit web owners with penalties which knock them off the search results. Having a list of subscribers to your blog and building a relationship with your list is a great way to build a good reliable source of traffic to your blog. You can also promote products and services to your list and sell potentially thousands of items in a single email.
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Earn A Living Blogging – Passion
Yes it is possible to earn a living blogging. However, lots of people don’t manage it. It’s a long process taking a brand new blog with nothing on it to a successful money making blog, but it can be done. You need to find something you are passionate about and keep going, even when it doesn’t bring any results straight away. You need to keep trying new things and not expect results immediately. Passion keeps you going. It’s hard to keep blogging about a subject you have no interest in so make sure you choose something you love and are passionate about as a first step.