You’ve heard the hype I’m sure, and your next question is “how can I make money blogging as a beginner?”
Is this a real thing or just more smoke and mirrors hiding the truth about making money?
I’m just a beginner. I’ve never made money online before. This can’t work for a total beginner with no experience – Right?
I have to admit that for a long time I felt as though I was always on the outside looking in – looking in on these relaxed, happy individuals talking about how wonderful their lives became when they adopted the location independent lifestyle of an online business. They threw around seductive words like “passive income”, “4-hour work weeks”, “beachfront office views”, “get paid while you vacation” and the list goes on.
It’s very easy to observe the perks of that lifestyle. You see it everywhere you go online. But when you try to start a business like the gurus have, do you find yourself staring at your laptop thinking, “what next?”
If this describes you, and you are frustrated that you have no idea how to make your first dollar online, then let us help you crack the code of blogging success through this series of posts.
Yes, you can make money blogging. In fact, a blog is probably one of the easiest ways for a solo entrepreneur to start building an online asset that can generate income.
However, I would be remiss if I didn’t disclose both the good and the bad of blogging for money.
Serious money will not happen in 30 days. Blogging is a marathon. In order to be successful at this you will need to change your mindset.
Yes, it would be cool to make a healthy six figures – or even seven figures – per year from your site. Many people have made enough money from their blog to fund their lifestyle and quit their 9 to 5 job.
However, you need to decide right now that you will get just as excited when you make your very first dollar from blogging. Then plan your celebration for reaching your first $100 month, because that is how this will start. But once it gets going, the income can get pretty exciting.
Plan Your Blog
Do you know what you want to blog about?
Most articles you read on blogging will recommend you blog about your passion. Maybe it’s a hobby, a sport or some other activity.
Passion topics are great to blog about, but you can tackle other topics as well.
Types of Blogs
A passion blog is generally considered a personal blog. You will likely speak to your readers in a personal, conversational tone.
You must first understand the differences in blogs. Some blogs are simply an outlet for something you are very passionate about. It’s possible to make money from your passion, but the level of money you make may not be substantial. It really depends on your blog niche.
On the other hand you might have a business niche. If you select carefully, you can
Stats for which niches make the most money
Types of blogs:
Passion blogs
Business blogs for brand awareness
How To Make Money Blogging
There are 3 basic ways to make money from your blog.
1. Advertisements
This is truly a passive way to earn money off of your blog and is something that will achieve a reasonable income once you have decent traffic to your blog. You will add a little piece of code to your site and ad networks like Google AdSense or OTHER will display ads on your site automatically. These ads will be relevant to the topic of your blog. As interested readers click on these ads, you earn money from the ad network.
Building traffic to your blog is that marathon race we talked about earlier.
Attracting readers to your content requires great keyword research, good SEO, and some great backlinks to your site. To jump start this process, you can always launch some paid search advertising or a simple Facebook post to bring in readers before the organic efforts achieve great rankings.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is when you offer information or products that are created by someone else and you receive a commission from the sale. This could be something as simple as displaying blog-related Amazon products on your site.
The affiliate account will give you a specific link to use that tells the product owner that you referred the buyer. Once a sale is complete, you are paid the specified commission.
Some affiliate programs will also pay you for leads. An example might be an attorney who specializes in wills. The attorney is willing to pay for any website that gets interested readers to click on the attorney’s ad and fill out a form to receive a consultation.
3. Your Own Products
The thought of creating your own products – much less selling them – might make you nervous, but trust me this should be your ultimate goal.
Think about this. When you sell your own products, you are keeping all of the profit. No more earning a small percentage for referring a buyer to someone else’s product. This is all you.
Creating your own product is achievable, but if you aren’t already in the business of selling your own merchandise, services or products then just relax.
This should be the final but ultimate destination for your business. And you can take your time to get there.
In the short term, I would recommend selling affiliate products (either through your own authority blog or with a small niche-specific blog). As you develop traffic, add some display marketing to your site and capitalize off of every visitor.
Final Thoughts
First, this is all very doable.
But keep in mind that this takes time. Content for you blog and traffic to your blog will not happen overnight.
Finally, while you are building this great blog make sure that you start building an email list of visitors.
These days you can lose your hosting or your social media accounts just by saying something others don’t agree with. When that happens, the companies that own your hosting or the companies that run your social media account can just as easily take them away from you.
Your email list is the only thing that no one can take away. It will be your greatest and most valuable asset.
Join our mailing list and we’ll prove it to you.
