How to Make Money Blogging in 2016
Here, you may ask why you need that much patience to make money blogging? This is only because of the competition, there are millions of blogs, and bloggers write the everyday countless number of words. How can you be on top? If you have an answer to this, then you have it in you.
Blogging in 2016 is all about content marketing, you have to market your content and have a definite plan, you do not have room for any blogging mistakes.
Just think of the ratio here – millions of blogs are out there, and only thousands of them make money. Why is it?
To start a blog on WordPress, you need a domain name as well. Domain name should be unique, easy to spell, concise and memorable.
After selecting your domain name, you will require signing up and pay a nominal fee for hosting that domain.
Web hosting for beginners has been made pretty easy, you can select the cheapest of the plans provided and get yourself a shared hosting account costing about $3.95 a month, it is less than a coffee at a good restaurant.
Step 2 – Start writing articles that can help people, or are searching. Opening a blog will not give you traffic or visitors, you have to earn them.
You need to write content that is either adding value to what people search. For example – if people are searching for best games for iPhone and you have written an article on the same topic than with proper content marketing you can reach a potential audience.
Step 3 – Once you produce valuable content the next step is to build rapport or relationship with your audience.
A good relationship can give you long term benefit, and you make new friends and lots more. All of this can be done with being active on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Another popular way to build a relationship with potential visitors is by commenting on blogs (other than yours). This way you can reach out to a new audience that can be found on your competitors website. With a valid comment you can gain visitors attraction towards you, hence earning a visit to your domain would be easy.
Step 4 – Grow your blog, expertise in your niche, keep exploring more into the topic you have chosen. The more information you provide to your visitor the more trusts you can build.
The blog is not the only way bloggers make money; they branch out to various other streams of income that sometimes works better than their blog. Take an example of launching your books, products, etc. once you have some loyal readers in your blog, you can recommend them to buy stuff produced by you.
This can only be achieved if you have earned trust. So, before monetizing your blog, just make sure you have enough people that follow you and don’t overdo by selling yourself too much.
Step 5 – Picking the good stream of income is the last and final step that will help you make money blogging. From hundreds and thousands of methods available in the market, you have many good options to choose between and by trying out few you will surely find which one works.
The beauty of blogging is the freedom you have to choose a different kind of income streams.
Now you know what is blogging, how to grow your blog and ways to reach out and build a loyal audience, it is time to see which options are there to monetize a blog.
I would categorize it into four categories:
I have web design & development services that I offer at my company website Web Seasoning. I have a blog going there and a portfolio of stuff I have done. You can do many more such things as your service and offer it on your blog.
This is another way people make money blogging. Blog about why your service is supreme and whom all can take the benefit. There are many examples of home-based blogs that offer services like writing, SEO, server management, WordPress related and much more.
With this, I complete my post on how to make money blogging. I know there may be more ways to do it, but these four ways are the most popular and used ones. Do share your comments below, what have worked for you and what haven’t? I would love to answer your queries and any other confusion.
Moreover, don’t stop exploring new ways to make money blogging. Cheers.!
Here, you may ask why you need that much patience to make money blogging? This is only because of the competition, there are millions of blogs, and bloggers write the everyday countless number of words. How can you be on top? If you have an answer to this, then you have it in you.
Blogging in 2016 is all about content marketing, you have to market your content and have a definite plan, you do not have room for any blogging mistakes.
Just think of the ratio here – millions of blogs are out there, and only thousands of them make money. Why is it?
Step by Step Guide to Make Money Blogging
Step 1: Start a blog with WordPress as your blogging platform. (Why WordPress? Because it is the most popular way to earn money)To start a blog on WordPress, you need a domain name as well. Domain name should be unique, easy to spell, concise and memorable.
After selecting your domain name, you will require signing up and pay a nominal fee for hosting that domain.
Web hosting for beginners has been made pretty easy, you can select the cheapest of the plans provided and get yourself a shared hosting account costing about $3.95 a month, it is less than a coffee at a good restaurant.
Step 2 – Start writing articles that can help people, or are searching. Opening a blog will not give you traffic or visitors, you have to earn them.
You need to write content that is either adding value to what people search. For example – if people are searching for best games for iPhone and you have written an article on the same topic than with proper content marketing you can reach a potential audience.
Step 3 – Once you produce valuable content the next step is to build rapport or relationship with your audience.
A good relationship can give you long term benefit, and you make new friends and lots more. All of this can be done with being active on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Another popular way to build a relationship with potential visitors is by commenting on blogs (other than yours). This way you can reach out to a new audience that can be found on your competitors website. With a valid comment you can gain visitors attraction towards you, hence earning a visit to your domain would be easy.
Step 4 – Grow your blog, expertise in your niche, keep exploring more into the topic you have chosen. The more information you provide to your visitor the more trusts you can build.
The blog is not the only way bloggers make money; they branch out to various other streams of income that sometimes works better than their blog. Take an example of launching your books, products, etc. once you have some loyal readers in your blog, you can recommend them to buy stuff produced by you.
This can only be achieved if you have earned trust. So, before monetizing your blog, just make sure you have enough people that follow you and don’t overdo by selling yourself too much.
Step 5 – Picking the good stream of income is the last and final step that will help you make money blogging. From hundreds and thousands of methods available in the market, you have many good options to choose between and by trying out few you will surely find which one works.
The beauty of blogging is the freedom you have to choose a different kind of income streams.
Now you know what is blogging, how to grow your blog and ways to reach out and build a loyal audience, it is time to see which options are there to monetize a blog.
I would categorize it into four categories:
- Advertising
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product selling
- Selling services
Advertising can generate direct earning from your blog/website, hence its quite different from other income sources.
Display Ads
You must have seen many advertising banners on a website/blog, they are placed at a position like sidebars, inside content, headers, and footers. These ads are similar to the graphics and images we see on billboards and magazines.
Ads are made such that they complement content of your blog so that visitors get attracted towards these and click on them to purchase or take service that is offered.
Display ads are provided by a middleman known as ad networks and these ad networks are helping bloggers (publishers) connect with advertisers. They take care of all the legalities and negotiation, hence taking a small percentage from the profit you make. They are very popular and attractive to all kind of bloggers as they take a load of finding advertisers and negotiating with them.
Some very popular ad networks on the internet are Google Adsense, Media.net, Sovrn, Blogads, BlogHer, Federated Media, Beacon Ads, Rivet, and Sway. Apart from these there are many more ad networks that are quite good, and once you get to hold of your niche I am sure you will explore them yourself.
Other than Displaying ads from an ad network you can also sell the ad on your own. Make an advertising page on your blog that contains information about your audience. Where are they from and how much views do your blog gets monthly. Many advertisers would like to place an on your site directly.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate programs are another very popular way to earn money through your blog. If you have the ability to write good reviews and stories about a product, you could make millions.
Affiliate marketing does not have middle men like the display ads, and if they are middlemen then it not at all necessary. The advertisers that offer affiliate have mostly detailed documentation on how to integrate an affiliate link to your article. Just follow those steps and you would get the best results.
This type of advertising requires a broad knowledge of products and a good number of followers. Without followers, your affiliate marketing can go wrong. Use any organic traffic from search engines to get started with Affiliate marketing, but remember don’t do it too much otherwise your ranking may get affected due to too many links on page.
Selling Products
Selling products like ebooks, useful plugins, themes for a website can also add-ons to your income. Many popular bloggers around the world have created their products, and it turns out to be the biggest income source. Darren Rowse from Problogger.net has earned $72,000 in about eight weeks of selling ebooks alone.Selling services
Do you have any special skills that you can provide to your blog audience, maybe you are good at writing, or you may have great speaking skills?I have web design & development services that I offer at my company website Web Seasoning. I have a blog going there and a portfolio of stuff I have done. You can do many more such things as your service and offer it on your blog.
This is another way people make money blogging. Blog about why your service is supreme and whom all can take the benefit. There are many examples of home-based blogs that offer services like writing, SEO, server management, WordPress related and much more.
With this, I complete my post on how to make money blogging. I know there may be more ways to do it, but these four ways are the most popular and used ones. Do share your comments below, what have worked for you and what haven’t? I would love to answer your queries and any other confusion.
Moreover, don’t stop exploring new ways to make money blogging. Cheers.!