In a jar full of reasons why we blog, blogging for money gains always tops others. Many often wave out blogging whenever the discussion is about making money online.
If given the right time and attention, blogging can offer you a full-time income instead of a passive income. Now, it does not matter where you reside to blog, Google has equal visibility for every blogger putting in the work, and that, will not change any time soon.
Therefore, if you wish to make money off blogging, you need to get into a comfy position as I take you through the journey. Blogging for money is like a two-way coin; you either follow the right path and arrive sooner or follow the wrong part and keep going in circles.
I stand with everyone who picked the former and if that is you, let’s do some learning, shall we?
What is blogging though?
First, we must define a blog to understand what blogging is all about rightly. A weblog, a.k.a blog, is a website built to receive regular posts in reverse chronological order.
The posts are particularly scheduled or posted in real-time and in such a way that they target a certain audience. Blogs can be used for business or personal gains and run by one or more persons.
Now, to blogging. Blogging is the process of writing, editing, proofreading, and posting on the blog. It does not stop there, it may include pictures and videos that will accompany your written content in such a way as to ‘voice’ your opinion or share your thoughts on a topic.
To blog for money requires you to become strategic with this venture. Many things are huge factors that must be considered before you become profitable.
Real soon, we will delve into a list of what can help you begin blogging for money, regardless of your location.
Step by step to begin blogging for money
Let me assume that you are still about to own a blog. If this is true, then, you must follow these steps religiously.
Think of a good niche for your blog
You can arguably say that the bedrock of having a profitable blog is finding a great niche. Niches are important in how easy or fast your new blog can thrive.
Some highly profitable niches are already becoming very saturated. However, that should not deter you from going in.
The only thing you must do is to brace up and face the challenges that must surely surface while growing your blog. Decide not to quit on your blog when you begin building.
More so, these saturated yet profitable niches have many sub-niches where you can pitch your tent and grow without hassles. To find these sub-niches, research in that area and find some unanswered questions that pop up regularly whenever the topic comes up.
You can decide to build more content around those questions and solve that problem. This way, many people will turn to your blog for guidance.
Let us look at some examples of some profitable niches and their sub-niches.
Real Estate
Real estate is a super profitable niche but has become saturated over the years. As a new blogger who wishes to go into real estate blogging, you can pick any of the sub-niches below:
- Luxury homes
- Condos
- Vacation houses
- Distressed Properties
- Shortlets
- Beach front houses
- Commercial properties
- Farmhouses
Now, the success of your real estate sub-niche blogging will largely depend on your target audience, location, and market availability.
Health
The health niche is very profitable, but it may be hard for newbie bloggers to compete with big names like Health line, Mayo Clinic, and Co. Therefore, instead of building a health blog that talks about everything health, you can niche down more into a specific health topic and become an authority there.
Some of the sub-niches in health include the following:
- Nutrition
- Fitness
- Weight loss
- Yoga
- Mental health
- Digestive Health
- Heart health
- Pregnancy care
- Women Health
- Men’s Health
- Sexual Health
Finance
The finance niche is quite lucrative and overpopulated. To stay afloat and relevant, you can set up your blog in the following sub-niches:
- Investment
- Credit cards
- Budgeting
- Personal Finance
- Savings
- Debt management
- Passive income
- Insurance
- Cryptocurrency
- Trading
Parenting
The parenting niche is evergreen and highly profitable. To become successful in this niche, you must go further down into these sub-niches:
- Newborn care
- Breastfeeding
- Toddler care
- New mom care
- Postpartum Tips
- Teenage parenting Tips
- Homeschooling
- Adoption
- Baby sign language
- Busy moms
- Single parenting tips
Travel
Sub niches for a travel blogger are:
- Destination weddings
- Summer holidays
- Hotels
- Family vacation tips
- Honeymoon spots
- Mountaineering
- Cuisine
- Road trip tips
- Camping tips
- Tourist attractions
- Travel budgeting
- Solo travels
All these options are not on the exhaustive list. They are the most popular sub-niches in their niches and have high chances of becoming profitable, all things being equal.
It is worth noting that you can still carve out sub-sub-niches for faster growth inside these sub-niches.
For example, the sub-niche in finance is insurance. The insurance niche has become highly competitive. To carve out a safe corner, you can still niche down to car insurance, health insurance, homeowners insurance, etc.
You must also know that there are some profitable niches with low competition. It means that not all the profitable niches are already over-saturated or with high competition.
Some of those niches include:
- Blogging
- Skincare
- Pet-friendly blog
- Home Decor
- Etc
Choose a domain name
When choosing a domain name, you must be very thoughtful. Domain names are permanent so you can not wake up one morning and decide to change it.
As we always say, your domain name is your online address. This means you have to pick it with all intentionality as it holds the power to decide how great your blog can become.
As one willing to blog for money, you can not be careless about choosing a domain name. Religiously take the following steps to ensure you are on the right track.
Go the simple way
Picking a simple domain name can not be overemphasized. A simple yet unique domain name can help your blog to be easily searchable.
A complicated name can make a reader find your blog hard to read, make them frustrated, and lose interest.
Make it short
As a rule of thumb, your domain name should not exceed 10 letters. Short domain names are easier to remember, especially when they are simple and unique.
When you have a short domain name, it sticks to memory and helps people find your blog easily.
Use the right extension
A dot com extension is always a top-tier and a better option. However, getting what you want in a dot com extension sometimes becomes difficult.
You are free to explore other extensions such as dot co or dot ai, etc. Look for these alternatives only if you’ve tried your best and could not get a .com extension.
That said, if you have a business that targets only your local geographical area, you can use domain extensions related to your country. For example, businesses targeting only the US population can use the .com.us. The UK-targeted businesses can use the .com.uk extension. The Nigerian blogs targeting the Nigerian audience alone can use the .com.ng, etc.
Government blogs and websites go for the .gov extension as it shows national authority and supremacy. Organizations use the .org which shows organization-owned.
Do not punctuate your domain name
Your domain name becomes complicated and problematic once you introduce a punctuation mark in it. Your readers will have a hard time figuring your domain name out and new readers may get frustrated and stop searching and returning to the blog.
Use targeted keywords and niche related name
There are high search volume keywords within your niche that will perfectly fit into your domain name. You must perform some extensive keyword research to see if you can coin out a domain name from your niche-related keywords.
The benefits are great if you could pull this off. With keywords in your domain name, your blog will keep popping up with every search on the niche you belong to. More so, it becomes easier for you to rank as soon as you start publishing helpful content regularly.
Avoid trademarked names
Some names on the internet or outside it are already trademarked. You should be aware of this and avoid using even a similar name for your blog. Your blog and brand deserve a unique name that is free of confusion and too many talks about how yours is spelled ‘z’ while theirs is spelled ‘s’.
To help you make your domain name search easier, do a trademark search before settling for a name. You eliminate the stress of going back and forth with the wrong names.
Do not be boxed in forever
If you do not intend to close down your blog after a few years, think of a domain name that can encompass more related businesses and expand into other geographical areas. Take, for example, buying a domain name that is made up of trendy slang for a particular region may be a recipe for disaster.
The reason is that the trendy phrase will phase out and affect your blog’s growth massively. So to stay in business and stay growing, think about the future and not the now.
Make your blog easy and accessible
Think of user experience when setting up your blog. Right from the way you design your interface, down to leaving a space for readers to read and interact with you. Every piece of detail must be done with users in mind.
Many bloggers also make the mistake of covering up their entire blog space with ads. This practice is not only tiring but it frustrates a reader and they leave to find other blogs with less ad noise.
Always remember that you created the blog in the first place to inform readers and help them find a solution to their problems. Forcing ads into their faces at every turn can be a huge turnoff.
Therefore, while advertising on your blog, keep the pop-ups in moderation.
Other factors that affect a successful blogging for money experience in your blog setup
Write short sentences and clear paragraphs. Ensure your content flows into each other smoothly without throwing your readers into some confused state. This helps readability and understanding.
Use fonts that are readable and bold enough for everyone. When it comes to blogging, designed fonts may not be what you need.
Label and optimize all your blog images and videos. Use clear and appropriately sized images so as not to draw down your blog’s speed.
Arrange your content accordingly, especially if you write on different subniches on your blog.
Always take a glance at your permalink to ensure it is well in order and your keyword for each blog post is captured properly and in the right size. To achieve this, ensure your topic or the part where your keyword appeared is not longer than the characters needed. Keep it within 70 characters, to be on the safe side.
If you have read up to this point, congratulations, your blog is about to make you happy. However, the information you have is not all you need. Let us continue.
Also Read:Â Â How to increase your blog traffic organically
Learn to write and do it consistently
Learn to write captivating SEO-rich content and be consistent about it. In the world of writing, content is king and consistency is queen.
You attract readers to your blog with your SEO skills but you keep them glued and reading with your artful writing skills. For your blogging to be a smooth journey, you must learn SEO best practices or employ excellent writers to do the job for you.
SEO will help you to build traffic and get your blog ready for monetization quickly. Once your blog becomes monetized, you are on your way to making money blogging.
Now that you know what to do while setting up your blog and the type of content to post, let us go on and find out the fastest way to make money blogging.
The thing is, blogging for money comes in various ways. Though some are truly riskier and faster than others, the right question to ask is:
- Is this method sustainable in the long run?
- Can I afford it?
- Can I be patient enough to see my hard work turn into results?
- What if something happens to this method and it affects my blog and money, can I survive it?
Let me assume you have answered these questions. Our how-to blogging for money list is just a scroll down. One after the other, we would learn different ways to start earning with your blog. Shall we?
Google Adsense
Monetization means your blog is making money for you. Firstly, you must get your blog monetized by enrolling in Google Adsense. Google Adsense allows Google to place adverts on your blog and once people visit your blog and click on those adverts, you will get paid.
For this to happen, you must consistently grow your blog with SEO-rich content and best practices.
Arbitrage blogging
Arbitrage blogging is purely for individuals who are aggressively blogging for money. This method deals with purchasing traffic to generate large revenue from your blog. It is becoming the fastest method of blogging for money.
However, it comes with many risks, including a permanent ban from Google. This method of making money from blogging is never for the weak at heart.
Using your blog to sell products and services
Say you have some ebooks for sale, you have merch to sell, a video course, mentorship classes, etc. Your blog can be the right place to sell those services or products.
All you need to do is drive appropriate traffic to your blog and ensure you are targeting the right audience.
Sponsored reviews
Many bloggers make a lot of money from blogging by using their blogs to write sponsored reviews for businesses. Before you toe this blogging path, you must have grown your blog organically to attract many visitors in a month.
Your high traffic will attract companies and businesses and pay for you to review their products or services.
Sell ads space
Many bloggers sell ad slots on their blogs to make money. Selling ads slots helps you be in control more than relying on Google to do the work for you.
Selling ad space for big companies to advertise on your blog means you have built your blog to great traffic heights and you have the right audience. The good thing about this style of blogging for money is that it pays better than AdSense if you do it correctly.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing has become a major source of income for some bloggers. Here’s how it works; you use your blog to review and recommend products for your audience, and when they make a purchase, you will receive a commission from the product you sold.
Now, these are not your products. To have access to them, you must register with the company as an Affiliate to sell to your audience.
Before I summarize this post, one important factor you need to know is that you can combine two or three of these methods and apply them to your blog to make the most of the blogging income idea.
While at that, ensure that you do not lose focus as to why your blog was there in the first place– to offer value to your readers.
Blogging for money will never go out of style. It is a means of building wealth in a stress-free way, and you should explore it.
