We all want money, and earning it through your blog may be one way to do it.
You might think well, I know I can earn money through my blog, and that may be true enough, but in all honesty, it also may be harder than you think.
I think most people enter the blogging world with the idea that if you build it they will come. You consider that you have this amazing idea that people will naturally flock to and just want to read!
However, most of these same people launch a blog with their great idea and they find that they have almost no visitors to it. Talk about frustrating and deflating.
Not all blogs are created equal
One thing to keep in mind when you set out to make money with your blog is that your topic must resonate with readers.
For example if you write about gear widgets, you might want to check and see if your topic resonates with readers who also think gear widgets rock!
However, if you consider writing a mom blog, think about how your blog could stand out and what spin you might put on your blog posts.
Even then, you may write on a topic that resonates with readers and a number of things could occur. It may be anything from marketing, to finances, blog design, or the competition.
Whatever topic you choose, research it thoroughly, and consider some ideas to help you market and drive traffic to your blog.
Consider the following ideas to help you make money from your blog.
Tips for Money-Making on Your Blog
When you want to make money with your blog, it helps to create great content, optimizeforSEO, identify your audience, and monetize strategically.
Try these tips to increase your chances of making money with your blog.
Create Quality Content
Ensure that you create quality content on your blog that resonates with your target readership.
Provide tons of information that provides value and draws in a large audience.
Optimize for SEO
If you do not know already, SEO, or search engine optimization is how search engines identify relevant content.
Create content that resonates with your readership and use the same SEO your readers search for.
Engage with your audience
Build a community with your audience, whether it is on your blog or on social media. Interact with them and reply to comments and messages.
Set up an automatic reply to messages on social media or blog comments. Then, reply within a timely fashion to questions or requests.
Monetize strategically
While you might be tempted to just use overkill when it comes to your affiliate links and ad boxes, it works better if you consider where they are best placed and how.
Placing links in locations where they make sense and fit within the context of your blog posts and newsletters helps bring more clicks. Fitting ads above the header or at the top and bottom of your blog has been proven to bring more clicks.
Study your data and consider carefully how well your ads and links bring in clicks and interest will help you best position them to work for you.
How to Make Money With Your Blog
Considering these things above, now investigate how you would best find the way to make money.
The categories below are general and offer you suggestions and links on how to turn your blog into a money-making small business that can grow over time.
Advertising
Probably the most common money-making idea comes from setting up advertising with your blog. Advertising means placing a code on your blog that allows pop up ads on your blog when reader visits it.
If your blog gets a lot of traffic already, your. However, if you struggle to bring in traffic, this idea may need to wait.
The most common advertisement company used on newer blogs is Google’s AdSense.
Once you increase your traffic, you can sign up for some of the larger companies that require thousands of views a day.
Affiliate Marketing
When you use affiliate marketing on your blog you also add code or a link for a specific company and their product or products.
Companies like Amazon, Shareasale, and ClickBank give you specific links for items or companies to add in the middle of a blog post, or to highlight certain products in a post or in your newsletter to blog subscribers.
Amazon uses specific product links to help drive sales for you. While Shareasale and ClickBank work with larger retailers and provide links for products or stores. They give you a specific link, which you then market for sales on your blog.
Still other companies offer bundles, which many bloggers share when they sign up. Usually they offer webinars with digital bundle downloads and then you promote an share the emails they pass on to you for a timely promotion.
Either way, the link is specific to you and your account with the company, which, when clicked on gives you a part of the sale.
Selling products
Whether you have an online store on your blog, or linked to your blog, you may want to make money with your blog by selling items from your homepage or the sidebar on your blog.
Selling products that relate to the theme or topic of your blog helps build a drive traffic as well as sales for your products.
Stores like PayHip and TeachersPayTeachers, keep a portion of your sale. While other online stores such as Shopify and WooCommerce require that you pay them a monthly fee to host your store. You can sell both digital downloads or individual products.
Only WooCommerce has a widget set up to help you run your store directly from your WordPress blog. Most other stores give you a direct link to set up your store, which you can link in your menu bar or to the side bar on your blog.
Email Marketing
One of the most commonly used methods of making money with your blog uses email marketing.
Email marketing involves setting up email collection with your blog and then sending out a regular email to your audience. While sending out marketing emails with an affiliate link helps make money, most people do not want to only hear from you when you want to sell something.
Email marketing involves building and creating a newsletter with an occasional sales email, or a link listed within your newsletter for those who may be interested in a related product.
Install Membership Plugins
When you pay WordPress or other web hosting companies for the ability to add plugins to your blog, you can easily set up membership plugins for members only.
MembershipPress, Paid Memberships Pro, Wishlist Member, Member Mouse, and Restrict Content Pro are all paid membership plugins you can install to create and control membership only content.
However, be prepared to pay a rather large sum of money to gain access to these plugins.
Hosting Webinars
If you run a course or have a large bundle product for sale, you may want to host a webinar, where you enlist a group of other bloggers or business owners who want to teach a specific group of people something.
You might meet up with a group of writers, or other bloggers. Or, if you are an artist and want to sell a bundle teaching others how to paint or draw, you may want to get together with other artists that have something similar to sell.
The sky is the limit when you work with others to bundle your ideas in one great saleable package for others to download.
Strategic Planning for Money-Making Helps
The old idea that build a blog and they will come really is not true. When you want to make money with your blog, you must strategically plan to make money.
Make sure you place your links in places on your blog where they have a higer chance of getting clicked. If you place a link for moms on a that writes about tech, your chances of someone clicking on a mom link greatly drops.
However, if you place a mom link for strollers on a post written on a stroller review post, your chances dramatically increased. That does not mean they will actually click on it, but you have a chance that someone will.
Finally, if you do all of this, and still do not get the links you want or need, work on these blog traffic tips to increase your blog traffic.
