“How to make money online for a blogger”.
I wonder how many people over the history of the internet have thought about this very thing?
I mean, you hear about people blogging all the time, and originally the concept was a derivative of the words “web log”; like keeping a diary or journal on the internet.
These days blogging has evolved to encompass so much more than someone inputting their thoughts and day to day activities into an online journal. Now the term basically covers writing web content in general. I blog. I do it just about every day, but not in the original sense of blogging. I also make some money from blogging, which is exactly what this post is about.
At the end of the day though, my “blogging” is really all about creating quality and helpful content for my websites, so that hopefully when people read my content they walk away feeling like they gained some value from it, even if only small.
A Famous Blogger
John Chow is arguably one of the most famous bloggers in the history of the internet. As far as I’m aware he’s been blogging virtually since day one of the internet’s inception. Or at least since blogging on the internet began, anyway. There is also no secret about the fact that John Chow has made a lot of money from blogging over the years and continues to do so to this very day.
How does he make money?
Advertising on his sites. He gets so much traffic and has built up such a huge following that companies make big money to advertise with him. He’s also promoted affiliate products and generated leads for companies. John Chow has amassed a massive mailing list that he can send promotions to if he so chooses.
But you don’t have to be the next John Chow to make some money through blogging. Let me explain.
Make Money Blogging – Beginners
We all have to start somewhere. In order to make money from blogging you first have to have a web presence; preferably your own website and domain. Looks more professional right from the outset. Forget those free blogging platforms like Blogger. They are too limited in what you can do, too many restrictions on what you can promote, and having a subdomain as your business URL looks really amateurish. Start out being professional and you will retain that image right throughout your lucrative online career.
Web hosting and a domain name don’t cost much. Usually you can get a domain extra cheap for the first year, often only about $3. And hosting might set you back around $7 a month.
But first you need to choose a niche.
What Is A Niche?
To keep it brief, a niche is merely a subject. Choose something you’re really passionate about, or at least very interested in. You want to pick something that you can write a lot of content on. It’s important. And you don’t want your niche to be too broad, either. Try and narrow it down to a particular area of your subject.
For example, say you chose weight loss as your niche. It’s still quite broad. Maybe trim it down to losing weight on a particular part of the body, or diet pills, or maybe even something like how to lose stubborn fat after pregnancy. Now that’s a good one.
I’ve written a lengthy post on choosing a niche.
What Next?
Once you have settled on your niche, have chosen a domain name and have secured some hosting for your new money making machine of a website, it’s time to start filling it with some content.
Now if you don’t consider yourself a writer, don’t get scared here. Platforms like Word Press have spell checkers and there are free tools on the internet that can help correct your grammar. What’s most important is that you have ideas about what to put on your blogs. You have both knowledge and a passion for your subject. That’s the most important thing to get across on your website, not how well you can write. You don’t need to be Stephen King here.
If you struggle for ideas from time to time, that’s where the internet comes in real handy. A little research will net you heaps of ideas for your niche.
Keyword Research
You need keywords related to the post you are going to write about that get searches in the search engines, but don’t have a lot of competition (other competing websites that use the exact same keyword phrase). You want this keyword to be in the title of your post and naturally that will transpose into the URL for the post as well. Using a free keyword research tool such as Google’s Keyword Planner is a good way to find appropriate keywords.
The title of my post here “How To Make Money Online For A Blogger” is a keyword phrase I chose through doing my research. I didn’t use Keyword Planner, but a better program called “Jaaxy”. My keyword phrase has a reasonable amount of searches per month to make it worthwhile, but with low competition.
Good keyword research means better rankings in the search engines. This leads to higher and higher traffic volumes arriving at your website. That’s what you want. Heaps of traffic. Relevant traffic. Quality traffic. That’s what making money from blogging relies on. Traffic.
I know if you’ve never done any of this before, this information might just be going right over the top of your head. That’s where training comes in, and I’ll get to that in a moment.
Read my in-depth post on keyword research.
Affiliate Programs
This is where making money comes into the picture.
Let’s get back to the lose weight for pregnant women niche as our example. What you will want to do is search out some affiliate programs related to this niche, or just weight loss in general. There are plenty of products out there with affiliate programs in the weight loss niche. Heaps! That’s just an example, anyway.
Once you are a member of a few decent affiliate programs, then you can start placing your unique affiliate link here and there throughout your relevant content. Someone clicks through on your link and makes a purchase. Guess what?
You get paid.
Some commissions are really good, some quite small, but if you get enough of them you will start building yourself some nice income streams.
For ideas on some affiliate programs to check out, take a look at this post.
The Importance Of Good Training
This stuff is all so much easier to learn if you are shown, step-by-step, how to do it right. You need training that takes you from the very beginning all the way through to having a fully-fledged website that makes you money.
That’s what I did, and I’m so glad I chose to do some proper training. Initially I was just intending to go it alone, read bits and pieces off the internet, give it a go and hope for the best. But you know what? I spent months researching affiliate marketing and still had no real clue what to do, where to start or how to go about it.
It wasn’t until I came across the training offered by an aptly-named company called Wealthy Affiliate that it all started to make logical sense. I learnt much of what I know there. I’m still a member, an active one, even after more than a year. Every day I learn something new from the very helpful community of members there.
Wealthy Affiliate offers so much in the way of guiding you in the right direction to be successful in this business. And you can be successful. Anyone can, if they learn how to do it right and put some effort in.
If you truly want to live the dream of making money online as a blogger, then getting training is the most important next step. It’s free to get started on Wealthy Affiliate and have a look around. You can even do the first 10 lessons of training absolutely free. After that there is a paid upgrade option if you want to take it further, but it’s cheap compared to any other form of training, and well worth it financially in the long run. I’m still a paid member there after more than a year, and there are very good reasons for that. It’s worth it to me and the health of my business.
If you would like to learn more about Wealthy Affiliate before visiting their website, then you can read my in-depth review by clicking the banner below.
Darren Burton
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I have never thought about the origins of the word blogger, and you are right, in the past it was all about people just noting down their thoughts for no particular reason other than they wanted to.
This is a really interesting article. I have always wanted to start a blog, but the process seems so daunting, writing for years to earn nothing.
I have bookmarked this page and I am going to come back to it for reference. There is a lot of good solid information here.
Yeah, blogs were always like some sort of online diary, or a way to keep loved ones up to date when you are travelling. These days it encompasses basically all online content.
If you want to get into blogging for a living, check out the Wealthy Affiliate training. It’s pretty easy to follow and makes logical sense. Success from blogging doesn’t happen overnight, but if you do it right you can set up some nice residual income streams.