Many of my friends ask me, do you really make money with a blog and I tell them yes, I do! Its agonising when you have to repeat it daily.
So finally I decided to write about how a blogger actually makes money with a blog. First of all, let me make it clear, you can actually make $30 to $40k annually from your blog provided that you have a really successful blog.
Now for most of you guys and gals, making $30-$40k from a website that’s pretty awesome, that’s almost an annual salary for most. To imagine that you will actually get paid for writing, that too $30-$40k from a website and you get to work on your own hours, from the comfort of your home and no boss to ruin it for you.
The thing is, it is very easy to start a blog but what many bloggers don’t know is how to monetize and make money with their blog.
So, here are some tips to make money with a blog.
AdSense
Most of the new bloggers fail to make money with AdSense. Generally, they want to make money but they don’t go with proper strategy and planning. So the first thing to earn money from your blog is by generating tons of traffic so that google can serve ads to them.
These days anybody can start blogging which is why ad networks are reluctant to monetize new blogs and google AdSense is the most sought after ad network which is why their approval conditions are tougher than the most. But if you just follow these steps you can get your google AdSense account verified.
Get a .com domain name beacuse it looks professional and is better for SEO. Create at least 4 pages including a contact and about me page. Write 2 posts per day for about 600-1000 words up to 30 posts.
After you have done the above apply for the Google Ad sense program and I can guarantee your AdSense application will be approved.
Many bloggers end up getting their blogs demonetized due to illegal activity, so before you move ahead read all the AdSense rules. Below I have listed some major ones.
Never click on your own ads.
Don’t put more than 3 Ad blocks on a page.
Never modify Ad sense code.
Use only one AdSense account for all your websites.
Don’t use image widgets around Ads.
Place Ads only on full content Pages.
Never share copyrights images, videos, links and content texts.
These rules are pretty easy to follow if you are into blogging for the long game.
Now you can earn money with Google AdSense by displaying ads on your blog. But to earn money with a blog through AdSense you need really good traffic and to get more traffic on your website you should learn SEO (Search engine optimization) and marketing techniques.
What is SEO
Search engine optimization is a technique to increase the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. Basically you optimize your articles to appear on the first page of google search.
Marketing techniques
You can use different marketing techniques to promote your content on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the biggest revenue source to make money with a blog. Basically you promote stuff on your blog and for every sale though your blog you make a certain commission. Now this commission depends on the product you are selling. You can earn 10 times more by promoting digital content then you would make by promoting a clothing line.
Affiliate marketing is one of the smartest ways to make money, and it should never be overlooked. So where ever there is a need for a product to be bought insert the product. Make people buy that product and soon you’ll be making good money with your blog.
Now one thing that must be remembered when you start promoting affiliate links is that never oversell. This will decrease the quality of your blog and turn the reader away. Only provide them with valuable content and sell them valuable products.
Some of the best platforms for beginners to start affiliate marketing are:
Amazon affiliate
Mili web’s affiliate marketing program Click bank
JvZoo
Peerfly
Digital products
Imagine selling your own product instead of someone else’s. Instead of making maybe 10% 15% commission you make 100% of the sale.
This is why popular bloggers who have great content to offer provide their readers which premium content for a price. This content can be anything from a marketing course to a cooking eBook. As long as the reader trusts your knowledge he’ll be willing to buy it.
The thing with selling your own products on your blog is that you need to be a successful blogger because only then people start paying for your words. Also keep in mind that if you provide someone with valuable content in your products they will be likely to return or refer to your blog which in turn can help you sell more products.
Promoting your other channels
Now one of my favourite things about blogging is that you can make yourself into a brand, a product of sort. This way people who admire your work or were genuinely affected by your work will be willing to follow you on your social media handles or checkout your YouTube channel.
You can make people go to your website where you sell them a mug or t-shirt. Make them subscribe to your YouTube channel, visit your other blogs, buy stocks that you trade in.
What I mean is make them make you money.
This is what people like Ankur Aggarwal and Dan lok have done. They presented themselves as successful in their niche so that people value their word.
But for this you need to create a successful blog first. You can read my previous post about how to create a successful niche based blog.
