Blogging is one of the best ways to make money with affiliate marketing. If you are willing to work hard and play the long game, this might be your best tactic moving forward. You can earn extra hundreds or even thousands of dollars every month, and some blogs make the blog owners even wealthy.
But blogging will not make you rich overnight, obviously. It requires a lot of dedication and hard work to achieve the level of success you desire.
Here are the steps to follow to make money with a blog:
1) Choose Your Niche Wisely
The first thing is to determine the niche or target market for your blog. Start by thinking about what you want to write about. You do not need a revolutionary idea. When choosing a niche, make sure you choose what you enjoy – a LOT! This not only makes it much easier to make (long) blog posts, it also makes you invest in it more time almost automatically. Blogging is really addictive, and you feel like you’re building something. I think every marketer has to have at least one blog about his or her favorite topic.
Never blog about something you’re not having much affinity with the main subject. This is because you will not never consistently create top-notch content this way, believe me, I’ve been there.
Write down things you love most, and like learning more deeply about.
Remember, you can only start to earn decent money if your blog has a large enough audience. Now, you need to find out the estimated number of potential customers with SEO tools like Ahrefs or Semrush.
2) Give Your Blog a Cool (and Fitting) Name
You need to be careful when choosing the name for your blog. You want to go with an easier-to-remember and catchier name. Also, the name should align better with your niche. Choosing the name of your blog is both daunting and exciting. That’s because it is your brand name and it determines how people can remember you.
Follow these guidelines to name your blog:
- It should be concise and short
- Easy to spell and say
- Liked by the target audience
- Reflect on what the blog is about
This is my favorite free tool to find awesome names: Namelix
Take your time learning this awesome free tool, because the different settings give so much different results.
Write down the best ones, choose your favorites, wait a day, decide on ‘the one’ and start looking for the best domain. More on this later in its own blog post.
3) Choose a Reliable Web Hosting Company
The one and most important thing to bring your WordPress blog(s) alive is your hosting. There are many web hosting companies out there. Make sure you go for a reliable web hosting company. I use InMotion, and I couldn’t be happier with my choice. they’re really reliable and super fast. And price-wise they’re one of the best too.
Some web hosting packages come with a free domain name. You can take advantage of this to register your domain name free of charge. When starting out, you can even go for the cheapest hosting packages. Although these have limits on monthly visits and site storage, you can upgrade later when you have started making money.
Since you are starting out, you should choose WordPress as your content management system (CMS). Usually, this is a one-click install with your hosting company.
4) Choose a Good Looking & Stable WordPress Theme
Now you need to choose an affordable and attractive WordPress theme. The appearance of your blog can help drive website traffic. Thus, you want to ensure your website is aesthetically pleasing. I recently discovered the JNews theme from Themeforest I love it. It’s really flexible and looks amazing. If you haven’t chosen your WP theme yet, you must have a look at this theme.
The WordPress ‘Galaxy’ is huge, and there are thousands if not 10’s of thousands of themes you can use. Make sure you only choose a template that suits your business’s and niche’s style.
5) Learn the Basics of On-Page SEO
As you already know, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is immensely important. If you want to rank higher in popular search engines, like Google, you need to do it right. You need to optimize your website to rank for specific phrases and keywords.
Keywords should be inserted into your blog articles naturally. With WordPress, you can use SEO plugins, such as Yoast SEO. These plugins will offer you improvement suggestions and tips based on your target keywords. Follow them to optimize your content.
The book on SEO every single marketer should have in their collection is The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization (Edition 3). It’s an older book but still extremely relevant. It’s written by 3 highly respected SEO professionals and gives you an incredibly deep insight into how it all works.
6) Find Interesting Content to Write About
When it comes to blogging, the most important thing you need to do is to keep on providing your readers with interesting content all the time. Shoot for at least 2 blog posts per week.
Focus on niche-specific questions only. The following questions should guide you to come up with interesting blog topic ideas:
- What’s most exciting or intriguing for your audience?
- What are the challenges your readers are facing at this moment in time?
- Do you know the reader’s personality traits – can you form a ‘character’?
As you come up with blog topic ideas, write them down. This is the blueprint you need for crafting catchy headlines. The better they are, the more your click-through rates (CTR) will improve.
7) Start to Monetize Your Blog
You can only make money through your blog by monetizing it. There are different ways you can do this. You don’t want to overdo this. Many people put way too many banners and other ‘crap’ on their blog, and this deters most potential customers away. Don’t fall into this trap. Try to strive for a balance here as well. A well-placed banner ad, and one or 2 text link(s) on every page, are all you need.
One of the best ways to send the traffic to (via a hyperlink), is by promoting affiliate offers.
For promoting affiliate offers, you should join Clickbank. It’s an awesome way to start generating money from your blog. Make sure you only promote products you checked on quality.
For display advertising, you can join platforms such as Google AdSense, Ezoic, and Mediavine. There are many other platforms you can also join. Avoid bombarding your blog with lots of ads. Rather, go for targeted ads.
Always work consistently and remain focused. Keep on improving your blog and build trust with your audience. It’s a long-way strategy that, if done right, can provide you with potential customers for years to come! That’s the real beauty of blogging.
The Conclusion
In the end, it all comes down to knowing what actions you must take to achieve your financial goals! And then take (massive) action, on a daily basis. The #1 reason people fail to succeed online is they didn’t choose the right ‘vehicle’, or business blueprint, and have no clear plan of action.
But that doesn’t have to be the case for you. Things are changing rapidly, and new money-making opportunities arise all around the globe. We live in the Information Age (the Digital Age), a historical period that began mid-20th century. This means that information holds the key to something better (or worse). The right piece of information at the right time can work like magic.
After many years of struggling to make money online (read more About Me), I found the perfect online business model!
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👉 I hope you enjoyed this blog post 🙏 Let us know what I should add. What was your biggest obstacle you had to overcome (or you’re still dealing with)? Let us know in the comments below!
