When someone starts a blog, the first thing that usually comes to mind is “this will be fun”. This is because it is fun. It’s exciting to put words together and watch them pop up on screens around the world. But blogging can also become much more than just a pastime activity if one so desires.
Most bloggers start out by sharing their personal stories with the world; however, at some point writing becomes less about cathartic expression and more about providing information for people who are interested in what you have to say. This transition into ‘professional blogging’ opens new doors for many bloggers; they now have an opportunity to turn this hobby into something that can actually make money (thereby giving it more weight).
So how does one take their blog from personal to professional? How does one grow it into a business that will yield daily profits? The answer is simple: monetization.
Many bloggers have no desire or intention of making money off of their blogs. That’s fine, because not every blogger has dreams of striking gold in blogging. But if you’re reading this article, chances are you do want your blog to be profitable at some point in its life cycle. And if that’s so, then read on, my friend! We’ve got lots to cover…
The first step toward turning your blog into a business is something many bloggers overlook when starting out. It’s something most bloggers are unaware of, period.
That first step is… developing a business mindset.
You can have the best-looking blog around, but if you don’t have this one simple thing down pat then everything else means nothing. It’s true that having a top-notch website will attract people to your blog in droves, but if they aren’t able to find what they want within your site or are forced to pay for your content before being able to read it, then it won’t matter how good your blog looks. They won’t be back. And more importantly, they won’t buy what you’re selling (in this case: information).
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s move on to what you came here for how to monetize your blog.
Monetizing a blog is actually very simple, but it takes some time to work up to it. If you expect to make any money off of your blog in less than half a year, then I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you… You’re just not going to cut it. Sorry, friend. It’s true that there are websites/blogs out there that will pay extremely well (for example this one), but they’re few and far between. For every successful website/blog that pays top dollar for its content, there are at least 10 others struggling just to get by with no monetization insight.
Now that you’ve accepted the fact that it’s going to take some time for your blog to become profitable, let’s move on to the next step: picking a topic. But before we do that, let’s talk about why this is important…
A lack of focus when it comes to what your blog will be about can result in absolutely nothing coming out of it. Think about it; would someone reading an article on “How To Get $50k Per Month with Your Blog” find value in another blog titled “5 Ways You Can Monetize Your Blog”? Of course not! They already know how they can make money with their own website/blog, so there is no point in reading about it, no matter how insightful the post is.
By staying focused on a topic, you’re ensuring that your readers know what they can expect from every article or blog that they read on your site. You’re also making sure that each time you publish a new post/article, people will be interested in checking out your website because they know what kind of content to expect. They’ll want to see if anything’s changed since their last visit.
So now that we’ve got all of that out of the way, let’s move on to the next step: picking a monetization method.
There are countless ways to make money with your blog; in this day and age, it’s easier than ever before. The easiest, most popular way to monetize a blog is with advertisements.
Many people use Google Adsense to make money with their blogs but there are countless other ad networks available as well. It’s important to remember that every type of website/blog will work best with a different ad network. For example, a website focused on a specific topic (let’s say “chess”) would do very well with ads from companies like Chess-Informant or ChessBase because they cater directly to the chess community. However, those same ads wouldn’t work as well for a site about cooking because they aren’t as relevant to its content as others would be… unless you happen to be blogging about chess-related cooking, of course.
The best thing to do is research the ads available on other blogs in your niche and see which type of ad network they’re using. If you’re running a blog that isn’t exactly related to any one topic, then you can either use more than one ad network or run Google Adsense exclusively. Just remember that what works for others may not work for you, so be sure to experiment until you find something that’s profitable instead of just popular.
One last thing before I wrap this up…
Remember earlier when I said it was crucial for every piece of content/post on your website to have one specific goal? Well, guess what… You need revenue as well! But, instead of focusing on website/blog revenue, I want you to focus on article revenue.
For example, You publish a new post titled “How To Make $50k Per Month with Your Blog” and monetize your blog page with Google Adsense. Then you turn around and create another page that’s dedicated to that same article but use an affiliate link within the body of that post in order to make a referral commission every time someone buys something using your link. That way you’re making money off of both the views coming from your website AND all of the sales coming through your blog! Pretty neat, right?
