Make a great living online by following these simple steps
Thousands of people around the world enjoy blogging, and most think of it as a small hobby that they couldn’t hope to live on; but it’s surprisingly easy to turn your blog into a modest, successful small business. There are already plenty of blogs that discuss Google Ads and affiliate marketing, so we’ll focus on how to make your monetization strategy (whichever you choose) more profitable. There are no “dirty tricks” here—these are all tips to make a blog that is both useful to your readers and attractive to legitimate advertisers.
1. Find a niche
For your blog to attract the attention of users, advertisers, and search engines, you need to select a theme; ideally, one that isn’t already populated with big-time sites. For instance, if you want to start a generic cooking blog, you’ll be competing with thousands of others, including giants like Betty Crocker and The Food Network, and your blog will never get past the twilight zone of page 8 on Google. If you select some specific, underserved niche, however, you’ve got a shot at reaching people.
Before you nail down your blog’s theme, do a bit of Googling on the topic. Check to see how many people are searching for key words related to that topic, and what pops up on Google’s front page. If very few people are searching for that specific niche, you’ll struggle to bring in traffic; but if the key words are bringing in a healthy amount of searches, and you’re competing with other small personal blogs, you’ve got a good shot at topping the Google rankings and becoming an important source of information on that topic.
2. Create user-friendly content
This is more than just “writing well”, although that is important (and could be a blog post all to itself). People read online content differently than they read books and magazines, so you need to modify how you write to suit an online audience. Follow these tips:
- Break up your content: Reading long blocks of uninterrupted text is harder online than it is in print, so you need to separate your content. Select the best funny videos or images related to your topic and use them to chop up your content into smaller, easy-to-read pieces.
- Numbered Lists: You’ve probably seen a lot of “Top 10” lists on the web recently, and that’s because it really does draw more traffic than content posted in other formats. Numbered lists provide an easy way to organize and simplify your content so that busy readers know what they’re getting into before they click
- Keep it brief: With few exceptions, most online readers lose interest after about 1000 words, so if your post is longer than that, you might consider a more focused topic, or breaking up your post into installments.
3. Get Connected!
This is by far the most important way to start pulling traffic and getting money from your advertisements. Find successful bloggers (or better yet, a blog network) that is related to your niche, and offer to guest post on their sites. Don’t be afraid to submit high-quality content in guest posts; you might feel like you’re sacrificing good work, but it’s a small price to pay for the awareness it will create for you and your blog. At the bottom of each guest post, most bloggers will allow you to include a link to your blog; and that’s how you’ll bring in users and start earning real ad revenue.
As you cultivate relationships and continue creating trustworthy, quality content, other bloggers will begin linking to your site on their blogs, increasing traffic directly and improving your Google ranking. Keep expanding your network, reaching out to more and more blogs and establishing connections. It’s this growing network that will draw in ever-increasing traffic to read your posts, click your ads, and bring in revenue.
About the Author: Tiffany Ganttis a staff writer for ApronAddicts.com, a website dedicated to the love of cooking and looking good while you do it! You can often find her getting creative in the kitchen as she whips up something yummy in one of her flirty, color coordinated aprons.