The Beginner’s Guide to Making Money Blogging

Many people somewhat mistakenly think that it’s easy to make money from a blog. They’ve seen other successful bloggers working with famous brands, attending fashionable events and gaining book deals and other opportunities. They think they’ll start a blog, write a little about their life and begin to do the same within a few months or even weeks.

Other people, those less familiar with the world of blogging are amazed when people tell them they make a living from their blogs. They just can’t see how writing a blog could ever be a business. Probably because the last experience they had with anything like it was on Myspace 20 years ago.

But, in 2018 blogging can be a business. Bloggers or micro influencers are in a unique position. They are real people, who tell the truth, share their lives and build trusting relationships with their readers. They can also reach a relatively large audience quite quickly. Brands and companies are very interested in working with people that have the potential to influence a large, trusting and loyal audience. Blogs are the magazines of their day.

If you’ve been blogging for awhile and you are thinking about taking that first step to becoming a professional and making money from your blog, here’s what you need to do.

Build a Following

One of the most important things you need to do is build a following. It doesn’t necessarily need to be huge, but it does need to be growing and evolving. People need to be reading your blog. One of the best ways to build this following is on social media. In fact, many brands that get in touch will want to know your social media reach as well as your blog views. So, start using social media more. Use a scheduler, follow the right people and get chatting.

Build a Loyal and Engaged Following

A massive following isn’t as important as an engaged one. 20000 views a month isn’t very good if they all spend 10 seconds on your site, glance at one page and click away immediately. The same with social media. 10000 followers mean nothing if none of them ever engage with you or share your content. The best way to boost engagement is by engaging yourself. Get chatting, share other people’s work, like, retweet, get to know people and help out where you can. Build trust and loyalty by being genuine.

Work on Your SEO and DA

To be truly successful you need more than social media. You need to be getting plenty of search engine hits. To do this, you need to spend some time working on your search engine optimization and your domain authority.

SEO changes all of the time, as search engines like Google grow and change. But, as a sound basis, you need to use the right keywords, write well and use alt text on your images.

Your domain authority is all about how other people perceive your site. If lots of other sites are linking back to yours, you must be an authority in your field. One that’s worth visiting. Especially if those sites linking to you are trusted, and have a high DA themselves. The more backlinks you have, the higher your DA will be.

Create a Brand

If you want to work with brands and earn the big bucks, you need to first appear to them as a professional. You can’t do this without some creative branding. You need a logo and color scheme that you can use on all platforms, on your business cards, your website and your email signature.

Join Affiliate Programs

If you get good traffic, affiliate programs are a fantastic way to start making money. As an affiliate, you link to products on your blog. This could be with an advert, widget or banner, or with text or images links placed within posts. If a reader clicks this link and goes on to make a purchase, you receive a percentage of the sale.

In some cases, the purchase doesn’t need to be the product you linked to, or even made on the same day for you to earn. Lots of companies, from huge multinational shops to independent retailers run affiliate schemes. Try to find ones that fit your blog that you could link to very naturally. You are more likely to do well if you genuinely love and believe in what you are linking to.

Sell Yourself

A lot of bloggers believe that brands will come to you if they want to work with you. They won’t. There are a lot of bloggers out there, why would they randomly find you? You need to sell yourself. You could do this by building a relationship with them on social media or by pitching an idea of how you could work together to their PR company in an email. Just don’t be afraid to make that first move.