How Do Blogs Make Money?

Who doesn’t want to make more money?

The internet has birthed new business ventures and people actually make money online. In a previous article, we discussed some of the ways in which you can make money blogging, but it’s still important to understand the way in which you can monetize your blogs. It’s so ideal when you think about the prospect of potentially making money from the comfort of your own home, doing what you are passionate about around your own schedule.

It’s important to think about blogging as any other venture. What are your motivations? What is your end goal? Forbes estimates that only 25% of bloggers have noted that their “prime motivation” for having a blog was so that they can earn a full-time income. This shows us that most bloggers are actually passionate about what they are writing about and are mostly interested in supplementing their current income.

So, regardless of whether you are interested in earning a full-time income as a blogger or you simply want to earn some extra cash, the fundamentals are essentially the same.

Find Your Passion

This makes sense because you should be incredibly motivated while putting in all this work, which may NOT pay off immediately. The effort and energy you put into the work should mean something TO you, regardless of whether or not it’s profitable. Because those who do what they love end up finding a way in which they can actually make some money anyway. It’s because they are driven for the love of what they do rather than because of their chase for the money.

Find Your Niche

In short, find your niche. There isn’t anything you can’t find on the internet at this point, but the things people really want to read are things that are incredibly unique and/or offer a fresh perspective on a particular TOPIC. It’s important to find something you are passionate about, but it’s also equally important to find your niche. So, let’s say you are passionate about travel — how is your travel blog any different from the many others one out there? What do you bring to the table that others don’t or can’t? Why would someone want to visit your travel blog?

Find Your Path

The question still remains. How do blogs actually make their money? Is it through advertisements or are there other ways as well? The next step is making money with your blog. So, what are the various ways in which you can do so?

• Keywords: These are words that are key — no pun intended — to the content itself. If you are putting together your content, think about what some of your main keywords are. This means you should think about the popular words that relate to the content itself, as well as keywords that are popular during search. The words that people search for may be slightly different than the words that you incorporate into your content. This will “increase the visibility of your blog, attract more readers, and show them advertisements” they will want to click. It’s also important to incorporate them in all the right places, including your title as well as on the backend.

• Social: The benefits of being social on social media are plentiful. So, make use of all of these platforms and engage yourself — connect with others, like and share on other people’s posts, make yourself known and create an image for yourself. This is how you can further increase your visibility and drive traffic to your blog and that’s the first step in making money. If you think about social media as you would a party, you can see how the most popular person will stand out and that’s exactly what you need with your blog — attention! 

• Advertisements: If your blog as “high quality content” and has started bringing in an audience of readers, you can start making money using Google AdSense. The way a service like Google AdSense works is that it’ll “automatically generate ads in the amount, size, and placement you specify, matching the ads chosen to the topics you write about.” This is simple math — you make money when people click on these ads and you will be paid directly by the advertiser.

• Sell: If you have potential for an online store, however, you may want to think about selling items and products on your blog. Do you have anything you can sell — whether it’s art or handmade items or shirts or books? If you can tie these items to the content of your blog, you could potentially make a significant amount of money. 

• Affiliates: If you have a lot of traffic on your website, you may want to think about becoming an affiliate with an affiliate network. Zero Parallel works with affiliates who are generating traffic with their websites. If you already have a financial blog or website, and are interested in monetizing it, consider registering with us here and becoming an affiliate.

Citations:

Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2015/08/11/how-to-make-money-as-a-blogger

wikiHow: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Money-Blogging

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