There is a rushing river called Blogging River and it is flowing with cash, and the only way you can collect cash from Blogging River is with a net called a Blog. Many bloggers, however, are unable to properly create their net Blog to catch the large amounts of money. This article tells you how to catch the money.
1. Get Outstanding Hosting And A Good Domain Name
If you are going to make a lot of money blogging, you must start by building on a solid foundation. That’s why I use Bluehost for hosting all of my blogs. It’s fast, quality, and cheap–the most bang for buck and it’s the same provider a ton of top-level, big-name bloggers use.
When you sign up with my Bluehost partner affiliate link, you will get the cheapest rates currently available along with a free domain and SSL certificate (important). When you go through the link, there will be three tiers; just choose the cheapest one, it’s all you need.
It’s getting increasingly hard to get a good .com domain name. Almost all of the ones that make sense are taken. If you can get your preferred blog name with a .com, go for it! There are options out there if you are willing to have a longer name, which sometimes they work well. You can also try doing (blank) and (blank) dot com. Example: SeaAndSand.com, if you are doing something about beach life, which is a currently available domain.
Don’t be afraid of putting your website on a different top-level-domain, such as .net, .org, .co, or if you are a blogger like me–.blog. Don’t use .biz, though, that is historically a place for spammy websites. For a complete list of TLDs, check out this Wikipedia article.
2. Create A Lot Of Content That People Want To Read
It’s not just creating content, it’s creating content that people want to read. I was perusing the internet for random blogs the other day I found blogs that have been active for 10+ years that about 3,000 total visitors per year, look, I’m no snob. If you do it just for the love of the game I have nothing but respect.
However, I bet most of you reading this blog want to do it for the love of the game and make money. I know I do.
This requires writing good content that people want to read. If your content sucks and is uninspiring and not informative, then people won’t read it and you won’t make a lot of money from your writings.
READ: 6 Surprising Benefits Of Blogging
Remember: your target audience is narrow, you can even have different target audiences for different articles. For example, I write Amazon product reviews on this blog for a target audience of people who are googling for information about that product. That’s the whole target audience! That’s it!
3. Sell, Sell, Sell
Most of us, myself included, don’t like selling. However, I have learned that if you don’t sell you won’t make any money. You don’t need to be an obnoxious car salesman “Austin, I want to earn your business today. Let’s make this happen.” (I’m currently searching for a car and I have no idea why every car salesman uses this line or similar lines, but it’s grating to the ears). But you need to let people know you have something to sell.
Whether that is via affiliate links like how you can get high-quality cheap hosting and a free domain name via my Bluehost affiliate link (Dear, reader, I want to earn your business today, let’s make this happen), self-made products like ebooks, or creating content that draws in a ton of readers that makes it worth running annoying ads on the blog.
There must be some type of vehicle that leads to converting traffic to money, at the end of the day you are in the blog business, and businesses can only survive by selling products or services. A business that gives everything away for free will fail.
4. Write Amazon Reviews Of Everything In Your House
A quick way to get internet money flowing is to look at your Amazon order history and write a review on everything on the list and include an amazon affiliate link.
Take pictures of the item. Tell about your experience with it. Maybe include a funny anecdote or two.
For example, my kids love the Slim Jim Smoked Meat Sticks Original Flavor (100 Count) and that’s our go-to when we need a quick snacky boost! Yum!
6g protein per serving! Yum!
That above link is an affiliate link, FTC requires we write that somewhere. Anyway, if you click that and buy it I get a whopping 1% of the sale. Other Amazon categories offer more, usually 4%.
It ain’t gonna get you rich, but this is the simplest way to start making some online affiliate income and by the time you write a review of everything in the house you’ll be ready to take on bigger and more lucrative affiliate programs.
5. Become A “Brand Ambassador” For A Single Brand
I’ve noticed that most successful bloggers (read: bloggers that make a lot of money) usually only have between 3 – 5 affiliate programs / products that they sell.
It’s usually one main product / affiliate program that makes 90% of their profit. What I’m saying is: start by finding one lucrative affiliate program or product and focus on becoming the blogger for that niche affiliate program, a “brand ambassador,” if you will.
Make sure it’s a brand and product you believe in. There are some soulless affiliate marketers out there, but most of us cannot comfortably promote a product we don’t actually use and believe in. I recommend sticking to the realm of honesty because it makes it much easier to recommend it and promote it and to be a “brand ambassador.”
6. Think Of Your Blog As Being More Than Just Your Website
3rd party platforms are an extension of your blog, such as social media, blogging platforms, podcasts, YouTube, etc.
Don’t get lost on one of those 3rd party platforms and never return to you website blog, but you need to be on those other platforms to make sure people know you exist and have links pointing back to the main blog, which is where the money is made!
Don’t forget that it takes a long time and a lot of pain to get a blog off the ground and making money. If you are posting content 3x per week, promoting it on 3rd party sites, you are nearly guaranteed to make it (I can’t make a promise that you will 100% make it, sorry), the whole process before “making it” will take between 3 – 5 years.
So, you better get blogging!