How To Make Money By Blogging: What You Truly Need To Know

making money blogging

It's not news any more that you can make money online by blogging, or is it? Anyway I'm sure as a reader of this blog your primary aim of blogging is to earn some good income from your blogging activities. If I'm correct then, it will not be far from the truth that you're interested  on how to make money by blogging.

The truth is as a business blogger I'm always on the lookout for tips that will help me achieve my goals. There are so many guides and ‘expert' tips out there that you couldn't just wait to get, at least, a bite of the cake!  But is making money by blogging really an easy thing as most of those guides and tips want to make it? Is it all who set up blogs with the mind of blogging for money that are earning the income they desire with their blogs?

Definitely, many will chorus a “NO” to those questions.

So, if that is the case, how then can a blogger really set him/herself up to make money with his/her blog?

Interested, right? Ok then, let's explore this in this post.

As I research this topic over the past few months I've been able to pick out some points that stand tall on the list of what you need to really make money online by blogging. Be aware though that I'm not just talking about a list of different ways of making money with your blog. There is so much written about that already. And one thing I've come to realize is that simply listing the various ways of making money with blogs most times only make the whole thing look a lot simpler than it should be. 

I beg your pardon please, I'm not trying to make it look as if making money with blogs is such a difficult thing. However, I believe before jumping on the bandwagon and starting a blog to make money online, you truly need to understand what it all entails. If this is not done, you may start just like many had done but lose interest down the way when the money refuses to come in the first few months.  And you know if you start blogging and stop along the way, then everything you have done up to that point will amount to nothing!

So How Do You Make Money By Blogging?

1. Find The Right Topic For You And Your Audience

There are two issues here. Your topic should be the right topic not only for your audience but also for you. Before you start a blog you should ask yourself a few questions amongst which are:  Do you really have something to say?  Can you provide the information that your audience wants. Is this information relevant and important to someone else? Is anyone ready to exchange his/her money for what you have to say?

On the surface, these questions may appear not really important but taken deeply you will realize that not every topic that you build a blog around will make you the money you desire. Of course it may be a thing of fun to talk about your life but how many people are really interested on that except of course if you are a celebrity!

Most people these days want people to give them advice on how to become successful or they want information on a certain product or area of interest.  They do not come online to read advertisements. But if those ads are wrapped up in interesting content that relates the product to real life, you're sure to get their attention and succeed making some money when they click on your ads and make the purchase.

2. Devote The Time To Updating Your Blog

Believe it or not this is crucial to making money with a blog. Regularly updating your blog will help you make money from your blog in various ways. For example you need articles and content to attract and maintain your blog readership.  This content can be provided in a variety of forms, but you'll need to ask yourself if you will have the time to provide them in your blog regularly. When your blog is constantly updated it will found its way into the search engines more easily and this can be some free way of generating traffic. And of course the more traffic you generate the more money you can make with your blog. Since your main goal is to make money by blogging the simple way to do that is to attract as many people as possible to your blog and to maintain the flow of traffic by enticing them to come back again and again with your content.

3. Find The Tools That Will Help You Become An Efficient, Successful Blogger

One thing you must understand is the fact that to every trade there are tools that makes for efficiency and effectiveness.  This is not different with making money by blogging. Getting the right tools therefore is important.  With the popularity of blogging for money different blogging tools have been introduced into the market. Most of these are free but if you’re serious on making money with your blog then you may want to invest in some tools that will help easily achieve your dreams.

4. Be Realistic And Have A Doable Plan

It's unfortunate that many people going into blogging with the mind of making money enter the show with unrealistic expectations. Most have the wrong notion that simply starting a blog will automatically open the floodgates of online riches. This is far from the truth. Building a blog readership takes time.  And it takes time to nurture.

Besides, as a blogger you need to create a doable plan that will help lead you to the riches you desire. Without a plan and with high expectations you may experience disappointment when those expectations are not met quickly. And the result? You might lose some of the momentum you had for writing the blog in the first place.

Bottom Line: If your dream is to make money online by blogging you have to consider your blog as a business instead of just a hobby.  You must work to generate traffic to your blog because the more traffic your blog recieves, the easier it is to make the money of your dreams. If you blog on a topic that you enjoy and you create a business plan for your blog, you are guaranteed to be successful and make money with your blog.

Though it is a difficult thing to be an overnight success with blogs, but it IS possible to be successful!

Over to you: Do you agree with these points? Do you think a blogger need really do all these before he/she can make money blogging? Give your comments below.

13 Comments
  1. And maybe much more and most importantly the blogger must be ready to learn and not assume anything until you have tried out everything…Thanks for such an awesome post…

    • Of course, ready to learn is paramount to succeeding in anything we do in life. Having the mind of knowing it all is the sure way to failure! Thanks for pointing this out.

  2. Agree with your points! And in order to be a successful blogger.. you have to do more than the usual “blogging”! You have to be creative and put as much as innovative efforts as you can! 😀

  3. Reply
    Dennis Edell@Direct Sales Marketing January 30, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    This is more along the lines of how to blog successfully, then how to earn money blogging; not mutually exclusive topics.
     
    I could update fresh content daily for years, there’s no guarantee a credit card will be pulled on any of them though. 😉

    • Hi Dennis, took sometime to think on your comment. How do you define ‘blog successfully’ and ‘earn money blogging’? From the post you’d understand that I’m not speaking to bloggers whose main purpose is write a personal blog but business bloggers, the ones who are out to earn some income with their blogs.

      That being so, to me every action taken by such bloggers is for the one purpose of achieving their dream of earning an income. This is the premise from which this article is written.

      On point two I quite agree with you. Just updating your blog is not a guarantee that you will make money with your blog. But again, I made it clear that this will ensure constant traffic. And what more as every one online agrees, the more traffic you generate the more the potential of your making some income. Maybe, I should have just added the fact that your blog must first be set up to make money. But I think that has also been taken care of in the opening paragraphs! 🙂

  4. Reply
    Deepanshu from Crack Entrance March 5, 2011 at 8:42 pm

    devote the time to updating ur blog….one of the keyareas for being successful…..agreed…..many times i m so much involved in commenting and marketing that i dont post for 2-3 days…….blogging shud be done regularly 😉

    • Frankly marketing is an important aspect of blog success. I think I should really rank it higher than updating your blog regularly. So for me you’re doing more to succeed than many bloggers.

      By updating your blog regularly, it doesn’t mean you have to post every day. You may decide to post once a week or twice a week depending on your niche. When this is done and you devote other days to marketing as you’re doing then success is sure!

      Thanks for the comment.

      • maybe 😕 i have been trying to get fans and followers but the visits which i get via facebook and twitter is very less compared to search engines which contribute to 90 percent of my traffic so in that case it makes me think updating blog is more necessary so that i can rank for more and more words 😆

        • You have a point there Deepanshu. Most times I actually give more attention to traffic from the search engines. This is because I consider them to be more open to going for your offers since they were searching for information when they came across your blog.

          From your comment you already knows where your traffic is coming from. Updating more and using the right keywords will definitely increase your traffic. Besides, you can really turn them into fans and followers by providing usable content and offering optin incentives that will help you build a relationship with them. So if you can’t get them from the social networks you can get them from the search engines! 🙂

  5. This is good post on how to make money by blogging, but here I want to clear that in order to make money from a blog we should be able to capture the heart and mind of our audience, gain their trust.

    We should be able to serve their needs and fulfill their requirements than they’ll buy what we suggest them because they believe us.

    Another thing which every should know is that making money from blogging isn’t as easy as some newbies think. It isn’t become rich overnight scheme. It needs a lot of time and hard work.

    BTW, great post Chadrack.

  6. Hi Chadrack,

    Thanks for this great post. Sometimes gems are hidden in the archives, and I have learned from you that a blog should be evergreen.

    I appreciate the expectations part of this post and will surely go into this in a full post.

    A lot of persons go into blogging as a get-rich-quick scheme, and predictably, they give up on blogging and give it a bad name. Blogging takes time – time to build name recognition, brand recognition and time for your posts to gain authority.

    With time, a good blog can make enough money to earn you the title of a full-time blogger. Mastering your expectations can help you stay on long term, despite the slow early response you get in the onset.

    • @Yeremi Akpan,

      I must say most of us jumped on the blogging train because we heard of the money being made. We really did not know there was so much to do to make those green bucks! Now, that we know, it’s a duty on us to let others know so they do not fall into the trap of jumping in and out without dashed hopes.

      Thanks for the comment and for digging this from the archives! 🙂

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