If you are serious about having a money making blog, then there are some things you must do and be committed to in order to succeed.
Let’s get right to it:
Have a Blog Niche If you Are Serious About Having a Money Making Blog
Make sure your blog has a niche.
If you are serious about starting a money making blog then you need to be specific in what you are going to have content about on your blog.
It’s hard to monetize and actually make money on a blog about everything.
Sure it’s been done. But the hours of work and the people now managing these sites is well beyond what you are going to be able to crank out when just starting blogging in 2019 and get money flowing.
Most blogs that started without a niche and are able to bring in generous cash flow started way back when blogging was just getting started.
Today there are over 500 million blogs and over 2 million blog posts published each day.
To be able to stand out among numbers like that you have to niche down.
How to Choose a Blogging Niche
Prepare for Monetization From the Start
Prepare for the fact that you are going to be making this blog for the purpose of making money.
This way you are making sure from the first day you are building your blog in a way that is going to put you in a position to make money.
Yes, you might not monetize from the first day. But if you build everything around your plan to make money you will be saving yourself tons of time once you do monetize your blog.
Make Sure Your Blog Looks Good
Having your readers find your blog attractive and easy to use is a must if you are serious about having a money making blog.
You want the user experience of your site to be spot on, and not a nightmare to use the site or view.
Choose the Right Look for Your WordPress Blog
WordPress makes it easy to be sure you have what is needed to ensure your blog is user friendly and usable across many devices.
Awesome and Free WordPress Blog Themes
Be Creative
Well as much as you can.
I know, I know not everyone has an inner artist.
But at least try to make pretty graphics people will want to share on Pinterest. And nice graphics that complement your blog’s content.
Canva and PicMonkey are two great tools to make graphics for your blog posts and social media.
Logos are also good to have for your brand.
If you want to put out a small amount of money, you can find someone on Fiverr.com to make a logo for your blog at a reasonable price. Etsy is another place you can find graphic designers to make logos.
Plan Out Your Categories
Make sure to plan out your categories for your blog posts.
This is a part of your blog’s navigation.
Your blog’s navigation needs to be easy for your users to use and find other blog posts on your blog.
Have Consistency if You are Serious About Having a Money Making Blog
Have consistent content if you are serious about having a money making blog.
In addition to consistent blog content, be consistent across all social media platforms by having the same profile picture.
Don’t keep changing it up, you want people to recognize you brand.
Work on Your SEO From the Start if You Are Serious About Having a Money Making Blog
Sure there are other ways to get traffic to your blog other than using just SEO.
Send Traffic to Your Blog Without Relying on SEO
SEO take a long time to get results from.
And when you are serious about having a money making blog waiting several months for Google to believe you have something to offer their searchers just isn’t in the cards.
BUT.
You need to be sure that at the end of that several month, when Google decides you are worthy, you already laid out the SEO and everything is good to go.
We have an ongoing blog post series for SEO you can check out:
SEO for Blogging
Invest in Your Blog if You Are Serious About Having a Money Making Blog
You don’t want to skimp on everything.
Yes I know that paying out tons of cash is not what beginning bloggers want to do.
But there are a few things you want to make sure you have going.
Invest in Hosting and a Domain Name
First is a self hosted site. Do not use free WordPress.com or free Blogger, Wix, etc to try to get a monetized blog going.
It will hurt more than you think in the long run.
If you are serious about having a money making blog, then you need to get your own hosting and not rely or have restrictions on a free platform.
NameCheap is a great place to get your domain name, and they have hosting for great prices.
Host Gator is another host, I’ve used them for years and so far have no complaints.
Backups, Backups, Backups.
I can’t say it enough backups.
Invest in an external hard drive so you can be sure you always have your own copy of your blog’s data.
Yes there are plugins and services you can get, and that’s great to have too.
But always make sure you have your own copy of your site.
You need a copy that’s not stored on your computer and that’s not stored with someone else.
Protect yourself and your brand.
Get Technical if You Are Serious About Having a Money Making Blog
Learn HTML and CSS
Yes there’s a need for learning a bit of the technical side when you have any type of website.
Learning some HTML and CSS is invaluable when you are running any type of website.
By knowing even the basics you can save yourself money in the long run.
W3schools has a free HTML and CSS tutorials that can teach you the basics.
If you want to go beyond the basics:
Codecademy has some interactive courses you can use to go beyond just the basics and learn all types of coding.
FreeCodeCamp is another resource you can use. They will teach you by having you build webpages.
Udemy has quite a few courses you can get that will teach you a ton about web development.
Do Regular Audits of Your Blog
Keep your blog up to date.
If you are serious about having a money making blog, having an out of date blog is not going to be good.
You want your readers to have the best information you have to offer.
On the internet, even content that is 6 months old can be considered “old”.
Make sure to set aside time each week to go back to make sure your content is up to date.
Interact With Others
Interact with others in the blogging community.
Interact with people on social media.
Interact with your readers.
Visit other blogs, comment and leave feedback or contribute to the topic.
Also remember to interact with your social media followers.
Pay attention to what your readers say and ask. Respond to them.
Someone who is detached and silent doesn’t seem approachable to blog readers, and will also lead to readers being less likely to return to your blog.
Keep Up With Business Tasks
If you are serious about having a money making blog then you need to keep up with things like finances/accounting and filing your taxes.
Make sure to routinely try to learn new things to help grow your business.
Falling behind to the times is a killer of any business.
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