Blogging for profit – can I really make money with a blog?
Blogging for profit is something many people dream about, but many think impossible. Truth be told, so many people ask me about making money by blogging, that it became apparent that an article dedicated to the subject would be quite valuable. Blogging for profit doesn’t have to be all about business; in fact, adding a little joy and humour can make it all the more successful. (And “humour” is Canadian or British English for “humor.”)
The first question to be answered is how blogging for profit is even possible to start with.
- Where does the money come from?
- What do I sell?
- Do I need to sell anything?
- Would someone pay to read my blog?
The answer to all these questions can be boiled down to one very simple one: Become an affiliate.
The most basic definition of an affiliate is someone who sells something for someone else without having to buy, stock or ship anything, and who gets paid automatically from sales made by them.
Disclaimer: Certain links on this site are affiliate links for which the owner is remunerated for sales and/or leads.
How does that work?
The way this works is pretty simple. The one most people are familiar with is the Google Adwords system, where you sign up as an affiliate, then you put a little bit of code on your pages and get paid for traffic or sales that come via the code on your site.
There are literally thousands of affiliate programs to choose from, and I am going to make the very bold statement that Google’s program is one of the last ones I would choose.
In fact, the one I most often recommend to is the one listed on this very blog. The support is excellent and personal, and they have been around long enough to have more than proven themselves.
The next, obvious question is, how do I get people to click on the links on my blog? The short answer is, you need a lot of good, targeted traffic, before you can make any money. Simply put, not everyone who comes to your site is going to click on a link every time they visit.
The best way for most people to start getting TARGETED traffic is to simply start writing and promoting your blog. You won’t get instant, paying traffic, this way, but you will start to see it grow. Every time you write a blog post (every day, if you can), post a friendly notice on all your social media accounts about your latest post. Note that if you have a WordPress blog like this one, you can install a plugin like Yoast SEO that will automatically notify all your social accounts every time you post.
In addition, for a very small fee, you can add the Pinglist Pro plugin, which pings all the search engines every time you post, notifying them of your latest article.
If you want a lot of traffic in a hurry, you’re going to need to spend some money. You can buy traffic from the big search engines, but be prepared to pay a lot for it. Alternatively, if you want to kick start your blog without breaking the bank, you can use Paid Keywords from a smaller company like Adlandpro, which are much less expensive and often very responsive, depending on your niche.
A really great way to get traffic to your site for a very reasonable price is by being active on social media. The more you interact with others with similar ideas and likes to you, the more likely they are to visit your site. When you add in regular, quality content posted on your own blog, you have a winning combination.
Nothing is really more effective for the average person to create steady, unique, search engine attractive, list building, sales pulling traffic than simply blogging, that is, writing regular posts, publishing them on your website, and sharing them on social media. Additionally, you can easily include a link, called a signature file (SIG FILE) in every email you send. All it is, is a very short text ad with a link to your blog below your name in every email you send out.
“But,” you say, “I don’t know how to blog and I can’t write!”
You might be both surprised and amazed by how well you can write (and blog), if you want it badly enough and you’re willing to give it a shot and some real effort.
Let me ask you a question. Have you ever had a conversation with someone? Of course you have! That’s how simple blogging is. It is a conversation in text that you started.
If you can carry on a conversation, you can write and you can blog. Blogging is not about getting a top mark in English class. It’s about carrying on a conversation about something you’re passionate about with people of similar interests.
Think of it like this: When you write a blog article, that’s the conversation starter. Simply put in print the kind of stuff you would share with co-workers in the coffee room, or buddies at the pub, or a friend you bump into in the grocery store…
When people reply to your article in the reply or comment section, that’s the other half of the conversation. It’s pretty simple. (Make sure to reply and keep the conversation going! That is REALLY good for SEO!)
Just create your article with the same words you’d use to tell a friend. A blog is not a book (although some have turned into one)! A blog is just you sharing yourself with the rest of the world. Be yourself.
If you’re worried about your terrible spelling (who isn’t?) use a word processor plugin or something similar. Most blog platforms have a spell checker built right in, anyway.
Use photographs, cartoons and videos to illustrate your blog (making sure not to use copyrighted material without permission). Often, people who visit your blog will enjoy the pictures and share them, which helps to spread your blog. Hint: Make sure to have a share button on your blog!
If you like making videos, you can create a video blog, or switch it up and instead of always writing your articles, create a video to make it more interesting. Just follow the instructions on the blog platform you are using like Blogspot, Tumblr or WordPress for how to include a video.
Remember when you video blog to say something about the video both before and after you embed it in your blog. That makes the search engine happy, and will help bring even more traffic. Hint: Make sure your blog title, blog URL and blog headline all have the same keywords (like this one). That makes the search engines even happier!
Blogging won’t bring you instant success, but when you’re blogging for profit with the long term results motivating you, you will succeed. Even better, you will make more friends while you’re getting there.
It takes time for your blog to get noticed. Tell your friends about it, include a link to it on the social sites you belong to and in your signature files that you use for emails, forums, etc., and your blog will gradually become known and gather a larger and larger following.
Put a subscription box on your blog, so that people can subscribe for future updates, and your list will build automatically.
Put share buttons on your blog so people can share with their friends.
Put a comment box on your blog and ask for comments. That really helps get a conversation going.
As people share your blog with one another, it grows virally, and the traffic will increase at a steadily increasing rate. When you begin to have a good stream of traffic, the affiliate links on your blog will get more clicks, bringing you more sales and commissions.
Be consistent. If you publish your blog once and forget about it, you won’t make any money. That’s not blogging for profit, it’s trying to get rich with no effort!
You need to be regularly publishing articles on your blog in order to get noticed and stay noticed by the search engines. Some people call this, “work.” Blogging can and should be a lot of fun, and you should enjoy what you do, but in order to finally be successful, you need to produce something, even when you don’t feel like it. If you hate work, you need to do something different…
Don’t try to write great, long epistles for every post, but you should write often! If you can, write a little every day. As long as you keep the conversation interesting to you, it will be interesting to someone else. Don’t quit. Quitters are guaranteed to fail, every time. Blogging for profit takes real time and real effort, but the end rewards are worth it.
Please leave me a comment below! I hope this gives you some great ideas!
Dave Cottrell is opinionated, compassionate, and passionate about people, marketing and online business. He does a lot of digging, experimenting and research, and writes like crazy about a wide variety of topics and subjects. He is the owner of many websites and blogs; you can read his rants and find out more about him at https://www.davecottrell.com/ This article can be shared freely as long as this box remains intact. Copyright © 2019 – 2022 David H. Cottrell. All rights reserved.
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