6 ways to make money with blogging

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6 ways to make money with blogging
6 ways to make money with blogging

Wondering how to make money with your blog? In this post I’m going to share 6 ways you can make money from your blog. There are multiple blogs and articles on the topic offering you 25 ways or even 50 ways to make money from your blog, but they are basically a regurgitation of the 6 ways that I have mentioned here.

In the beginning when people started blogging, it was for a hobby. People wanted to share their hobbies. They wanted to share their coding expertise or their web design techniques. Some mothers and fathers shared their travails with their kids. Some early bloggers started giving health or self-improvement advice.

As their traffic grew, people began to see the commercial prospects of their blogs, mostly by publishing AdSense ads. People started making money with blogging. Many bloggers made lots of money with AdSense. Some bloggers are making $300-$600 per day from the AdSense ads – or at least that’s what they claim.

I have been publishing a blog on content writing, copywriting and to an extent, content marketing, for more than 10 years now. I never thought of publishing AdSense links because it is a business blog. I mostly use it to promote my content writing services.

My blog has been gradually picking up traffic. My search engine rankings have improved for many related keywords and search terms. Therefore, I get at least two queries from my website asking if I would publish sponsored blog posts.

Sponsored blog posts mean they are ready to pay for the blogs that I publish on my blog (provided by them) along with a “do-follow” link. I turn them down. I create content for my blog on my own. I do accept guest blog posts. But not sponsored blog posts.

If you want to publish a blog and wonder how you can use it commercially, I’m listing 6 ways you can commercially use your blog.

Now, before you can use your blog for making money or for any commercial gains, you need to build traffic. Lots of traffic. Whether you want to make money through advertising, affiliate links, or any other means, you need to build an entire platform where hundreds of thousands of people come to your blog on monthly basis. Even if you’re getting around 1000 visitors every day, it is difficult commercially milk your blog.

Hence, if you want to use your blog to make some decent money, in the beginning don’t get desperate. Focus on the quality of your blog. Provide maximum value. Build traffic. Just focus on that. It may take you a year of regular publishing (1-2 blog posts every day) before you get some decent traffic.

How quickly you can start commercially using your blog also depends on your niche. There is a great chance of early success if you don’t face much competition but there is great demand for the topic you have chosen for your blog.

If the market is quite competitive or saturated, you have got an uphill task for yourself. It will be a bit difficult to make money and you may have to persist for a long time.

For example, if you want to start a technology blog, you should keep in mind that there may be hundreds of thousands of technology blogs. Every major news website or magazine has a technology section. And they are publishing 10-15 updates every day. As a single person, it may not be possible for you to compete. Therefore, before starting a blog, make sure you choose a topic or a field that is less competitive, but people do want it.

With this out of the way, let us go through the 6 ways you can make money from your blog.

1. Use your blog as a business blog

Since I publish a business blog, this is the first topic I want to talk about. Every business these days seems to have a blog. It may be a fad, or they actually see a merit.

Publishing a business blog has multiple benefits:

  • It builds an audience.
  • It gives people a reason to visit your website frequently.
  • Your search engine rankings improve.
  • Higher ranking blog posts improve the rankings of even your main website web pages.
  • More people link to your website.
  • Your prospective customers and clients feel more connected because they are constantly reading your thoughts and observations.
  • Search engine crawlers crawl and index your content with greater frequency.
  • Your website becomes a knowledge hub and you come to be known as an expert.
  • You have original content to share on social media websites.
  • People readily subscribe to your mailing list when they see that you are publishing quality content.

2. Publish AdSense and other promotional links

As you know, Google makes most of its money through advertisements people place on the search engine itself as well as on partner websites. These partner websites publish AdSense links. Whenever someone clicks the link, Google makes money.

According to a good AdSense explanation published on the SEMRush blog, Google pays 68% of the click amount. How much advertisers are paying per click depends on the niche. They can range from $0.20 to higher than $25. The above blog post also explains how to find the niche that can make you the most money. It is better to choose a niche that pays you higher per click if publishing a blog for commercial purposes is your primary goal.

AdSense isn’t the only program. This Hubspot blog post has reviewed some great AdSense alternatives for bloggers.

3. Promote affiliate programs

Promoting affiliate programs is one of the earliest forms of making money on the web. Even when there was no blogging, people were making money off affiliate programs. In fact, in a sense, even AdSense is an affiliate program because you are helping Google sell its product, advertising.

In affiliate programs, you don’t need to have a product or a service. Someone else has a product or a service. You simply promote it through your blog. When someone purchases the product or service through your blog, you earn a commission, which is called affiliate commission.

Amazon.com has a widespread affiliate program. People publish reviews of various products and within those reviews they include Amazon links. Once you have created an affiliate account with Amazon, you get custom links that you can include in your blog posts. If someone clicks on those links, goes to Amazon.com and purchases that item, you get a commission.

There are many companies that offer such commissions.

4. Promote your brand

Personal branding can be greatly beneficial. Take for example Seth Godin, a speaker, an author, and a marketing expert. He has been blogging since the inception of blogging. The legend has it that he never misses publishing a blog post.

If you are an expert in a field – leadership, business management, data analytics, politics – you can share your thought leadership blog posts to maintain visibility and establish yourself as an authority figure.

Once your blog becomes famous, you can get book deals and speaking assignments. You can organize seminars and workshops and podcasts and whatnot. Some people have turned their blog posts into books.

If you’re a consultant, it’s very important for you to build your brand through publishing a regular blog displaying your expertise.

5. Publish sponsored blog posts

As I mentioned above, many people approach me to publish sponsored blog posts on my business blog. Once your blog builds traffic, people are ready to pay for getting published there. Many high traffic blogs publish sponsored blog posts, and they mention at the top that it’s a sponsored post.

Suppose someone is launching a product or offering an attractive discount. It will be easy to get exposure on a high traffic niche blog. If you are one of those niche blogs, you can charge a premium for publishing a sponsored blog post or a press release on your blog.

Don’t overdo though. Keep a 9:1 ratio – nine non-sponsored blog posts and then one sponsored blog post.

6. Offer premium content

This is a good way of making money from a blog for people who are experts, and the others are ready to pay to them for their expertise.

Suppose you publish a great blog on web design but there are some much-needed but difficult-to-get techniques that you know but aren’t sharing publicly. You can make them available in a private section on your blog which you can call a premium section. People who subscribe to your monthly updates can get access to that premium content.

Conclusion

Just like any other business venture, it takes hard work to build a blog that can make money for you. A moneymaking blog has the following characteristics:

  • Persistently high traffic for relevant keywords.
  • A very narrow niche.
  • Less competition and more demand.
  • High-quality content that is published regularly.

Is there a formula for commercially successful blogs? I cannot say there is a formula, but if your blog has the above-mentioned 4 attributes, you can certainly create a blog that makes money for you.

How to keep visitors longer on your website with your content?

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How to make people stay longer on your website with content writing
How to make people stay longer on your website with content writing

It is important that when visitors come to your website, they spend longest possible time there. This is important for lowering your bounce rate as well as increasing your conversion rate.

Studies have shown that the longer people stay on your website, the greater are the chances of them becoming your paid customers and clients. This is because they become familiar with your presence and grow comfortable with what you represent.

In different forms I have explained on my website how to lower your bounce rate, which means, how to keep people on your website longer. How long people stay on your website or how fast they leave your website, is a reflection on the quality and relevance of your content. The quality and relevance of your content and your lower bounce rate go hand-in-hand.

It’s very easy to bring people to your website. Any SEO company or content marketing company can help you with bringing as many people as possible to your website. The real feat is turning those people into paying customers and clients. The content that you have published on your website accomplishes that, or must accomplish that.

The fact that people stay on your website, explore various sections, and go through your web pages, means that they are interested in your proposition. Here are a few things you can do to keep people longer on your website through your content.

Provide definitive answers to definitive questions

Your bounce rate will be higher if people feel that they have been misled into visiting your website. Suppose they come across your link on Google, click the link, come to your website, and then, after feeling dissatisfied, leave within a few seconds. Why does this happen?

Take your own example. You are moving through an arcade of shops and there is a gripping banner offering you something that you have been looking for, for ages. With great excitement you enter the shop but to your dismay, it’s nothing like that. They are offering something completely different. Something that you don’t need. Disappointed, you come out of the shop. If possible, you may also give it a negative rating if it is listed somewhere.

Exactly this happens when people come to your website through a link they have found somewhere, expecting something, and then not finding it. They immediate leave your website. This is neither good for your conversion rate, nor for your search engine rankings.

All this while Google is quietly observing how people are reacting to the search results its algorithm is throwing up. If the search results don’t come up with the right answers, its performance deteriorates. In retaliation, it takes it out on you. It lowers your rankings.

Hence, when you are publishing content, make sure you are delivering exactly what is being displayed in the title and in the headline. Stick to the point.

Internally link to other web pages and blog posts

Even if somehow, your visitors are unable to find what they’re looking for, maybe they will find some useful information on another link within your website. For example, when writing about SEO content writing, I may have also written about SEO copywriting. Since you are searching for SEO copywriting, but you enter my website through something related to a SEO content writing, you might as well check the SEO copywriting link too, just in case. This increases your chances of staying on my website longer.

Make your content easier to read

Despite finding something valuable, just because you have grabbed everything in a single, large paragraph, your business may get frustrated and leave your website in a hurry, without reading the entire web page or blog post.

Use shorter paragraphs. They are also convenient to read on mobile phones. They also help your readers focus on singular thoughts. Don’t try to express a lot within a single paragraph. Whenever there is an excuse to create a new paragraph, create a new paragraph.

Use headings, subheadings, and bulleted points to succinctly explain complicated topics. This also makes your content easily scannable. Without reading the whole thing, if people simply go through your headings, subheadings, and bulleted points, they should be able to understand what you’re trying to say.

Use relevant and attractive images

Although images are not a part of content writing, they can keep people on your website for a bit longer because even if they are not reading the text, they may like to go through the images, and this increases the time they spend on your website. Even if it doesn’t help you with your conversion rate, it may send a signal to Google that you are providing good content and as a result, your search engine rankings may improve.

Use conversational style of writing

Everyone likes being talked to. Have a conversation with your readers. Use lots of “you” and “me” and “I”.

The good thing about writing in a conversational style is that you write as you speak. You use smaller, direct sentences and expressions. You don’t sound pretentious. Even you yourself feel as if you are in a positive flow of and this reflects through your choice of words and phrases.

Tell stories

Just like people like being talked to, they also love reading stories. This is because it is easier to relate to the characters in a story, whether they are anthropomorphic animals or human beings.

Stories also provide ready-made templates. For example, if a character is going through certain circumstances, one or the other reader too has gone through somewhat similar circumstances.

If I tell you the story of Peter who was reluctant to use content writing to improve his search engine rankings and due to that, he went through extreme hardships. It was almost too late when he decided to give quality content writing a chance, and that too, cynically and reluctantly. But then, he was swept off his feet when he began to experience the results after four months and by the seventh month, his business had taken a U-turn.

In the story you learn that just like you, there is a person Peter who doesn’t understand the power of quality content. He cannot figure somehow that content writing can improve his SEO. When he has tried everything, in the end, before completely giving up, he decides to give content writing a try. The story also tells you that the results aren’t immediate. In four months his search engine rankings begin to improve and by the seventh month, the fortunes of his business had completely changed.

Hence, these are some solid ways you can use content writing to keep people on your website for longer. Keeping your visitors on your website for a few minutes isn’t as easy as it sounds. As I have mentioned in the beginning of the blog post, it’s quite easy to bring people to your website. Simple SEO hacks can achieve that for you. What’s important is, for how long people stay on your website and how many of them convert due to that.

How empathy makes you a better content writer

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Learn to empathize to become a better content writer
Learn to empathize to become a better content writer

As I have written in one of my previous blog posts, for the past few months I have been working on a book on how to establish a successful content writing business.

In one of the chapters I have discussed how empathy is very important to become a successful content writer.

Empathy means the ability to understand what the other person is going through. No matter what you are feeling, no matter what your intellectual disposition is, you should be able to understand how the other person feels, what is his or her situation, why he or she behaves the way he or she behaves, and what pains him or her or makes him or her happy.

Why is it important to empathize?

Effective content writing is all about solving problems. Someone has a question; you provide the answer. With your writing, you are offering solutions. You want to make life easier for customers and clients.

This requires you to understand people. It requires you to empathize with them. You should be able to listen to them or read between the lines if you are reading their feedback.

Before working on an assignment, I always ask the client about the target audience.

Often, I need to prod. Most of the clients are too obsessed with their product or service and assume that every person on the surface of the planet should want to use his or her product or service.

There is nothing wrong in having such an opinion about your proposition because it makes you enthusiastic. But sometimes it also blinds you towards the pain points your prospective customers and clients have.

This is where empathy helps you.

Suppose you’re promoting a cloud-based CRM system. You need to carry out an email campaign. You have a list of contacts you have been gathering for a few years.

While targeting big organizations, your email may reach the inboxes of CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, managers, accountants, IT heads, marketing managers, and such.

You cannot send them the same message because their concerns are going to be different even if the product is the same.

If you can empathize with them, a CEO would like to know how your cloud-based CRM would help the company grow faster and even help him or her in his or her career.

A CFO would like to see the financial aspect. Will your cloud-based CRM system help the company save money on operational costs? Will it be able to plug wastage?

A marketing manager would like to know how your CRM system would help retain the organization more customers and generate a greater number of leads.

And so on.

I’m just using an email campaign as an example. Even when you are writing web content, you need to understand what your customers and clients are looking for. And then write content.

These days I am translating content from a Chinese website

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Translating from multiple languages to English.
Translating from multiple languages to English.

Translating content – thanks to Google Translate – is quite easy and enjoyable. As a result, I often take up translation assignments when clients approach me.

Sometimes people are not looking for simple translation services; they’re looking for a good writer who can capture the essence of what they want to convey, and then convey it.

This is why, many businesses, instead of approaching a general translation service, contact me.

Previously I have written content for a Norwegian business, a French business and a German business.

These days I’m writing content for a Chinese website. The content is written completely in the native Chinese language. I copy/paste the Chinese text into Google Translate, get the gist of the content, and then write it in my own style.

Sometime back I published a web page offering my translation services. On the page I have suggested that I can translate from any language, provided the text can be translated using Google Translate. Since then, I’m regularly getting translation work although my website primarily offers content writing services.

I uploaded the page on a whim. I had a feeling that when people want their websites translated, they either use automated services (a plugin that may be using Google Translate API) or they contact a professional translation service.

The problem with using a plugin is that the translation is done by the API and sometimes the original meaning is lost. There is no feeling. There is no personal touch that can be only brought by a human right.

The problem with typical translation services is that people who are translating are not necessarily writers. Hence, they simply translate. Again, there is no personal touch. There is no personal input.

When I am translating, I write the text as if I’m writing it originally. I rearrange messages. I sometimes add my own sentences if I feel that the original content doesn’t convey what needs to be conveyed. I think this is one of the biggest reasons why some clients contact me for translation services even when on my website they can see that I provide content writing services.

A few years ago, who would have thought that I would be translating for a Chinese company? Or for that matter a Dutch company.

Pretty much at the same time I also published my Hindi to English or English to Hindi translation services. I have good command over both the languages. Although I have received a few queries from my website, up till now, no Hindi to English or English to Hindi translation work has materialized so far. This is also because people talking about Hindi content don’t expect to pay a professional fee. This is a mindset thing.

How to create the perfect web page title for SEO?

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How to create the perfect web page title for SEO

Titles are important. They can have a big impact on your search engine rankings.

Although many renowned SEO experts claim that it is debatable whether creating “optimized” titles can improve your search engine rankings, there are different reasons why the quality of your titles is directly and indirectly related to your overall search engine rankings.

What is a blog post or a web page title? It is not the headline. It is the text that appears between the HTML tags <title> and </title>. This is the text that is picked by search engines and social media websites when you simply insert your link on your timeline.

I have personally observed that your title does matter. Your title is an indicator of what your web page holds. Hence, it naturally gives the needed information to the search engine crawlers. Again, that’s debatable. But there are certainly logical reasons why your titles matter.

Studies have shown that when people see a search term that they have just used appearing in the hyperlink of the search results, they are more likely to click it. Isn’t it natural?

For example, if you search for “content writer for web design service”, and there is a hyperlink that actually contains the phrase “content writer for web design service”, what reason do you have to not to click it? You have a big reason to click it.

Then, there is a direct relationship between the number of people clicking your link in the search results, and your search engine rankings. When more people click your link, Google takes it as a good sign.

It can be a double-edged sword, though.

If lots of people click your link and then immediately come back to Google, it means your bounce rate is higher. It means although you’re able to get the clicks, you are not providing valuable content for the search term for which your link is appearing higher. Your search rankings for that search term begin to go down.

Nonetheless, it is your title that brings people to your website, whether your title appears in Google search results, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other social media website that creates a thumbnail out of the link and uses the title to highlight the main point of your link.

The point is, no matter what the search engine experts say, as a content writer, I know that your title has a big impact on your search engine rankings.

How to create web page and blog post titles that improve your search engine rankings?

For this, I always suggest my clients to get written highly focused web pages and blog posts. This way, your web page title directly represents the body text.

For example, if I publish a blog post titled “Top 12 tips for writing content to improve your SEO”, Google and search engine users know what to expect from this blog post. All those people who want to read about how to write content that can improve their SEO, are going to find this link worthy of clicking.

If you stick to the core topic, that is, explaining how to use content writing to improve your SEO, people are going to stick around. They’re going to spend a few minutes reading the blog post as much as it appeals to them. They may also check other links on my website or blog.

This tells Google that the title for which my this particular link is ranking high, appropriately represents what my blog post contains. It takes it as an indicator of quality content and consequently, it raises the ranking of this particular link further.

Hence, when writing titles to improve your SEO, keep the following in mind:

Let the title exactly represent what the main body content contains.

Include the main phrases in the title for which you want to optimize your web page.

Don’t needlessly or randomly stuff keywords into your title. This decreases the quality of your SEO. You only have limited number of characters – 60-70 – and within those characters, you must represent a complete phrase, a sentence that can stand by itself.

Taking the above example – Top 12 tips for writing content to improve your SEO – it wouldn’t make sense if you simply use the keywords as your title, “content writing, SEO, top tips, writing content”. People are not going to click it.

Hence, try to represent the complete phrase, a long tail keyword that people actually use to look for your content.