Get rid of the generic advice you've been reading if you want to understand how to make money blogging. "Expert" bloggers frequently offer general guidance on how to write about your interests, maintain consistency, develop strong writing habits, and produce excellent content.
After a few years, you'll have amassed sufficient website traffic to monetize your blog through affiliate marketing, Google AdSense, online training, podcasting, or the sale of digital goods. The unpalatable fact is that you don't need to wait years - blogging advice is just out of date.
You need to think like a CEO and approach your blog like a business, not a hobby, if you want to quickly create life-changing money from it.
This manual should help you come up with some new strategies and revise your old ones for the 2023s and beyond.
Let's get going.
Based on my expertise of more than Five years, this is my preferred starter configuration at the best price:
Go to Bluehost purchase a plan then select Get Started Now.
A choice plus plan should be made.
Your desired domain name should be entered (i.e. Builders WordPress)
Enter the details of your account.
Based on how long you want to py, select an account plan under Package Information. (Remember that all programs come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there's no risk!)
The package extras are not necessary, so uncheck them.
Finish your transaction, select a password, and access your Bluehost account.
Whether you choose to respond to the onboarding questions or not, select "blog" when prompted.
When it comes to selecting your theme, choose "skip." (That will be resolved eventually.)
You may access WordPress by clicking the WordPress button in the top right corner of the Bluehost dashboard.
Congrats! You now have a WordPress blog that is self-hosted! Let's scale your new blog like a startup now to start earning money from your blog.
image source: Pixabay
Setting up a LLC
Treating your blog like a company is one important step in earning money from blogging. To accomplish this, set up your blog as an LLC (Limited Liability Company). In the event that your blog ever runs into legal issues, this will shield you from any personal liability.
Some of the steps you'll need to take to create your LLC include:
- Submit your articles of incorporation to your state
- Decide on a registered agent.
- Make an operational contract
- Ask the IRS for an EIN.
I suggest Tailor Brands when it comes to selecting the best LLC service for your company.
Tailor Brands will assist you with matters such as putting your brand to work for you in addition to handling the legal aspects of creating your LLC.
This means that you may make use of tools like their AI logo builder to help you establish a distinctive and memorable brand. They can assist you in developing a professional and up-to-date website for your blog business using their website builder. Finally, they may assist you in increasing website traffic by using their SEO services.
In other words, they offer a one-stop shop with everything you require to launch your business.
Based on the Market Factors choose your Niche.
90% of bloggers fail for a reason, but it's not what you may expect. The prevalent misconception is that bloggers don't succeed because they lack "passionate enough.. They advise you to "push through failure to succeed."
The top Google result for "why bloggers fail" provides the same explanation: bloggers fail because they lack sufficient passion. I formally disagree with this idea. The actual cause of failure for bloggers is the same as for every business: lack of profitability.
Consider my interests as an example.
I have several interests, including drumming, flying, exploring, long distance running, personal growth, and Detroit-style pizza. But if I continued to write blog entries about one of these subjects indefinitely without earning any money, I would always burn out.
The words "I'm not in it for the money" or "It's just a hobby" are also used by certain bloggers. Hobby bloggers are simply inexperienced bloggers who don't yet understand how to generate income. There are novices and professionals in every creative digital field, including design, web development, photography, copywriting, and video editing.
And most bloggers are doomed to failure since they begin as amateurs by writing about a hobby and try to figure out everything else later.
Additionally, blogging advice is out-of-date, only written to rank on Google, and promotes a generalist approach to reach the largest audience possible. Bloggers don't fail because they aren't passionate enough (they have that in spades).Because they can't make the jump from being a blogger to running a business, bloggers fail.
Therefore, they decide to target a low-value audience with a non-lucrative niche. New bloggers sometimes overlook the strategic value of networking and connections. Additionally, they lack sufficient market demand to scale traffic.
I'm hoping you do well. Prior to starting your blog, it's important to select a niche based on three business factors rather than personal interests: audience budget potential, professional leverage, and market demand.
1. Choose your Blog Niche & a Professional Blog Name:
Finding your potential competitive advantages over others comes next after identifying a profitable audience to whom you can add value.
Think about it:
What is the extent of my professional experience at the moment?
What relationships do I have in my field? Is it possible to turn this experience into a successful blog?
Who would take me seriously if I could approach any website in the world about writing a guest post?
You must first establish influence if you want to create a truly successful blog. And in order to establish authority, you must push yourself beyond your comfort zone and make unprecedented use of your resources, connections, and professional experience.
Additionally, you'll be doing a lot of outreach to establish new relationships.
Building connections is part of outreach so you may guest post on reputable websites in your niche. These articles provide you with high-quality backlinks for SEO, which is still one of the finest strategies to improve your position in Google search results.
Additionally, you might not have many connections or published works when you first start out. Why would anyone feature me, you might ask? Utilizing your background greatly aids.
For instance, if you're a photographer, you might already have a clientele, contacts from neighborhood meet-up groups, and even acquaintances with influential photographers. Your blog's growth can be sped up if you can use these contacts in the future.
2. Choose a Niche according to Market Demand.
You must first conduct some research to determine whether there is interest in and potential revenue from the topics you wish to write about.
"How-to" instructions and "best" list posts are the two main categories of keywords that can be profitable. The greatest potential for affiliate marketing money is found in these two main categories of keywords. For instance, consider the "best" list posts:
This may be "best travel insurance" or "best travel backpack" in the travel context.
It might be "best savings accounts" or "best Roth IRA" in the financial world.
It might be "best VR headset" or "best PS5 exclusives" in the tech world.
People who are looking for the "best" of something look for lengthy reviews of products that bloggers have written.
These might be "how-to" manuals in the case of:
creating a website for marketing.
How to decorate your kitchen is covered in lifestyle.
How to get rid of acne in terms of health.
These lengthy videos with top-notch content are how-to manuals. These are suitable for including affiliate links as well. The most common blog format, according to 77% of bloggers surveyed, is "How-to" posts.
This implies that you should choose your niche and identify the top 10 keywords to target once you have an understanding of your leverage and passions. Next, enter your keywords into a keyword research tool like GrowthBar, Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush, or Ahrefs.
You can research keywords while conducting a Google search using GrowthBar.
Look at the keyword difficulty score after that (a number from 0 to 100 on how difficult it will be to rank for the keyword).
If the difficulty level of your keywords is 80 or higher, there may be too much competition for you to stand out. In order to potentially acquire more traffic with less competition, go for target keywords with over 2,000 monthly searches and under a 50 difficulty score.
Using an SEO tool like Ahrefs to view data from the search engine results page (SERP) is another approach to see the competition. Look for the SERP position history and the Domain Rating (DR) of the top page results in particular.
Your new blog with a DR of 0 won't appear on page one if the top 10 results are all over 70, which means it won't receive any traffic. However, if a website with a DR under 50 appears on page one, it's likely that you can eventually outrank it with solid content.
Last but not least, if the SERP position history hasn't changed over the past six months, then positions 1 through 5 have remained the same. In these circumstances, the level of competition for that keyword can be too high.
image source: Pixabay
To sum up, look for topics that contain the following keywords while analyzing the market need for your blog:
- 2,000+ searches each month
- A keyword difficulty rating of less than 50
- There is at least one site with a DR under 50 on the first page of Google.
- a recent shift in the SERP position history.
In conclusion, give keyword research more attention than writing; each blog article should target a single term.
Make sure to select your specialization based on the market demand, professional leverage, and audience spending power.
Find a group of people who you can relate to and learn about their struggles. Increase that audience's level to ensure that there is a B2B component to 200 times your potential revenue. Utilize your network, professional expertise, and all other resources at your disposal. Moreover, make sure there is a market for your niche.
Scale Back Your Content Production and Reduce Your Writing.
What if I told you that you wouldn't publish a single word for the first 90 days of your blog and that it has nothing to do with your blog?
What if blogging isn't necessary for scaling a blog and earning money from it? What if all the advice given on starting a new blog has prevented you from growing?
Keep in mind that you are a company owner and not just a blogger. You shouldn't devote your energies to writing first drafts from days 0 to 90. I won't offer stale, irrelevant advice. I won't discuss how to write about your interests, use an editorial calendar, develop writing habits, or write consistently.
Instead, we'll scale your blog like a business and quickly establish trust in your market.
To do that, getting writing assistance is a key strategy. You can utilize a service like Fiverr to find freelance writers rather than writing every single initial draft yourself. You may spend your time editing, publishing, and link-building because there are many writers who provide their services for composing blog posts.
Overall, this procedure consists of five key parts:
Continue indefinitely: Outreach Guest Post Outsource Backlinks
During the first year following its introduction, my blog got over 3,000 backlinks from over 1,000 different domains, increasing its Domain Rating (DR) by +62 points.
You can stop reading now if you're a blogger who wants to concentrate on writing, reliability, zeal, and habits.
Let's start monetizing, though, if you're one of the like-minded individuals who is committed to building your blog like a CEO (and not just as a side project).
Relationships Are Your Main Foundation.
You must grasp one key concept before you can begin forming connections with other bloggers and influencers in your industry. You need to add value for other people. Don't enter the relationship-building process only considering what you'll gain from it. You must first concentrate on the advantages you will provide for others.
What value do you provide to the partnership, you might ask?
Given that your knowledge relates to their audience's interests, may you contribute content?
Does their blog now lack posts to fit out their editorial schedule?
Can you use link building to their advantage in other guest posts you write?
Is there a subject you are knowledgeable about that isn't covered on their blog?
Understanding your value and what you can do to help is the first step in making a pitch. Your initial email outreach campaign will require this information as a key component.
Make a specific list of websites first.
It's time to start developing your blog outreach list after you are aware of the value you can deliver. A straightforward spreadsheet with five columns—Website, Name, Email Address, Status, etc.—should be used to compile this list.
By entering the target blog's URL into an SEO tool like Ahrefs, you can check out the target blog's monthly site visitors and Domain Authority (DA) to start filling out your spreadsheet. Choose blogs with a Domain Authority of 50 or above.
Keep in mind that the stronger the connection potential and the greater the SEO benefit you will obtain from the relationship, the higher the DA. Find an article like this one that lists the best blogs and websites that accept guest articles along with their Domain Authority scores to cut down on the time you spend searching.
It's time to select the appropriate individual to contact after you've narrowed down your list of blogs using the aforementioned criteria.
Use LinkedIn first.
Search for people within the company using terms like "Content Manager," "SEO Manager," "Editor," or simply "Content" after first filtering your search results by the blog's company page.
Connect with them on LinkedIn once you've located 2-3 possible contacts. LinkedIn connections in your second and third degrees are preferable, and if you have a mutual contact, that is even better. Spending too much time on your connection message will likely result in it being buried or becoming spammy.
After reaching out on LinkedIn, search the blog for email addresses using an email service like Hunter.io. Hunter.io displays your email structure, such as firstname@blog.com or firstname.lastname@blog.com, even if you are unable to locate the contact's precise email address. Include these contact details in your spreadsheet.
The Value of Guest Posting.
I experimented with guest writing in January 2019. I set out to write as many guest posts as I could within a 15-day period in order to evaluate the effect they had on both traffic and SEO metrics for my website.
After 15 days, the outcomes were as follows:
On websites with DAs of 81, 73, 60, 66, 71, 61, 94, and 84, eight guest posts were published.
referring domains, 32 new
new backlinks, 247
268 fresh organic search terms appear in the top 100
Alexa Rank rose by 600,000, with a 372% increase in organic traffic +12 to Ahrefs Domain Authority.
The findings were unmistakable: a new blog's SEO is still significantly impacted by guest posting on high DA websites. Link building, according to 65% of marketers, is the trickiest SEO strategy to master.
Because of this, I advise starting a blog with five "pillar posts"—long, SEO-optimized content designed to attract inbound links. To make linking simpler, include data, infographics, and case studies.
I continue to strive to write at least one guest article for every blog post I produce, even as my blog gets older. Remember to place more of your attention on the business and relationship aspects of blogging when you first start out and less on the writing.
However, the caliber of the content in your guest articles matters. Use headings, paragraph text, and links to your information appropriately. If you want to boost the quality of your writing, closely adhere to the guest post guidelines and make use of one of the best grammar checkers available.
How to Effectively Monetize Your Blog.
There are several ways to monetize your blog, including affiliate marketing, advertising, online courses, one-on-one coaching, consultancy, sponsored posts, and the sale of tangible goods. These revenue streams vary in the amount of traffic they demand.
Because of this, it's crucial to plan your future revenue-generating strategy with the appropriate monetization methods at the appropriate stages of your blog's lifecycle.
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