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With so many blogs that fail, you need to know the right approach before you start a blog to make money!
Seems like everyone has a blog these days, in fact, there are more than 152 million blogs for the year 2013 according to Quora.com.
By now, there are probably close to 200 million or more blogs out there but how many of these are making money?
Majority of these blogs, probably more than 90%, are not making consistent monthly income. Why is that and what can we do about it? It is because the approach going into blogging is all wrong.
Here are four things you can do to ensure your blog is successful and not have it end up to be another abandoned blog on the internet:
- Give it time and commitment
- Write original content
- Invest in your blog
- Make it like a business
Give It Time and Commitment
Most bloggers who fail to make money from their blog think they can earn quick easy money from it, but that’s far from the truth.
Some others may have a full time job and think blogging to make money at home seems like an easy alternative to the 9 to 5.
This kind of thinking can lead to the wrong approach to blogging because you’ll never take your blog seriously enough to give it the time it needs and the commitment from you on it.
Consistency and time are key factors to the success of a blog.
Consistency means that you are adding content to your blog regularly. Regularly can be defined by you, whatever schedule you feel you can keep up with, decide on it, and stick with it. If you want Google to rank your blog high, you will need consistent new content added to your blog.
Time is needed because Google doesn’t love you overnight. Your blog will receive organic traffic through your use of SEO but that traffic doesn’t come overnight.
Google needs to know your site can be trusted and that takes time. Blogging is not a get quick rich scheme at all but if you can be consistent with it and give it time for your website to rank, then you’ll be reaping in the rewards in due time.
Write Original Content
Your blog needs to have original content meaning you cannot copy someone’s article or write up and think that you can fool the search engines.
Search engines these days are super sophisticated and will even know if you’ve paraphrased content, meaning trying to rewrite it in your own words.
Don’t use any word spinners or content generation programs as these techniques will also be detected by the search engines and you will lose rank if you’re found out.
If you are stuck on ideas on what to write, you can try looking up a book online that’s on your topic and look at its table of contents. The table of contents will give you plenty of ideas for your blog posts.
Another way to get ideas for your blog is to go on question and answer websites and learn what the people in your niche are asking about. You will find many topic ideas that you can offer your audience solutions for.
Finally, another way to find content to write about is community forums in your niche. You can find out what people are talking about in your niche and find what problems they face. If you can find solutions to these problems, what a great way to add content to your blog!
Invest In Your Blog
You can start a blog these days for free but when you do that, part of your thinking is that it’s free anyway so you won’t pay much attention to it after awhile.
If you pay for that domain name, pay for hosting, or pay for training, then you’ll be more invested in your blog and you will then take it more seriously.
Many people start a blog as a hobby and so they don’t take it seriously, especially if it’s free. You must approach it like an investment so you have a reason to pay attention to it, at least psychologically.
If you’re a beginner blogger, invest in training yourself. Blogging sounds easy but there are techniques on how to build out your site and make it easy to navigate for your audience.
Educating yourself will make your blogging life easier and your blog much more professional looking.
A training program I love to use is the Wealthy Affiliate program that has rich courses to learn from. It’s a platform that includes the web hosting of your site as well as two free blogs using sub-domain type URLs (“yourname.siterubix.com”) or you can invest in a “yourname.com” domain.
Their training is extensive starting at the beginning where you choose your sub-domain or domain name all the way through to making your first dollars!
You can join it for FREE but what does free get you? Not all the training (but a great way to see for yourself what’s available) and believe me, you want all the training!
So like I’ve been saying, invest in yourself and get the Premium membership! The best thing you can do for yourself is to invest in yourself!! If you want more details on Wealthy Affiliate, click HERE to see why this program is totally worth it!
Make It Like A Business
Let’s get serious! Making money is not a hobby. If you want to make money from your blog, make it your business to do so.
Once you make your blog like a business, you will make sure it’ll make money because who wants to own a business that doesn’t make money?!
Again, approach is everything, and if you treat it like a hobby, it’s not going to anywhere.
How do you make it a business? Here are a few things you can do to make your blog a business:
- Branding – When you create your logo, make sure it looks professional and speaks true to what your blog will be about. If you can’t do it yourself, get someone else to do it on Fiverr.com. This is part of investing in your blog, do it! 🙂 Then make sure everything else like your social media accounts, YouTube account, and anything associated with your blog is branded with the same logo and look.
- Bank Account – Create a separate bank account for your blog, don’t mix personal with business. It’s never a smart idea to mix the two. You want to be able to track your income and expenses for your blog separately from your personal banking. All businesses need separate reporting and you might as well start from the beginning with that domain purchase with your new business bank account! 😉
- Make It A LLC – This third one is not necessary but it adds a layer of protection to you and your personal assets. It can be considered down the road but really it doesn’t cost that much to create a Limited Liability Company. I know some states can cost less than $100 and can be easily done without a lawyer. You just need to contact your city hall and find the form you need, usually it’s all on the internet too these days.
Like all businesses, they take time to grow and make money, so this will be true for your blog too.
If you don’t treat your blog like a business, then you’ll never grow out of the hobby stage so why even start a blog as a hobby if you want to make money from it?
Treat it with the right approach from the get-go and you’ll have your blog making money much sooner.
Blogging has never been a get rich quick scheme but a successful blog can bring you plenty of riches. 🙂
There’s no telling how much you can earn with your blog, I’ve seen bloggers make over $100K a month, not a year, a month, so if you’re serious, the sky’s the limit! Having the right approach to your blog is your first step to start a successful blog!
Let’s make money online!
Wow! Grace i like this,you really have given me a new perspective on how to start a blog to make money! Your post has given me ideas on how to get new post content and yes dedicate my time and be consistent with my blog. I will try to make my blog a business too and not treat it as a hobby.
Thanks for your ideas.
Thanks Phumlani for stopping by and checking out my post! Yes, it’s important to make your blog a business and not think it’s a quick and easy thing to just hope for the best. You really have to work hard on it.
Best of luck!
Grace
Hi Grace,
I’ve been blogging for half a year, and make just a dollar a month.
This was an extremely valuable read. It gave me several great ideas that I’ll surely implement in my strategy. I especially like the ideas for generating original content! Thankfully, my niche is extensively covered in books and the online world, so I shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with good, original content from now on.
I’ve completed step 1 in making my blog like a business, which is branding. I think I did that fairly well. But the other two steps I’ve not completed yet. They will be added to my ever-growing list of ways to run/improve my blog. 🙂
Again, thanks for the valuable read.
Ian
Hi Ian,
I’m so glad my post has been valuable to you and you will take action on things you’ve taken away from your read here. Getting content is key and I’m so glad you will look to those sources I mentioned to get more ideas for your blog! Try taking Step 2 soon in making your blog a business, it’s good to keep your personal money separate from your blog transactions. 🙂
Congratulations on already making money on your blog! Although, small for now, it will keep rolling higher and higher as you keep moving forward! That’s how the blog world goes!
To much success to you!
Grace
Hello Grace,
I have been watching your blog and finding the way you layout what to do, is easy to follow and understandable.
I have taken some education webinars about blogging, but they were not as user friendly for those of us that have never seen blogs let alone wrote articles for blogs.
I am going to put your above article near me to use when I write my blog to make sure I covered what you gave as structure in a blog.
I appreciate you educating me on “how the blog world is.” That is new input for me.
I am going to follow your blog, as I stated, to help me get up quicker.
Thanks for all you do for me to learn from.
Sharon
That’s great Sharon! I’m glad I can be of help and thanks for following my blog!
Check out Wealthy Affiliate as I mentioned above as they have very good training indeed and will help you learn more about how to blog.
So happy to hear my blog has been helping you! Thanks for stopping by!
Grace
Hello Grace! Your website is awesome and has some great information on how to have a successful blog! You have a great setup as well It has given me several new ideas just from this information! Great job!
Rhianna 🙂
Thank you so much Rhianna for your thoughts and well wishes! I’m so glad I can be of help to you and hope you can use those new ideas for your own website!
I wish you much success and please stop by anytime!
Grace
Hello Grace =)
It was really important for me to read this post today!
Seeing the four things to consider really made me think about what I’m doing.
I have written down the 4 things in a notepad as a reminder.
Great post! – Thanks =)
That’s great Lawrence! I’m so happy that this post will be guiding you in the near future for your own blog! Just let me know if you need any help!
Take care,
Grace
Hi Grace,
I couldn’t agree with you more regarding the time it takes to make consistent revenue from a blog.
Writing quality content is #1 priority here, followed by using powerful tools like the keyword tool to boost your posts in the Search Engines.
Always share posts on Social Media as this will start the traffic ball rolling and receive comments as the Search Engines take notice of interaction.
If do do all of the above regularly your website starts to gain Authority and Trust with the Search Engines but this will probably be a year+ of constantly building your website around your business.
You are so right – Never copy and paste either. This is a big NO.
All the best Grace,
Simon.
Thanks Simon!
Your comment regarding writing content is so right! I really gotta finish setting up all my social media accounts too and follow my own advice! 😉 Thanks for your input regarding search engines as well!
Best to you!
Grace
This was a great read! I can definitely agree that consistency and time are the main factors to a successful blog. Not too long ago I started blogging and getting into the affiliate market, and have yet to wait for the first penny to come in. Everything in your post is very true, just gotta be yourself at all times and be original. I also like to think of it as always making sure I can help people from my blogs.
Hi Jackie!
Using your blog to help others is the number one priority here at workanywherenow.com! I couldn’t agree more about this point. Everything else will come together if you can serve your audience with great information they can use. 🙂 You will get that first dollar earned very soon! Just keep at it!
To much success to you,
Grace
Hello and thanks for sharing this most valuable information. I really enjoyed reading your post and I learn a lot, I am sure that your visitors will fine this post most useful. Your post is well put together and well detailed, all the best to you and have a good day.
Thanks Norman, appreciate your thoughts! I’m glad you enjoyed this post and all the best to you too!
Grace
Hi i’m loving this blog you have written about blogging. I agree that yes you have to give it time and commitment and write decent content and treat it like a business.
Thank you Derek!
Appreciate you stopping by and giving us your thoughts! I’m so glad you agree with what I said, and if you can follow it, your blog will go to new heights!
Grace
Thanks for sharing this useful information! I agree about the time it takes. I recently started two blogging sites and I have a ways to go before I can think about generating income from it.
I share my blogging posts on Facebook and Twitter to help traffic roll in and get comments. I always thought the more posts/comments my site gets, the more it will appear in Google searches.
Thank you Karin! I totally agree with you on the social media aspects and I do have a twitter account but gotta get the other ones up soon! 🙂
So appreciate you stopping by and giving us your thoughts. Time is on our side, and if you keep at it, making money from your blog will be inevitable!
Take care,
Grace
Grace, you rock girl with your articles!!! I came back to your site to see what’s new here since I haven’t been away from my WA training for a long time lol That’s called – addiction 🙂
Give it time and commitment – You re so much right about this! Looking back, it’s been almost 3 months since I started my site and I am so amazed how much I improved and where I am now with my knowledge comparing to when I joined the WA! That knowledge is also very well seen in my blog 🙂 I had some moments of not being able to wait for results but very soon I realized that success is coming along with commitment and time and Google loves me. Also reading success stories within the Wealthy Affiliate platform helped me with this!
Write original content – This is so important. And the best way to do it is to write as talking to someone who has no idea abut the topic! Actually starting from myself a couple of months ago. It’s like studying for an exam and getting yourself in front of a professor and talking while thinking of the best possible grade (in Serbia that’s 10)
Invest in your blog – This is very important, and investment doesn’t need to be cash only. As we all know TIME IS MONEY so investing time is like investing a cash as well
Make it like a business – I started with the WA last year in September, and committed to it fully (every day more and more) in July this year (deciding to go for yearly premium – until then I was paying monthly – that’s related to investment as well). At first I was introducing the WA as my new school but now I always say that it is my business school and my blog is my business.
Amazing Grace, this is so good article love it! And love the idea of creating a new bank account! I am thinking about switching to another email address too, need to ask if that’s possible? To forward all the WA emails to a new address? Do you know something about that?
Thanks and
Keep in touch!
Best,
Sunny
Thanks Sunny for visiting my site again! Really appreciate returning visitors and loving all my followers.
So appreciate your response! That’s so great you have committed to your blog and has made great strides in your work! I can’t wait to see what my blog will look like a year from now. 🙂
Being original in your content could not be emphasized enough and you don’t even need to be a professional writer. You just have to be you and write your content as if you’re writing to a friend. Keeping it easy is a great way to let everyone understand what you’re talking about and can reach many people that way.
Yes, thanks for saying that time is a non-monetary factor to investing in your blog. Time is definitely money and if you can dedicate your time, your blog will blossom to a money making machine and return your time in cash!
I love the way you think Wealthy Affiliate is a business school, it sure is but for the internet! Being an internet marketer is great and can create that passive income that most of us want. I love being there with like minded people too who are more than willing to help if you ever get stuck on your lessons. It’s a great win being there!
You can definitely switch email accounts. There should be a mail forwarding function for your old email that you can forward to your new email while you’re still notifying people of your new email address. If there’s an auto-reply (like a vacation mode) is even better, then whenever someone emails you to the old email, they will receive a reply immediately and that message can tell them to please forward their email to the new email address and for them to update their contact for you. I hope these two options will work for you!
Thanks again for returning to my blog!
Wishing you much success!
Grace
I remember from the training that there is a forwarding option. I’ll probably do that..
And for a vacation mode – I am planning to write while on vacation 🙂 Vacation mode is actually something that will be a life mode 🙂
That’s good Sunny, I’m glad you have a solution! 🙂
So impressive grace , well said !
Thank you Arooj, appreciate your kind words.
Hi Grace
As a newcomer to the blogging world, I really appreciate the information u presented here. I have been wondering about how to get ideas for blogging and was wondering if u had any other pointers as to how to get ideas? I agree that it definitely takes time and effort to do this as a business. I did not know about the branding and will start to work on that asap. Also, your points about being consistent are well founded as I have heard that Google really likes a site that is producing regular content on a set schedule, so I will follow this logic.
Again thanks so much for the information as it has helped me immensely to better plan my next steps in blogging.
Cheers
Carl
Hi Carl,
Thanks for stopping by and glad you found this post to be useful to you. For ideas on what to blog about, you can check out this post here on the 13 types of posts you can write on your blog.
Branding is important so you should have all your social media channels and/or email marketing to have the same look/logo/branding as your website.
Having a writing schedule is key to being consistent for your website. You can read this post here about my writing schedule and how to use one, see the video and start one for yourself. You will love it. I use it everyday!
I hope this helps, please let me know if you have further questions. 🙂
Grace