Blogging Quick start
The difference between blogging and blogging for profit is
monetization. Starting a blog today is as simple, easy and fast as
setting up a social media profile. Anyone can start a blog, either
self hosted or using a webcast. There are blogging platforms that
allow you to have your segregated section, complete with your
profile and exclusive posts.
There are free content management systems that allow you to
host a blog on their parent domain. You could also purchase a
domain, register it, host it and create a website essentially
designed to be a blog. Assess the costs of the different options,
consider your technical skills such as website design and choose
a platform that suits you.
Choosing a Niche
There are bloggers who want to write on everything, almost.
There are bloggers who focus on a niche. Both can work and both
can fail. It depends on the expertise of the blogger. Not the writing
expertise but knowledge. Not every blogger can develop a sound
understanding of every subject that can be written about. If you
are alone or have a very small team, then it is best to focus on niche. Trying to write about too many things will not only be
baffling challenging but it will also confuse your potential
audience. Readers like specificity. You too would be perplexed as
to whom you wish to target. If you check out the popular blogs or
even the video bloggers who have amassed millions with their
channels on YouTube, all of them are focusing on a niche that is
well sorted.
You could write on anything, from fashion to technology, geology
to politics, economics to history, consumer electronics to real
estate, family or kids to relationships, dating or health, sports or
current affairs to news, events, photography and anything that
interests you.
Bloggers who have an astute understanding of what they are
writing or the larger domain will always do well. Blogging is not
just writing. It is a fine combination of writing acumen, knowledge,
specialization, awareness of latest updates and an understanding
of what people or readers are looking for.
Choose a niche that you are comfortable with and equally
important is the readership. Do not pick a niche that no one is
interested in. You can write a blog on such a niche to satiate your
own desire but such a blog will be hard to monetize. You can online. Trying to write about too many things will not only be
baffling challenging but it will also confuse your potential
audience. Readers like specificity. You too would be perplexed as
to whom you wish to target. If you check out the popular blogs or
even the video bloggers who have amassed millions with their
channels on YouTube, all of them are focusing on a niche that is
well sorted.
You could write on anything, from fashion to technology, geology
to politics, economics to history, consumer electronics to real
estate, family or kids to relationships, dating or health, sports or
current affairs to news, events, photography and anything that
interests you.
Bloggers who have an astute understanding of what they are
writing or the larger domain will always do well. Blogging is not
just writing. It is a fine combination of writing acumen, knowledge,
specialization, awareness of latest updates and an understanding
of what people or readers are looking for.
Choose a niche that you are comfortable with and equally
important is the readership. Do not pick a niche that no one is
interested in. You can write a blog on such a niche to satiate your
own desire but such a blog will be hard to monetize. You can online. Trying to write about too many things will not only be
baffling challenging but it will also confuse your potential
audience. Readers like specificity. You too would be perplexed as
to whom you wish to target. If you check out the popular blogs or
even the video bloggers who have amassed millions with their
channels on YouTube, all of them are focusing on a niche that is
well sorted.
You could write on anything, from fashion to technology, geology
to politics, economics to history, consumer electronics to real
estate, family or kids to relationships, dating or health, sports or
current affairs to news, events, photography and anything that
interests you.
Bloggers who have an astute understanding of what they are
writing or the larger domain will always do well. Blogging is not
just writing. It is a fine combination of writing acumen, knowledge,
specialization, awareness of latest updates and an understanding
of what people or readers are looking for.
Choose a niche that you are comfortable with and equally
important is the readership. Do not pick a niche that no one is
interested in. You can write a blog on such a niche to satiate your
own desire but such a blog will be hard to monetize. You can only iche. Trying to write about too many things will not only be
baffling challenging but it will also confuse your potential
audience. Readers like specificity. You too would be perplexed as
to whom you wish to target. If you check out the popular blogs or
even the video bloggers who have amassed millions with their
channels on YouTube, all of them are focusing on a niche that is
well sorted.
You could write on anything, from fashion to technology, geology
to politics, economics to history, consumer electronics to real
estate, family or kids to relationships, dating or health, sports or
current affairs to news, events, photography and anything that
interests you.
Bloggers who have an astute understanding of what they are
writing or the larger domain will always do well. Blogging is not
just writing. It is a fine combination of writing acumen, knowledge,
specialization, awareness of latest updates and an understanding
of what people or readers are looking for.
Choose a niche that you are comfortable with and equally
important is the readership. Do not pick a niche that no one is
interested in. You can write a blog on such a niche to satiate your
own desire but such a blog will be hard to monetize. You can only money use a blog for profit that will have substantial traffic.
Microbiology or nuclear science, applied mechanics or even the
history of textiles would not be appealing niches, even though
some interesting posts can potential get thousands or hundreds of
thousands of hits. A niche must be perennially popular for the
blog to be monetized for profit. You need sustainable revenue and
not a onetime windfall gain, although the latter too is welcome
with the sustainable profits.
Path to Monetization
There are many ways to monetize a blog. One of the most
unpopular and ineffective methods is subscription. We live in an
era when information is free. While you can have your content
and intellectual property protected with copyrights, you cannot
really prevent the information from being available in some other
form. Reproduction of information in non-plagiarized forms will
always happen. Since there is no dearth of information,
subscription has not really been the most successful way to
monetize a blog.
Even the most popular newspapers and magazines are losing
paid subscribers. However, if your niche is very refined and your
target audience is looking for rare exclusive information then scan charge a fee. This will not work for most types of blogs but
then there are always exceptions. You need to assess if your
audience will be willing to pay a subscription fee per month or
yearly to access your blog. This can be a captive source of
revenue and hence profit.
1. Advertisements
The most widely used method of monetization of blogs is
advertising. There are many types of advertisements you can
resort to. First there are Google AdWords which would put
relevant advertisements on every webpage or post on your blog.
Your website will effectively be populated with ads as per the
modus operandi of Google and the likes of Bing. You sign up for
the Google Ads and they will sprinkle different kinds of ads in
allotted spaces on every webpage.
Such advertisements pay revenue in different ways. Pay per click
advertisements will get you paid only when the readers on your
blog actually click on the links put up in the ads. Pay per view or
impression ads will generate revenue based on how many people
are on the given webpage coming across the advertisement.
Some ads require visitors on a blog to hover over the advertised link or content for the impression. Usually, pay per view ads has
fixed revenue for a certain count of thousand or several thousand.
Then there are sponsored ads, banner ads, footer ads and larger
sponsorships. You could have sponsored ads on top or bottom of
your webpage, ala banner or footer ads, ads within the content
you are posting, on the sides or you can have a specific webpage
dedicated to only one advertiser or just one brand that will have
its offers dominating the layout of the webpage.
These can be facilitated by Google or you can have your direct
association with advertising networks. You may also get brands to
directly advertise on your blog but for that you would need a
substantial readership to entice them.
Advertising is a steady and rewarding source of revenue for blogs
provided there is a large readership. Blogs that are not read by
too many people will generate almost no or insignificant revenue
with ads. This is why other methods of monetization become nothing important but essential.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an effective way to monetize a blog. It has a
simple modus operandi and can be used by any blogger. You
need to sign up with an affiliate marketing network, also referred
to as affiliate network, and start promoting the products or
services directly or indirectly. Affiliate marketing is quite simple.
You come up with a blog post wherein a product or service, in
most cases multiple products and services, will be advertised or
showcased. These products or services could be just mentioned
in fleeting reference within a post or the blog post can be about
those products and services. If the reader clicks on the link of the
product or service and purchases or signs up then the blogger
gets a commission.
Affiliate marketing has become a rewarding source of revenue for
bloggers, principally because one doesn’t need a very large
readership to earn revenue. Even if one of your blog posts get fifty
views and two people end up buying a product or signing up for a
service, you can get a handsome commission. Such commissions
could be exponentially greater than what you would earn with pay
per view or pay per click advertisements. However, people have buy or sign up for the products or services respectively for you
to earn anything.
Affiliate marketing is often upfront wherein the blogger makes it
amply clear that the posts are about products and services. These
posts are mostly reviews or accounts of personal experiences.
They are informative but do have some degree of promotional
intent in the manner the content is created. The purpose is to offer
information and to influence the buyers to purchase the product or
sign up for the service being promoted. You could also do this in a
subtle way, without making it obvious that you are an affiliate
blogger.
3. Paid Content
You could monetize your blog with paid content. You can get paid
to write specific types of posts. These could be informative,
reviews, assessments of specific products and services,
comparison posts, analyses of companies or brands,
endorsement articles or just outright informational posts to help
increase the outreach of a company. Paid content is very
common and even some of the most read blogs have various posts that companies sponsor directly.
However, a blog cannot survive entirely on paid content. Then it
becomes a glorified billboard. Paid content would inevitably be
promotional, subtly or overtly. There should be more organic
content than paid content. No reader wants to read a blog that is
only self serving and paid content is more in the interest of the
company and the blogger than the reader. There are exceptions
in cases of products or services that can truly help people in their
day-to-day lives. Other scenarios are outright consumerism.
4. Direct Sales
This may not sound like a very plausible strategy to monetize a
blog for profit but it is absolutely plausible. Affiliate marketing, paid
content and ads are essentially promotions. They are all about
commerce. Facilitating direct sales is more straightforward and
honorable than the indirect measures. There are blogs that host
direct sales. Incorporating ecommerce features in a blog is no big
deal these days.
People who explore information and trust the bloggers they follow
ardently don’t mind shopping for products they need directly from
the blog. This has become very popular in fashion, beauty and
healthcare sectors. This is becoming a trend in electronics,
accessories and peripherals. Depending on the niche you targeting, you can easily set up an online store and sell select
products or services. Do not vie for a marketplace as you would
have to cater to your niche. Be selective and have only the best
products or services. Have an ecommerce strategy to go along
with your everyday blogging.
5. Blast Marketing
Any readership can be used as a database. Your blog should
have a privacy policy and you should make it lucid how the data
obtained from the readers and followers would be used. As long
as you are not compromising the privacy or security of your
readership, you can use their data in a myriad of ways. You could
use the database for blast emails or text messages. You could
use the database for social media marketing.
You can offer such blast marketing services to a plethora of
companies cutting across industries. Chances are your database
will be in demand for businesses operating in the industry which is
also the niche your blog is scattering to but a database can
always be used for marketing products or services in categories or niches.
Multipurpose Monetization
You have to start somewhere and with something. You need to
pick one path to monetization and perfect it. If it works, then you
should improve it and then consider another option. If it doesn’t
work, then have it in place and then expand your scope of
monetization. You can never be sure which monetization attempt
will work wonders for you. It is also true that each of these
methods has its strengths and weaknesses so they all must
coexist. It could be affiliate marketing one month earning you
revenues that you need to stay profitable for six months. It could
be sponsored or pay per click ads in another month that will earn
a mini fortune for you.
The simple reality is that a blog must have a multipurpose
monetization strategy. You should be open and prepared to
generate revenue from any and every possible source. An
assured revenue or multiple sources of revenue is the only way to
survive, to ensure a blog is profitable and to remain focused on
what matters more than everything else, the readers.
The readers want helpful information, content that will positively
change their lives or assist in their decisions. To achieve this, you
ought to stay committed to research and ever acknowledges, you must be dedicated to creating quality blog
posts and you must continue working on expanding your
readership. These will be daunting challenges if you cannot come
up with a multiprocess monetization strategy that works and will
work in the future.
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