Can you make a living blogging? If so how is it done? Blogging is definitely a slow burner and it takes time to gather momentum with it. Depending on the time you put in and the topic of your blog, it can take months or even years to build a solid income from blogging. I’ve been a blogger for several years now, and I’m still not making a living from blogging entirely. But if you commit to blogging and make it your intention to blog for a living, there’s no reason why you can’t achieve it.
Many bloggers make a full time income through their blog, despite that fact that there’s plenty of competition for blogs online. There’s over 600 million blogs online and this number is growing all the time. With the advent of AI, it has become more difficult making a living blogging. Not only blogs written in record speed by AI writing machines, but Google employs AI itself in the search results. This makes it more difficult to rank your content, especially if you’re new to blogging.
So how can you build a blog which makes money, while writing about a topic you love? Well here’s my strategy for doing exactly that.
Can You Make A Living Blogging? Yes, but..
You can make a living blogging yes. But it takes time and a lot of effort. Most people aren’t going to stick with it long enough to make it happen. I’ve had several blogs which simply fell away after I lost interest in the topic. I blogged about all sorts of things when I started out as an affiliate. I blogged about recipes, mushroom harvesting, shed building and a whole lot more to attract traffic to my affiliate offers. But the main reason none of these blogs succeeded was because I didn’t care about my topic.
After several failures (also learnings if you reframe “failure”), I landed on this topic – affiliate marketing mentorship. I seemed to stick with me because I’m passionate about self help, psychology and earning a living online. The “affiliate mentor” niche therefore seemed to work for me because it’s something I’m passionate about.
So my best advice if you want to make a living blogging is to find a niche with which you’re passionate about and in which you can keep blogging for years, yes years. You can have some success with a blog within a few months. I started making sales through blogging quite early – within a few months. This spurred me on and is the reason why I’m still blogging today.
If you’re only blogging for the end result – to make affiliate sales, there’s less incentive for you to keep going when nothing seems to be working. But if your motivation is intrinsic (comes from within), then you’ve a better chance because you’re going to stick at it longer, because you love it!
Can You Make A Living Blogging – Products
The other necessity to make a living blogging is to find a good product (or products) which you can sell from your blog. I only promote products I’ve used myself personally and therefore I can recommend them with integrity. In the beginning when I started out as an affiliate, I would try and sell any old product, whether I had used it or not. But this isn’t a great idea. How can you wholeheartedly recommend something if you haven’t even bought it yourself? The answer is you can’t!
Ideally find a product which aligns with your passion. That way, you attract an audience who will also love your product. So if you’re writing about Yoga, use a Yoga course to monetise your website. But find one which you genuinely love and can recommend, or create your own course and sell that.
Good product are generally more expensive than others and although this might mean an investment upfront, it also means larger commissions when you start making sales. Plus, high quality products offer subscriptions and customers are more likely to stick with something which is super valuable, rather than the latest fad! You can find affiliate products in almost any niche with a quick Google search. But finding high quality products which will last can take a bit of digging.
Targeting Long Tail Keywords
As a new blogger, it can help to target long tail keywords with low SEO difficulty. This has a two fold benefit:
- It boosts your “SEO power” or domain authority with Google, thereby increasing your rankings on the SERPS – Search Engine Results Pages. More content (especially high quality content) in helpful for your SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
- It lets you rank for the less difficult keywords and get found on page one of the search results.
Once you have created a few pieces of content for long tail keywords which have less competition, you should have increased your domain authority a little. Then start going after more competitive keywords which attract the target audience suitable for your particular products/niche.
Content should also be aimed to help and inspire your audience which you’ll build through the use of an email list.
Why Build An Email List
Blogging is time consuming and you aren’t guaranteed a place on Google’s first page, however good your content is. So in order to give yourself a better chance of building a large audience, it’s wise to build an email list of subscribers. An email list gives you control over your traffic, without which you’ll have to work really hard for (through content marketing) or pay for traffic with paid advertising.
If your advertising platform has a problem, or your rankings drop off Google, a lost redresses the balance and gives you more control. You can still email your subscribers and get traffic to your blog posts (and your offers) if you have a list which you build up over time.
Can You Make A Living Blogging – Building Your Email List
Your blog posts can be used to attract an audience to your website. However, most of that traffic will simply leave within a few minutes, if not seconds! To build your email list you need to offer something of value from your website to encourage your visitors to join your email list.
For example, I use this ebook as one of my own “lead magnets” – click on the image to download it!
Ebooks, downloads, pdfs and video courses are all good “lead magnets” you can use to build an email list from your blogging. Ideally choose something that aligns with the products you’re going to use to monetise your blog with. I offer a training and education resource to help people build an income online from scratch. (Join my list by accessing my ebook for more information).
Helping Your Subscribers/Visitors
A blog should be useful in some way to your visitors and subscribers. Otherwise, you won’t attract much of an audience and you won’t build trust with that audience. Putting the cart before the horse and trying to sell your wares before building this trust is where many bloggers go wrong. You need to put in the work first, before you can capitalise on the rewards (in terms of sales).
So help your visitors and subscribers through your content. Build trust by offering value. Once people trust you, they will keep coming to your blog and keep opening your email messages. When you recommend something, they are much more likely to buy from you if you have built this trust first.
Again, this takes time. So in order to maintain your enthusiasm, long term, pick a topic you love writing about. Recently I had someone buy a course from my email list after 5 years of being on it! This just shows the power of the email list. If you don’t capture your blog visitor’s email address somehow, there’s no chance of this happening because they will be long gone!
Passion Project & Sub Niche
Like any passion project, it can take years before you’re up and running, making the kind of money you would really like. But choosing the right topic and the right products in the first instance will put you in good stead for long term success. Make sure you offer something of value to give to your visitors, such as an ebook or video course and use this to build your email list.
As your email list grows, so will your income if you consistently offer value, and build your blog, sharing and linking to it as you go.
Checkout my other posts on blogging below:
- how to keep going with blogging
- The tipping point in blogging
- the magical compound effect of blogging
It can also help to find a sub-niche with your blog topic. A sub-niche is a niche within a niche. So for example, if your topic is Yoga, a sub-niche might be Yoga for seniors, or chair Yoga for rehabilitation, or Yoga for back pain. A sub-niche is a good idea for bloggers because there’s less competition in a sub-niche.
As such you’re likely to gain more traction with your blogging. Sub-niche topics are also good because you get a very specific type of visitor. So if you target a sub-niche well, you can do very well with your sales, knowing exactly who is going to visit your blog and what they are likely to purchase.
Summary
Anyone can make a living through blogging if they choose a good topic, monetise it well and spend enough time on it. However, it can take months or years in some niches before you will see the “fruit”. If you intend on starting a blog, you’ll find it much easier to write about a topic you’re passionate about or at the least interested in. A passion project is also much much enjoyable over the longer term, whereas if your sole interest is the income, you might find you’ll lose interest after a few months of blogging.
Ideally choose a topic you love in a sub niche which has less competition. Monetise your blog with a high value affiliate product which you genuinely endorse, if not your own product. Build an email list and start collecting subscribers by offering a freebie of some kind. Then keep writing high quality content for your target audience and providing value for them.