If you’re thinking about being a blogger, or already blog, here’s a few blogging QnA ‘s – (Questions and Answers), which I would have liked to have known when I started out. When I first started out blogging, I didn’t know what I was doing! I tried many things and made a lot of mistakes.
One of my early sales online came from a review blog post I wrote, and I thought it would be the first sale of many. Unfortunately it didn’t work quite like that and my online income dived after my early “win”. Blogging is a long term strategy for generating an income online. However, some bloggers simply blog for the sheer passion of it, rather than to make an income. But I wanted an income from my blogging, and struggled because I put the “cart before the horse” – money before the value.
My blogs were aimed at money making online when I started out. But there’s a lot of competition in this area, so nothing much happened for several years. Only when I started thinking of giving rather than getting did things really turn around.
So here’s a few blogging QnA’s aimed to help you navigate the blog arena and earn money from your blogging efforts.
Blogging QnA – How Long Does It Take To Make Money Blogging?
This is a tough one because it depends on so many variables. I put an article together aimed at exactly this question. Read it here: how long does it take to make money blogging. There’s many variables connected to answering this and I’ll list some of them here:
- Your topic will determine your success to an extent. How well do you know it, how passionate are you and how much competition is there online in this area? For example, the “money making online” niche is incredibly competitive, so it will take longer to generate free traffic from the search engines in this topic due to large numbers of competing blogs and websites.
- Your passion – how passionate are you and how long can you sustain your blogging efforts. Some bloggers can take months before monetising their blogs, some take years.
- Work ethic – If you think you can write a few words and suddenly be making a passive income, you’re probably going to be disappointed. Bloggers work hard and for a long time before they break through and start even generating a small, trickle income.
- Your strategy & Understanding– When I first started blogging, I thought people would naturally come to my site from Google. But what if Google doesn’t rank your site? Bloggers need to promote their own content as well as regularly write it. I wrote for years before knowing this! Getting the right knowledge upfront will therefore give you an advantage.
Blogging QnA – How Much Money Can You Make From Blogging?
How much money can you make from blogging? Blogging can be very profitable and some bloggers will make a six figure income from blogging. But most will only see a small income from their blog even after a lot of effort. Most will make nothing! The sky is the limit though really because you can build an audience which can keep on growing and is global. So if you tap into a niche and get a lot of traffic as well as monetising your blog well, you can make a lot of money.
But the likelihood of doing this before you’ve built a huge back log of content is very low. Most of the wealthiest bloggers have been at it for years, not months. So unless you are prepared to make blogging a lifestyle choice, it might not be for you. How much money you can make is also determined by a few main factors:
- How much traffic you can get. No traffic will always equal no money from a blog. So traffic generation is key and this comes down to creating quality content which people want to read, and getting them to find it. Marketing your own content is key at first. Later, the search engines might reward you if your content is good.
- How you monetise your site. If you monetise with Adsense or some other advertising, you should expect to make a small income from advert clicks on your site. You’ll need a lot of traffic to make this pay enough to quit your job, for example. Affiliate marketing is another strategy which can make blogging pay; especially if you choose to use high ticket products and recurring income affiliate programs.
- Getting a congruent flow from your blog to your email list and affiliate products also is a major factor. This is all to do with finding the best target audience for your affiliate products – if you go the affiliate route.
See also is blogging profitable.
What Topic Should I Choose To Blog In?
Your blogging topic is pretty important. Which topic should you blog in? The answer is easy really – which topic would you love to write about? It’s easy to make the mistake of trying to make money, rather than by writing about something you are genuinely passionate about. It’s a mistake I made too. I wrote about mushroom harvesting because I thought it was an easy win (due to low competition). However, I soon found out that writing about something you don’t care about, and know nothing about, is pretty hard!
Ideally choose a topic you can write about for a considerable length of time. It’s much easier if you love what you do because you’ll be far more likely to sustain the effort needed for success! Write for your passion, love what you do, and the money will come if you keep at it long enough.
Blogging QnA – How Should I Monetise My Blog?
Monetising a blog can be done through your own products (if you have them), affiliate products or advertising. Google Adsense offers an advertising platform so you can place ads on your content. When people click on them, you make small amounts. You’ll need a lot of traffic to make a good amount using this strategy though. Most bloggers will use affiliate products to monetise their blogs but some will use ads and some will use both.
This site is monetised with affiliate products but I have also tried out using Adsense too. Some bloggers say that using adverts on your site will lead away potential buyers and therefore cost you more money than you would earn from getting a visitor on your email list. But you could argue that if someone is leaving the site anyway, they may as well leave through an advert and make you some money.
If you’re an affiliate you can monetise through building an email list. Then, sell affiliate products through your list. Or you can sell affiliate products directly from your blog using banners. Ideally choose affiliate products which are suitable for your topic and which you have personally bought and benefited from yourself. Otherwise you’re being disingenuous in promoting them.
Ideally build an email list of subscribers who you can communicate through email messages. This can dramatically extend the time period with which you can make a sale. On a blog, most visitors leave within a few minutes. On your email list this time is extended to months, years and even decades! You’ll need an autoresponder to build an email list. See also the power of email marketing.
Blogging QnA – What Affiliate Products Should I Use On A Blog?
Your blog topic should carefully tie up with your choice of affiliate products. Unless your visitors actually find your products useful, they won’t buy. Ask yourself why your visitors would come to your blog in the first place and whether your choice of products are a good match. This comes down to selecting products which are aligned with your blog topic too.
What are you going to write about? It’s no use writing about flower arranging and then trying to sell people products about making money. It’s a mix match and you’re unlikely to make any sales! They come to your site to learn about flower arranging. So they might be interested in buying something which is related to that – such as flowers, or books/videos on the topic. How to know your target market is what’s important here.
You should choose products which you yourself would (and have) purchased. If you’re passionate about something, the chances are good that you’ve already bought something relating to your niche. A quick online search for “{your niche} affiliate products” will bring up some likely candidates. Then join the affiliate programs and you’ll get some free marketing tools usually to help you promote them from your blog. Keep in mind too than low value affiliate products bring low value commissions. High ticket affiliate programs pay much more plus you can also use recurring income affiliate programs to increase your earning potential from a blog.
Summary
I hope this blogging QnA (question and answer) post has helped to shed some light on blogging. Blogging is most definitely a long term strategy and it can take months or years to start generating an income from a blog.
But if you are passionate about your topic, and focus on helping (giving not getting) from a blog your blog will have a greater chance of success. Traffic and monetisation are key to making a blog pay. Without traffic you won’t make money from a blog. To get traffic takes time and effort and the right actions. You can easily miss a step or neglect to market your blog and it will have a detrimental effect on your results.
But if you’re consistently creating content for your blog, and promoting it through your social media channels and linking back to it, you should start seeing some traffic within a fairly short amount of time (weeks or months).
If you are sporadic in your efforts this will show in your results. Ideally spend at least 6 months consistently creating and sharing quality content to get the most from blogging. Monetise with products you value and which are aligned well with your topic and build an email list of subscribers too. If you’ve enjoyed this blogging QnA please share it. For a free video series detailing several monetisation methods visit this link.
