The thought of being able to make money with a blog is very alluring. What other way could you possibly think of that would be more perfect than earning a paycheck from home in front of your computer? No more 9-5 for you. No more putting up with office politics. You come up with a good idea and launch your blog. Then reality sets in. Making money with a blog is a lot harder than it looks. So, what do you have to do to really earn money this way?
There are many different methods that people choose to use that actually do work. Some of them involve manipulating the search engines or exploiting some other avenue in order to get traffic. I suggest you avoid such things because they are short-lived. Those types of systems don't last for more than a couple years before the search engines squash them. Then you will watch your income vanish pretty much overnight. You are left with nothing to show for all of the time that you have invested. A smarter approach is the long-term approach.
The long-term approach is to actually build something of value. It must also be something that you are actually interested in. Without having both components, your little project will eventually fail. By value, I mean producing something that people actually want. You must deliver some kind of product, service or information that people actually want. Otherwise you will never find more than just trickle traffic to your blog.
Once you have matched one of your interests with a real need in the marketplace then you are ready to run a blog that has real potential to make money. The work is just beginning though. There is still much to do. Two very important steps follow.
First you must make an effort to make your blog look professional. This is very important if you want your blog to really succeed. People will judge your blog based on its appearance. If you look sloppy or cookie cutter it will count against you in their eyes. If that is the case, then you are going to have to make up for it in a huge way by providing stellar content. If your content is average and your site is average looking then you are going to have a hard time building a large enough audience. The more experienced bloggers who come across your website will skip it and probably not return. This is really bad as those experienced bloggers can provide the trusted links and the real traffic that could help your blog grow very quickly. People do judge a book by its cover whether or not you want to admit it.
You need not spend thousands of dollars on graphics. You can simply modify a free Wordpress theme. Find one that has the layout you are looking for. Then tweak that theme so that it better suits your image. You can even tweak the generic default theme that Wordpress comes with. It is easier than you think.
The next really important thing you should do is to create a unique voice online for yourself. This is especially true if your blog is in a niche where there are plenty of other bloggers. You must find a way to differentiate yourself from the other people. Here are a few ways: You could choose to video blog primarily instead of using written text. You could choose to audio blog instead of writing everything. You could paste pictures of yourself all over your blog so that people become exceptionally familiar with the person that they are listening to as they read. If you are a funny person you could let that personality shine through loud and clear as you write about your topics.
Let your personality show through on your blog. If you are an outspoken person in real life, then you should also allow yourself to be outspoken online. It is so much better if you reveal your true persona to readers. People identify better with others who aren't afraid to speak their minds.
Putting it all together
The whole reason you are doing the things that I mentioned is to build an audience. The key to making money with a blog is to grow a large highly interested and engaged audience. Once you have the ear of enough people, you will be able to monetize that traffic by pretty much any means you choose. That could be through advertising. It could be through affiliate marketing. It could be through selling your own product.
Too many people start out trying to monetize their blog before they even build an audience. Doing that is going to be an uphill struggle. You are going to be focusing on the wrong thing. You are going to be worrying about why people aren't buying and why traffic isn't converting. That will keep you from focusing on what will ultimately make or break you. You need to be focusing on building your audience first.
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