Online business has been booming for years, and it’s only going to get stronger as more and more people start buying things off the Internet. This is not a small amount of money potential. According to internetretailer.com, e-commerce sales will reach $523 billion by 2020 in the US.
One of the best ways to dip your hand in the pool is to start a blogging business. But what is blogging? And how can you actually make money from it? Let’s take a look at the basics that you need to know.
What is blogging?
Many people blog about their daily lives, and if you have an audience, you can reach a lot of people that way and earn money. However, blogging about your daily life is not really specific and appeal to people who are looking to buy products, unless your life is unique and appeals to a target audience.
Other people blog about their passions, and that’s where the potential to earn money online is limitless. Whether you are passionate about dogs, alternative health, weight loss, making money, or clocks, there is an audience out there who is also passionate about the topic and is looking for answers, new information, and products to help fulfill their passion. And that’s where you can start earning money as a blogger.
3 Popular Ways to Make Money Blogging
It’s important to note that blogging about something you are passionate about helps you stay motivated as you move along with your blogging business. Staying on top of your content schedule and consistency will help you go a long way. When you are a blogger, it is essential that you enjoy showing up to work every day (for more tips check out the recommended tools to improve a productivity because you are the only person who has control over how much success you have.
There are many different ways to make money blogging. Let’s talk about 3 of the most popular ways.
· Affiliate Marketing
Most new blogging businesses start off focused on affiliate marketing. It’s the easiest way to earn money quickly, and the income potential is limitless.
Affiliate marketing means that you are promoting other people’s or company’s products as an affiliate. You are putting your name behind their products, recommending them, and receiving a commission for sales you make off your recommendations.
For instance, if you are a weight loss blogger, then you may want to review new weight loss programs that come out to help your readers decide whether or not they want to use the program or avoid it. At the end of your review, you can put an affiliate link (a special link to help the company recognize you as the affiliate) to the actual program to learn more or to buy. If they buy, you get a commission based on that particular weight loss program’s terms. It could be 4% of the sale, as in the case of Amazon, or it could be up to 75% of the sale, which is often the case behind big affiliate companies, such as ClickBank.
The more people you refer, the more you earn. Some commissions can be hundreds of dollars, which shows you how much income potential there is if you have the traffic and influence in the niche.
Almost every product online has an affiliate program behind it. This ensures that no matter what your passion is, you are going to be able to make money as an affiliate.
· Ads
This can be another simple way to earn money from your blog; however, it often doesn’t result in as much money as affiliate marketing to begin with.
The most popular ads to put up are Google’s ads, called AdSense. You need to have your blog up and running before you apply to be a part of the AdSense program. If you don’t, you could get rejected and it could take a while for you to be able to apply again.
Once you are approved, you can put ads on your site. Usually in the sidebar, above the article or below the article. If visitors click out on an ad, you earn some money. The amount you earn depends on many ‘magical’ things that Google decides, but you can easily earn a few dollars per day.
Once your blog gets popular, you may be approached to put ads up your site from interested companies. They will pay you a monthly fee simply to display their banner in your sidebar.
You may also get a request for article ads. This means that a company will want you to post an article they created that is on the topic of – and includes a link to, their company. This can be a quick way to earn up to $100, depending on your blog’s popularity and topic.
· Sell an Information Product
You can create an information product as well. An eBook is the most popular form of an information product, but you can also create a video series on a subject, a course, or a membership area where you give access to information to paying subscribers.
Some people make a full-time income by creating a course and putting it up on Udemy. Your blog can point readers to your course and help you bang out sales in the process.
And, of course, an eBook can help you join the ranks of the people you are an affiliate for. You can sell it on your blog, on Amazon, or through Clickbank. If you sell it through Clickbank, or a similar platform, you will have affiliates working towards promoting your eBook for you, which will benefit your popularity, authority, and income.
Two things to remember if you really want to make money logging
Millions of bloggers are publishing posts every single day. This means that you need to stand out to get noticed. There are a few ways you can do this.
First, join a blogging group, such as MyBlogU. This will help you connect with other bloggers, build your reputation, boost your social media presence, and get mentioned on other blogs.
You may think that you can do it alone, but the truth is that many bloggers have tried doing it alone and failed. It’s too hard to stand out and get noticed! It is the bloggers that build relationships with other bloggers that succeed. Guest blogging is a great way to get your message in front of readers who may not yet know about your business.
Second, collect email addresses and build a list from your blog. Random visitors are not likely to make a purchase off your recommendation. But, every visitor that comes to your blog is a potential sale down the road.
They may not want to buy something today, but if you collect their email address and mail out to them every week, you will be building a relationship with them and earning their trust. When you find a product that you would like to be an affiliate for, you can promote to your list and increase your chances of making some sales that day.
That is why million dollar launches happen. Bloggers promote to their list, they buy, and in less than a day millions of dollars of sales come in. You can’t make that kind of money with random traffic; it has to be a targeted list that trust you and is willing to buy.
In the end, there is a lot of money to be made in blogging. Choose to do one thing, such as affiliate marketing, or combine different ways of making money to increase your active and passive income.
