How to start a blog (And earn money from it) by 2022
Blogs are just like opinions: Everybody has one. And for good reason!
A properly designed blog with helpful content is one of the most powerful advertising tools on the planet. This shows prospective customers that you're a subject matter expert and also builds your reputation on the internet. The media Centric SaaS Companies like Hubspot who maintain active, useful blogs even end up with higher traffic levels than other major media outlets in their respective industries. That's massive.
In this article we'll explain why blogs are such an essential strategy for building brand awareness and then dive into the specifics of what you need to do to create your own blog. In the next article, we'll go through the most effective strategies that bloggers employ to monetize their blogs, so you'll have a roadmap to turning your blog into a major source of income that is passive. (Because who doesn't dream about it!)
So let's dive in, to take you from being a novice to blogging hero. These are some tips, if you're eager to skip ahead to a particular section:
Benefits of blogging
The benefits of having your website to show up higher in search results, and to helping build your brand's bond with the public there are several reasons that every writer or business needs to have a blog.
The ability to increase traffic to your site
It's not necessary to go through terminology, but this technique is known as inbound marketing. Blog about topics that the people actually are looking for. Along this route, people will come across your company's name. It also means that you don't require advertising to be seen. (That's outbound marketing!)
Conway later says that by making a statement on controversial issues within his field and defending his position, he saw the "huge growth in visitors" and increased his audience up to 20,000 per month. He now collaborates in conjunction with freelancers to create great material. This is a model that you could copy, regardless of the field you work in.
Getting discovered via social media
Blog posts aren't just great to drive traffic to your website -- it can be utilized for use on social media. This will help you build your brand's audience and get leads you couldn't get elsewhere. It's easier to illustrate as opposed to explained. So we'll look at an illustration.
If you are a seller of lint rollers, and you write an article on your blog about the best strategies to remove cat hair from couch cushions. Then, you go into detail and describe every way to remove the pet out of where you recline. (Meow.) The post you wrote and the work you've put into it constitute your foundation.
If you want to take things a more step, you could start an Twitter thread that breaks the hair removal techniques in under 280 characters. It's shorter, more digestible and gives you access to a new target audience. Additionally, you can create an Instagram carousel that shows your top five tips for getting cats off of couches. If you're looking for something more adventurous You could also create a TikTok showing how to lint roll like a pro.
The blog post isn't simply a single piece of text. It's actually a mini marketing plan, that includes elements that you can use to promote your brand on different social channels. The blog post itself is where you should spend the majority of your time. After you've finished writing it there's a chance you'd miss out in the event that you don't invest at least an hour making it available on the social media.
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A blog post that is shared with (@)
Building your online reputation
Blogging is also an effective way to build your online profile and make yourself known as a subject matter expert. A good online brand is beneficial to solo entrepreneurs and big companies alike Your blog posts and content that created today could be influential for many years to come.
Put simply: people would rather buy from companies who help them rather than corporations that aren't transparent. The companies would rather employ consultants who offer a certain amount of benefits upfront than those with no proof they'll deliver on their claim to deliver.
High-quality, consistent blog content is the way to give away this value, and show that you are worth it.
Long-term growth in business
A major benefit that blogging has is its capacity to generate long-term business for your company. After you've written an post, it's all yours (and it's there for all time). It is possible to update and republish important articles every year to keep them ranked highly as well as people continue exploring your brand via your blog by themselves.
Best of all, the content you post on your blog will create first impressions for you. When a customer or client contacts you on the first occasion, they'll already be able to form a picture of your character based on your blog's posts. You won't have to introduce yourself, and you'll have the ability to focus on solving their problems and building relations with them.
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How to start a successful blog in 2022
Now that you understand the reasons why blogs are famous, let's dig deep into the details on how you can start your own successful blog. Because blogging has changed a quite a bit since the days that were LiveJournal and TypePad -- to be effective in the year 2022, you must to establish a clear plan and strategy for your blog starting from the start.
1. Pick your niche
When you begin your blog, it's important choose the subject you'll be focusing the content you write about. That's your niche.
However, if you choose a narrow niche, nobody will ever find you. It's possible that you're the most powerful fish in a small lake, but if nobody's fishing there and you don't think that it's likely to have a significant impact on business.
Imagine that you're a tailor who is obsessed with making quilted reproductions of the album cover of the 1960s and the 1970s. Sure, there might be an audience of a few people who want to look at your Trout Mask Replica quilt. However, if you're hoping to find new customers for your company, you may consider writing a blog on making. Sewing is a wider field that has more customers seeking it.
With luck, there are a handful of steps that you can follow to find a profitable niche which isn't very crowded or that people are searching for. Here's how you do it:
Imagine your favorite hobbies or skills as well as business
Searching for a blog niche should start with some serious self-reflection. Ask yourself the following three questions. You can also write down some brief notes while you're at it:
- What is it that you enjoy to do? What could you talk about all day?
- What skills or life experience could you teach or offer to other people?
- If you're in the particular field that you're interested in, what aspects haven't been explored to death yet?
The majority of the time you're in business, or have real-life interests will determine the area you want your blog to be focusing on. These are areas where you're an expert in the field.
The importance of knowing your market is vital, as it will take time to grow your blog audience. If you're not interested in the niche you've chosen for your blog it's likely that you'll experience an existential crisis and abandon it before hitting the year one mark. (And it won't be a pleasant experience -- believe me. )
Check Google Trends to determine how well-known your field is
Once you've identified your own niche, it's time to conduct some simple study to find out what people are searching for within your field. It's a lot easier and won't take any soul-searching.
Go to Google Trends -- the easiest and most cost-free method of measuring search volumes (a.k.a. the number of times that people search for a phrase in Google each month). Then, think of some important keywords for your niche. If your niche is photography, think of phrases such as "learning photography,"" "best photography cameras to beginners," and perhaps "photography." Put the keywords into Google Trends, and you'll be able to see how search volume has changed in the course of time.
And that's it, really. What the Google Trends research procedure does is to inform you of the ways people are using to get into your market. It can uncover trends within your field, as well as indicate whether your area of expertise expands or decreases.
This stage can help you determine if your area of expertise is the one that is right for you. If you're concerned about your market being overcrowded for you to stand out, then stick around -- that's a problem you can solve.
Find another sub-niche that you may have your own
Your blog niche might be one that is already well-known, such as photographs, finance or even healthy food. But if you ask yourself what niches within it still haven't been saturated, you can carve out an untapped niche which you could own.
If, for instance, you're a photographer can narrow your focus from the extensive niche of photography to the sub-niche in studio photography. It's up to someone else to write about long-exposure landscape shots. Focus on lighting, setting up indoor photography sessions, and acquiring equipment for studios.
In this way you'll appear as an expert at a certain trade. (Which is gonna help your business stand out, also. And isn't that the whole purpose?)
2. Select a name for your blog
Once you've picked your niche (or sub-niche! ), it's time to select a name for your blog. It's the name people will search for and remember, so it's important to choose one that is simple, memorable and true to your brand.
When picking your name, you'll want to consider your intended readers, what which you'll be writing about and what your voice as a writer is like.
With this background in mind now you're ready to choose names. Here are a few different naming strategies you can use for your new blog:
You can use your own name
The creative director Nathan Allebach uses his last name for the title of his blog and communications firm. This strategy has helped people who have read about his experience in Steak-Umm find his company and eventually become customers.
However, this naming strategy may be unsuitable for teams or for industry-focused blogs. And if you have the same name as John Smith, you may not be ranking well in Google. (But hey, that's what middle names are you know? )
Take a look at a thesaurus
If your blog is geared towards an industry or field Your name could make it difficult to identify your blog. Instead, you might want to choose a more broad title which is representative of the kind of content you're blogging about.
This can be tricky, though -- so grab your nearest Thesaurus (or Thesaurus.com). You're going to take some of those industry keywords that you had in mind earlier, plug them in, and then search for keywords that are similar to them that you could use as a starting point to create your blog's title.
As an example, a name like The Camera Blog feels generic therefore, you should take the phrase "camera" and enter that into the online dictionary. It will give you related terms such as "lens," "mirror" and "35mm" -which suddenly seems more intriguing.
You can easily flip these into a name which is appropriate for your blogsuch as Lens Tracker, 35mm Mayhem, or Mirrorless Magic. Any person searching for photos can easily identify the blog's theme about and won't vanish into the abyss of blogs with names that aren't appropriate.
Use a blog name generator
Another good strategy to name your blog is to plug some keywords into a blog naming generator. Choose a couple of terms which are relevant to your industry, and let a naming tool such as BlogTyrant's perform the job. (This tool can also determine the availability of domain names. )
There's no greater proof of the power generated by name generators then future EGOT awardee Childish Gambino. His stage name came via a Wu-Tang Clan name generator in the late 2000s which is still doing the rounds it a decade later. (It's still online. Plug in "Donald Glover" here, if interested. )
It's no reason not to let an automated system help you think of ideas. If you can come up with an appropriate, unique name, it will never matter how you got it.
3. Set up your blog hosting
When you start your blog, you'll need to setup hosting. This means buying your domain name as well as the address that your readers will use to read your articles.
Make sure to choose the most reliable host. If you go with a bottom-of-the-barrel, extra-cheap hosting provider, your blog may see performance issues, such as lag time while loading. This may not be apparent to you, but Google's search algorithm is sure to notice it, so you're at risk of not showing up in Google's search results.
Hosting isn't expensive at all. Indeed, many hosting services will charge you a couple coffees each month and ensure that your blog is up and running around the clock.
Our Top five recommendations for hosting companies are (in not in any particular order):
4. Create your blog using a CMS
Now that you own your domain, you're ready to build your own blog using a Content Management System, also known as CMS. CMS.
CMS platforms let you build your own website without having code. The CMS will be where you'll go to create new pages, post posts, and even update older information in the near future. If you're a blogger, choosing an CMS is like choosing the right partner -- therefore, you must choose wisely.
The most well-known CMS platform is WordPress, an open-source classic that is used by companies of any size. There are many great ones on the market, however. These are our top choices to help you get started:
5. Make and publish content
After you've got your CMS in place, your next step will be creating and publishing your content. Content creation is a subject by itself and you could write us one whole book (or cry you a river) about the strategy that goes into choosing which content to publish.
always want to ask yourself these key concerns:
- Who are my ideal customers?
- What interests them -What are the problems they face?
- What could I do to help them learn?
This method will prevent the possibility of straying from your niche, creating off-brand content, and from writing about topics that someone previously covered. And it'll help you find fascinating, hidden stories that you can tell your viewers. Enjoy writing with me, dear readers!
6. Advertise your blog
Now that you've got some material out there The next thing to do is to make it more visible.
The first strategy we'd recommend is to reuse blog posts for your social media accounts. Turn a long-form article into a carousel post on Instagram, or a deep dive thread on Twitter. Start your iPhone and record your own TikTok that describes the main points of the article. Then, send people to your site for more details.
It kills two birds with one stone. This solution solves the "what do I post on Instagram" conundrum, and it also brings users back to your original blog post.
In addition to content reuse as well, we recommend making your blog searchable. It requires a bit of SEO investigation and is an exciting rabbit hole worth going down. It's as simple as doing some keyword research, find important terms that rank high, and then incorporate them into your article.
It tells Google that your content answers problems that people are searching for, and it'll boost your organic page's traffic to the next level.
Making money from blogging with Four strategies
At this point, you've set up your blog and up and. Congrats! People are finding your content and it seems like they're truly enjoying the posts that you're posting.
What is the best way to monetize all of the content?
It's important to understand the ways that content creators earn income:
- When you sell your content, you earn money directly from users. If, for instance, your content is behind a paywall, or is arranged in an online class, you're selling your product.
- If you're marketing awareness to the public that you're cooperating with a third party to meet their needs in marketing. Think of your "word from our sponsors" in your favourite podcast, or the hyperlinks to your recipe site that lead directly to Amazon products. These are all examples of how to sell your viewers.
1. Place ads on your blog
The ability to enable Google AdSense (Google's advertising toolkit) for your blog is a great way to turn the clicks you earn from your blog to cold, direct payments to your account at the bank.
How do you work it? The blog you have created is accessible to the Google's advertising network and permit ads to appear on your website. Clicks and impressions from ads total to an annual AdSense payment.
AdSense is completely free to join. Eligibility requirements are low, and your advertising income will grow like your blog's as well.
There's a number of types of AdSense ads, including:
- Image advertisements: Graphic ads available in a range of dimensions.
- Text ads: Text-only ads that can display either several or one offer.
- Rich media advertisements: HTML, video, and flash advertisements.
- GIF advertisements: animated image advertisements.
That means that if notice that an ad is distracting from the content on your blog You can switch it for something that's quieter. Also, if you're hoping to rack up the massive sums of money by selling lots of advertising space There are advertisements that will permit you to do so too.
2. Sign up to an affiliate network
Affiliate marketing can be a reliable way to monetize your blog. You provide affiliate links to items, and when someone who has started their journey on your blog purchases You earn a tempting commission fee.
You'll want to advertise products that your audience is actually attracted to. The audience that reads your blog about cooking at home probably isn't looking to buy a moisturizer... but they'd certainly be intrigued by crockpot recommendations. Pick the right products, and you'll turn the affiliate advertisements to cookware made of cast iron into gold.
We've learned from our experience that there is a lot of ambiguous information available concerning affiliate programs. We're concerned, so we've pulled together a shortlist of eight reliable affiliate programs that you can join today:
- Instagram Affiliate
- FlexOffers
- AWIN (prev. Affiliate Window)
- Amazon Associates Program
- CJ Affiliate
- Affiliaxe
- Affiliate Program
- ShareASale
- Udemy Affiliates Program
3. Write sponsored posts
Sponsored content is another excellent method to convert the traffic on your blog into passive income particularly when you have a loyal public. As a part of a per-post fee, you'll blend advertising for a company's product in your blog's posts.
The result is win-win. You get the benefits. is the money. For your sponsor, it's a trustworthy, third-party piece of content that promotes their product (without it looking like an unfeeling brand placement).
Sponsored posts may be in various forms that include:
- Articles made by a sponsor who you publish
- Blogs that you write on behalf of a product or service sponsored by a sponsor
- Links to a sponsor's webpage or product pages
- A list of positive coverage of the brand's product
- An announcement of a new product which gives a limited-time discount to blog readers
It's important to mention that most of the time you'll get approached to create content for sponsored companies. It's not a good idea to pursue sponsors, and in fact this can make you look desperate. Focus on creating high-quality content that stands out in your area In time, they'll come to you.
4. Offer online classes
Online courses are the fastest and most effective way to drive revenue from your blog. Blog content is a fantastic method of introducing people to your company or personal brand however, combining your knowledge into user-friendly courses is more beneficial. (And this can also be quite profitable!)
Furthermore, after you've made a course, the course is done. It's possible to modify the your course's content from time to time, but it's still a finished asset that you are able to send your blog's readers for the rest of time. If your blog is a go-to within your niche the bank's balance could shoot up. (No, really--we've seen many instances of this. )
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So, what's next?
Now that you know the steps to begin your blog, you're probably trying to figure out how to make your website into a money-making machine. As we've said before: the fastest, most effective way to monetize your blog as well as generate the foundation for passive income is by developing courses.
That's where comes to. We make it easy to drive revenue from your blog by repurposing your content into self-guided online classes as well as membership websites. Our easy-to-use course design platform helps coaches, educators, as well as digital content creators create unique, personalized eLearning courses to help grow profitable online businesses.
Try for free and get courses, marketing, and selling instruments you'll need to bring your company to the next level. (No tech skills required! )