WHAT CAN I BLOG ABOUT?
Are you trying to figure out how to blog for money or thinking “What can I blog about?”
Are you ready to take on the blogging marathon and learn how to blog for money? It takes a certain about of commitment but if you stick with it, you will find that unlike a regular job, there’s no limit to the amount of residual income you can earn with your own blog.
If this is the first time you are building a blog and you want to take this side hustle seriously to earn some more money, you can earn an extra income making money from home. Pay off those credit cards, your college loan, or any of your debts by starting a blog. It won’t happen overnight, but if you are methodical, motivated in learning how to blog for money and treat your blog like a business, rather than a hobby, along with following the steps I lay out below, your chances for success are a lot higher.
Affiliate marketing is estimated to grow at an annual rate of over 10% through 2020 growing in revenue to $6.8 billion by 2021 according to Forrester Consulting.
Blogging is low-risk and does not have to cost a lot to get started. Typically, your initial out of pocket expenses can be as little as $10 per month. You’ll want to invest more, as you see your blog grow, but considering the investment and the potential for passive income, it’s perfect for anyone who wants to earn money at home with their side hustle. Invest your time upfront and you’ll be creating a passive income stream for yourself to reap the benefits of later. Once you start seeing results you will be inspired to dedicate more time and resources, which in turn will increase your monthly income even more.
You’ll want to write about a solution to your audience’s problem. One that they are willing to hand over their hard-earned money for. If you are satisfying that issue and offering real value, you will be successful.
CHOOSING A HOSTING COMPANY
Selecting a web host is the first step in your blog journey. There are free hosting companies available, but I would recommend you taking a paid hosting plan right at the start. There is nothing worse than spending all your time and effort and then very quickly finding that you have outgrown your free host and have to upgrade to a paid plan.
Bluehost is a very popular hosting service that is reliable, plus as a new blogger, they have a great starter plan. This site that you see now, along with my other websites are hosted on Bluehost.
They also have great customer service where you can contact them via chat or just call into their 24/7 customer service line with any queries you may have.
>> Use this link and for just $3.95 per month you can sign up for your Bluehost account and easily start your own blog. <<
CHOOSING A NICHE
Most people would start by recommending that you find a niche that you are passionate about. This is true, but you’ll need to consider a few more important details if you expect your blog to make you at least a comfortable living earning extra money.
It may be its something you have learned in formal education, environment, or have a natural gift or talent for. Maybe you don’t even know you have it or value it! Believe me, there is going to be one thing that you know, that other people want to know too.
If it’s a subject that you enjoy, it’s going to be a lot easier to create content for it, you will not get bored and you are less likely to give up and lose interest in the long run.
Focus on a specific problem your readers have and remember, when learning how to blog for money, blogs that do not have a specific audience, will not make money.
It’s not about appealing to the masses, but honing in on your exact audience.
- When someone clicks on your website, it needs to be immediately evident what your blog is all about.
- It’s a lot easier to provide content for your audience when you know exactly who they are.
- With a niche blog, it will help you to build an engaging and loyal audience.
If you choose a non-lucrative niche, your ‘passion’ will fast run out, along with your cash and very soon and you will give up.
YOUR AUDIENCE’S AVAILABLE BUDGET
How to blog for money and make sure it is a profitable niche. Once you have identified the ‘problem’, how much is your audience willing to spend on the ‘solution’. Are you giving them an offer they can’t refuse? And how deep are their pockets?
If you can pivot your target niche to be able to extend your audience and your offer to businesses, then we are talking a whole new ball game.
Businesses have a lot more finances available to spend than individuals, who are likely to be earning an ‘average salary’.
Once you have extended your audience reach to include businesses, you can offer them consultancy services and your sales funnel will not die out after your final offer.
Where previously your sales funnel may have looked something like this:
- Decent content
- Freebie
- Affiliate marketing offer
- Your own big course offer
By pivoting your niche to included businesses, you can now add on:
- Consultancy Fee big offer (B2B)
RESEARCH YOUR COMPETITION
You’ll want to make sure that your niche is something that people are really looking for and that your potential customers are will to pay for the value that you are offering them. It takes just as much work to set up a sale for a product that costs $10 as it does for a product that costs $100, or even $1,000.
Once you have identified the niche that motivates your passions, and the audience that has the most spending power, you’ll want to treat your blog like you would a business and ask yourself the following question:
Who are my competition and what are they doing?
The presence of competition is not necessarily a bad sign. It indicates that there is a demand for your niche.
Do a Google search for “(your niche idea) blog” and check out what your competition is doing.
- What are the products they are promoting?
- What products exist in their sales funnel?
- From the freebie giveaway right through to the final affiliate offer. Do they display ads on their website?
- Are they offering any consultancy service for businesses?
- How can you set yourself apart from them and offer something different and more unique?
- Are there some gaps in the market that are waiting for you to fill them?
EFFECTIVE KEYWORD RESEARCH
Moving on, here is how to avoid a non-lucrative niche and stay away from targeting low volume audiences.
Use a keyword research tool like ‘Ahref’ or ‘SEMRush’. If you are just starting, ‘Google Keyword Planner’ is free.
Remember that when someone does a search for “product name review” they are mentally already in buying mode. You can also try putting in front the word “best” or “top” in front of your keyword idea.
Enter in your chosen keywords for analysis and see which words and keyword phrases are suggested.
Narrow down the suggestions by:
- Monthly search volume
- Competition level
- Suggested bid
For the monthly search volume, stick to between 1k and 10K per month. Any less than this is likely to mean there is not much of an interest for it. Any more, and its likely going to be difficult rank for in the search results.
For the competition level, stay between low to medium. While this tells you how competitive the word or phrase is in AdWords (the paid advertising option for Google), it will still give you a general idea of the organic competition levels.
In the suggested bid column, the higher the bid amount often indicates the commercial demand. So, higher bids mean people are willing to pay to get the ranking placement and therefore they are making more than that for those keywords.
THE MOST PROFITABLE BLOGS
Brandon Gaille did a thorough comparison of the most profitable blogs. He divided four distinct blogging income brackets to study. They include:
- Hobby income level – blogs that earn $0 – $2,000 per month
- Lower income level – blogs that earn $2k – $7,500 per month
- Middle income level – blogs that earn $7,500 – $25,000 per month
- Upper income level – blogs that earn $25,000+ per month
Bloggers at the hobby income level were making just a few hundred dollars per month and did not offer enough information to be analysed as they did not treat their blog as a business. Statistics were considered only from the lower-income level of $2,000 per month and upwards.
The blogging niches that made the most money fell in the following categories:
Mommy – This was any blog that had the term ‘mom’ in the title and had a collective theme of mom-related topics.
Marketing – This was any blog with a focus on business and marketing topics that include SEO, blogging, social media marketing, and small business.
Lifestyle – This was made up of a variety of interests about everyday lives and may have a secondary interest such as fitness, fashion, journaling, or sewing.
For Food, Travel and Personal Finance niches, these are self-explanatory.
Which blogging niche is the most lucrative?
Here is the percentage of bloggers by niche in the lower income level at $2,000+ per month:
- 24% Personal Finance
- 21% Marketing
- 17% Food
- 15% Lifestyle
- 12% Mommy
- 11% Travel
Here are the average monthly earnings across each niche for the lower income level at $2,000+:
- Food – $9,169 per month
- Personal Finance – $9,100 per month
- Lifestyle – $5,199 per month
- Mommy – $5,150 per month
- Travel – $5,000 per month
- Marketing – $4,269 per month
Overall, when applying the equation across all four incomes levels and the results look like this:
The Personal Finance and Food niches came in as the clear winners, but it was interesting to note that the Marketing niche was quick to gain ground in the lower income level, but struggled to make it into the higher income brackets.
That does not mean you should rush out and choose personal finance or the food niches as subjects for your next blog, but choose according to what you are genuinely passionate about, have expertise in, and that there is a considerable market for.
WHICH TYPE OF AFFILIATE PROGRAM?
As I previously mentioned, it takes just as much effort to make a $10 sale as it does a $100 sale. There’s one more addition to that. If the affiliate program you are spending time and effort to market offers just a one-off sale, then you have to start the whole process again to get a new sale.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) comes from programs that offer a subscription-based membership. SaaS or Software As A Service is a rapidly growing industry expected to reach $132 billion by 2020 according to Statistica.
Companies that offer SaaS make it easy for affiliates as they usually offer a free trial version of their product that encourages customers to sign up. As an affiliate, it’s a lot easier to get your site visitor to sign up for a free trial than to ask them to pay for the product in full, and upfront. Your customer also has the opportunity to make sure that they like the product without the financial commitment and will stay for as long as they are happy. It’s a win-win for everyone.
So look for products in your chosen niche that offer monthly memberships and for the lifetime of the customer, you will receive recurring commissions without having to bring new customers every month.
HOW DO I CHOOSE A DOMAIN NAME?
Finding a suitable domain name that is available today may be a little daunting as most of the ‘best’ domain names have already been taken. Some even resell domain names for higher prices on the second-hand premium domain market. If you are not willing to spend money more for a premium rate domain name, try to stick with the one that is no more than three words.
>> For just $3.95 per month you can sign up for your Bluehost account and easily start your own blog that includes a free domain name. <<
You’ll also want to consider Top Level Domains such as .com, .net, .org. as these are the most popular and often ranked higher by search engines than other domain extensions.
Your domain name checklist should include:
- Stick to com, .net, .org domain extensions.
- Make it memorable.
- Use keywords in your domain.
- The shorter the better.
If you have already purchased a domain name from another registrar, you’ll need to point it at your Bluehost account. When considering your domain name, you’ll also want to check its availability across the social media accounts so that you can maintain consistency with your brand throughout your journey of how to blog for money.
Here is a handy tool CheckUserNames.com that does that for you:
WHICH CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM SHOULD I USE?
There are many different Content Management Systems available, but the most popular and most flexible to use is WordPress. You can install WordPress with a click of a button from within your Bluehost account and your site will be set to grow with you for years to come.
HOW TO CHOOSE A WORDPRESS THEME?
There are thousands of WordPress themes to choose from, with all kinds of functionalities and looks on offer. The free ones lack features, flexibility, and customization. The paid ones can offer the specific features you are looking for, but the downside is that they can often be bulky and slow loading which can affect your search engine ranking position.
If you are just starting, go with a free one, but do make sure it is ‘Responsive’. You can always upgrade later by purchasing one of the premium WordPress themes that will help you stand out from the crowd.
WHICH WORDPRESS PLUGINS SHOULD I INSTALL?
Having too many WordPress plugins installed on your site will make it bulky and slow it down. There are however a few essential plugins that I would recommend:
- iThemes Security
- Wordfence Security
- Imagify – Image size reducer
- Pretty Links – URL shrinker
- Rank Math SEO
- Contact Form
WHAT ARE THE 5 BASIC PAGES IN YOUR BLOG?
Most small business websites should follow a set of standard and general pages which include the following:
About – People like to do business with people. Knowing that there is a face behind a business can be comforting. It should give a brief summary of who you are, what your company’s mission is, and what sets you apart from the rest.
Contact – This page should show people how they can get in contact with you, your social media accounts. It should probably have a contact form for spam prevention purposes.
Privacy Policy – Let visitors know how any information they give you will be handled and if personal information and data collected through cookies and emails etc. will be shared with third parties. You must strictly adhere to your privacy policy.
Terms & Conditions – Similar to your privacy policy, this page will set out the ‘rules’ to which your website visitor must agree to abide by to use your website. For example, the country’s laws that govern the agreement, an intellectual property disclose that states that your website is protected by copyright laws, and that you are not responsible for third party links from your website.
Sitemap – These come in two formats. XML and HTML. They help the search engine robots crawl your site and index your pages. They should be located in the footer of all your pages.
Page Not Found page – When a visitor comes to your site and lands on a page that no longer exists, they will be met with a “404 error” page. This page is customizable and you can direct your site visitor to go to a different location.
Congratulations! You have learned how to blog for money and are now ready to write your first blog post!
