Can You Make Real Money From Blogging?

Do you really want to make money from blogging?

You probably answered “YES” – this is why you are reading this blog post after all.

It’s possible to make a full time income from a blog and many bloggers are doing it every day, even those who started blogging not too long ago but there are few very important things to consider before you start. Read this at your own risk, you might abandon the idea of blogging after this post.

The secret to blog’s instant success.

Have you seen those internet ads or TV infomercials promising to teach you how to create a money producing website/blog in just 3 easy clicks? You probably have and there is a chance you fell for it and got scammed in the end (I know I did, more than once).

Thanks to today’s technology and easy internet access you can “create a blog” in just a few clicks and without spending a penny however it will not produce any instant riches. In fact, you will have to work pretty hard to earn money with your blog and your first months will be the hardest ones because you will put in the effort for little to no reward. Remember: if someone is promising to make you rich overnight – run as far as you can. No matter how amazing their sales video is and how authentic their reviews seem. Success takes time and effort.

Creating Your Blog’s content.

First of all you need to decide on the subject of your blog, you need to choose a niche. Starting a blog filled with your daily reflections on life might seem like an awesome idea to you but you won’t find many readers for such blog, unless of course you’re super famous and already have a huge fan following. Yes, I have tried it and I failed.

Your blog must solve problems and answer your readers’ questions. When people see a benefit in your content, they will read it, they will share it and they will love it. For example: “How to potty train a puppy”, “How to Get Back with Your Ex”, “How to Cure Anxiety”, etc. Sure, a very rare few have been able to start and run a successful blog by ranting about their day but you have far better chances of making money with blogging if you actually solve people’s problems on your blog.

Distributing Your Blog.

Writing a blog post and publishing it “out there” will not get you far. You need to promote your blog, distribute your blog and get those loyal followers. Yes, there is a one in a billion chance that Mark Zuckerberg will find your blog, love it and buy it for 100 Million dollars – but until that happens you need to make sure your blog is getting noticed. You will have to start a newsletter, you will have to become active on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social networks, you will have to start reading other people’s blogs and commenting on their posts, you will have to start talking to people about your blog. Of course, you will also need to learn the basics of Search Engine Optimization in order to help search engines such as Google and Bing find you.

Actually Monetizing Your Blog

Finally, we are getting to the MONEY part.

So you have an authority blog where you are consistently posting amazing content, your blog is now getting good rankings in the search engines, you have thousands of people on your e-mailing list, you have loyal readers who comment on your posts, follow you on Facebook – but you still aren’t making money. Simply owning a blog does not bring any money, you actually have to find a proper way of monetizing it. Adsense is a very popular way of monetizing web properties however it has been proven to be useless on blogs, most of the time.

People don’t click on adsense ads anymore – especially if those ads are placed on blogs and even if they did, you would only earn a few cents per click. There are many better ways to monetize a blog and I would recommend my top 3:

1. Affiliate Marketing.
2. Selling Your Own Product.
3. Offering Your Services.

1. Affiliate Marketing – this is when you promote someone else’s product or service and get a commission per sale. I love this method because I do not need to deal with payments, returns, fulfillment, etc., I just pick up my commission.

You need to be careful about the products you promote as an affiliate. It has been stated by the world’s best salesmen: “Your customer can smell bullshit from a mile away”. You should only promote the products you love and strongly believe in. You have probably noticed, I only promote 3-4 products on this blog; premium WordPress themes that I actually use for all of my blogs, Hostgator hosting – I have been using them since 2007 and of course, Wealthy Affiliate – where I have been learning about making money online for over 6 years now.

I have tried at least 4 or 5 different hosting companies, I have used at least a few dozen WordPress themes over the years and had my blogs hacked and compromised because I was using low quality products. I have been scammed out of hundreds if not thousands of dollars buying systems that were supposed to make me rich overnight.  Eventually I have found the best products out there and have been satisfied with them for years – these are the products I actually promote. These are the products people actually buy from my blog because they feel my enthusiasm and they see the value.

2. Selling your own product – This is not easy but can be very profitable if done properly. If you are an expert on a certain subject you can write a book and sell it on your blog, you can make graphic designs or code software and sell it on your blog, you can be a great photographer or painter and sell your art on your blog, you can make a video course teaching people how to play guitar and sell that on your blog – the point is, you need to create your own product and sell it.

3. Offering Your Services – another great method of making money online using your blog and skills. If your blog is about WRITING, you can actually offer writing services to people. I have already paid over $200 for a Press Release written for me and I was happy to do so because the quality was simply amazing. You can offer your “virtual assistant” services or consulting services. You need to have a good skill and be able to prove how good you are to your readers – they will hire you.

Don’t forget that you can combine these strategies on your blog and do affiliate marketing while selling your own products and/or offering your services.

Investing Yourself

Besides doing everything mentioned above you will also have to spend some time learning a bit of the technical side of things. You need to learn how to set-up your blog properly, set up DNS, how to make posts and how to add social icons, how to work with affiliate links and how to use FTP – it’s easier than it sounds but it takes time to learn all of that.

You need to be consistent and create fresh content often. I would suggest creating at least 3 posts per week, preferably 5-7 posts per week. If you don’t post enough your readers will stop coming to your blog. However, remember that quality is more important than quantity, you are better off creating 3 amazing blog posts over 6 average blog posts – this takes time and effort as well. For example, I spent 6 hours over two days to write this specific 1,440 words blog post because I wanted to share as many details as possible.

Do you still want to make money from blogging?

As you can see – making money with a blog cannot be an overnight thing. You have to invest the time, the efforts and a part of yourself in the process. There is a lot to learn, a lot to experiment with and a lot to do. You need to be consistent and stay motivated – because you probably won’t be making much money in the first few months.

If you can complete all these steps and keep on working until you find success – you will find success.

Are you thinking of running a profitable blog? Do you have any other suggestions or questions? Please do leave a comment below.

– Alex