How to Make Money With a Blog For Beginners

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Would you like to generate income in the world of rewarding blogging? Are you itching to turn into one of those 6-figure blog writers that you've heard a lot about?

If so, you'll need to study each and every little piece in this unique guide because I'm going to reveal to you completely how you could join the ranks of those bloggers who have achieved the best results in this world.

This guide "How to make money with a blog for beginners" will teach you all these.

I have actually removed the clutter and time-intensive workaround so I am able to take you deep into the heart of profitable blogging without over-complicating the procedure or driving you through an extended and long learning curve.

Since the reality is; it does not need to be so difficult.

Make your blog a money-maker

Earning money with niche blog sites isn't all that hard to do. As a matter of fact, if you are trying to find an easy and quick method to start a business online so that you can earn money without a big financial investment, blogging is the way to go.

How to Make Money With a Blog For Beginners

Developing top-quality blogging sites in your market that bring in traffic, and offer useful info is still one of the most efficient methods of developing authority and securing yourself in your niche so great profit margins aside; blogging puts you in a perfect position in your market.

And you know what?

The very best thing about this technique is that it's even extremely simple to do and is really affordable. It does not cost a great deal of money to create a blog.

Actually, most of the work will require your time - not your cash.

So, without additional delay - let's get into it!

Why blogging is hard work

While blogging could be automated at some point, you should not expect passive earnings from the beginning.

You'll need to work hard, particularly when you are releasing your blog site and developing a brand that you wish to be respected in your industry. Freewebsitebuilder can be your guide on this topic.

Why blogging is hard work

When I initially began blogging I was investing 60-80 hours a month producing content, converting visitors into prospects, and selling services and products (none of them I developed myself - I concentrated completely on affiliate marketing.).

While I gradually delegated the majority of my content to experienced writers, I still invest time assessing advertising possibilities, reviewing products or services that I want to promote, growing my subscriber list and producing advertising campaigns to increase my website visitors and keep my site in the forefront.

While you could hand over numerous tasks to a team including content production and even marketing, you would like to be closely involved in the preliminary building stage.

It's your brand, of course. You want to ensure every piece of material has your voice, brings your message and represents your company in the very best possible way.

Nobody will ever be as professional and careful with developing your brand as you will be.

Therefore, dig your heels in and devote to investing the first couple of months developing your site from the ground.

Only after that, you should start to establish a team that will take care of your website and ultimately, widens into other opportunities with other niche blog sites (in case you opt to do that).

Once again, blogging is definitely not a hands-free approach to earning money during the fundamental stages. If you really want to be successful, you need to be prepared to invest time and effort.

But the great news? Your effort will pay off.

The 5-step approach

Build a blog and register an outstanding domain name

Although some numerous guides and reports overcomplicated the method of earning money with blogging, below is a simple overview of how it's done:

1. Build a blog and register an outstanding domain name. Avoid free blogging platform alternatives. You want to be completely control of your site so you can make the most of all the various earnings options without restrictions (or people's advertisements).

2. Create (or outsource) awesome web content that will certainly bring in website traffic as well as drive visitors in. This stuff needs to be exceptionally top-quality, targeted and also interesting. All meat, no veggies.

3. Convert your site visitors into subscribers so you can grow your email list. An email list is crucial in building a profitable blog. It's also an important strategy to achieve success in almost any niche. Without one, you will never make as much money.

4. Interact with those prospects on a regular basis so your lists do not run cold. Develop a relationship and trust. It’s where you can establish a solid brand name in your market as well as differentiate yourself from the competitors (especially those blog owners who aren't doing this!).

5. Sell services and products to your target market through your blog and your newly built email list.

Seems easy, right? Of course, it is.

However, it will take time. Let's dig into these steps a little deeper so you better know how it functions.

Building your blog

Since this article is focusing on how to earn money with your blog, I won’t go into details about building the website.

Just understand that you should pick a unique domain that is tailored to your market and that you sign up for a professional web hosting service that stores your website.

Don’t work with a free platform or remotely hosted alternatives like Medium or Blogger.

Producing your blog content

The kind of content you make depends on your audience, but every piece should be informative and also the most relevant topic you may come up with.

Producing your blog content

This is what generates traffic and drives visitors back. Your blog should be as a useful source of content in your niche so ensure you invest more time crafting compelling material (or delegate content creation to skilled writers who know your market very well).

Pro tip: To make content creation easier, I use the best article rewriter and spinner. Check out these tools. Some of them are really good. I personally prefer ChimRewriter.

Convert visitors into email subscribers

You need to regularly be working towards growing your subscriber list. It is a process you might automate by using opt-in forms that grab the emails of your audience and add them to your email list.

Offer a gift to those people who sign up, for example, giving them a special case study not available elsewhere on your own web site, or discounts and special deals on products and services.

Always over-deliver, and begin easy. Don’t inundate your prospects with paid offers right away – build relationships with them first and tell them you're looking out for their best interests.

After that, create autoresponder sequences that will send out valuable things and freebies to your prospects over time. I actually put together a welcome/introduction e-mail to get out to my subscriber list when they sign up.

Regarding email marketing tools, you might want to check the best autoresponders for affiliate marketing.

Convert visitors into email subscribers

Then, 3-4 days later on, another automatic e-mail goes out that provides a special case study on my niche. And then, seven days later, I start to condition them to open my emails so that they learn they’ll get valuable information.

For example, it might be another free gift, a special discount or infographic according to what my subscribers are interested in.

It’s not until 8-10 days later on before I start to sell actively, and I do so as indirectly as I can. Instead of bold, in-your-face offers, I offer them valuable tools or resources that I think may solve their problems or help them in some way.

When customers feel that you're someone who is taking care of them, and not a marketer who only want to earn money, they will react accordingly.

Therefore, don’t be a pushy marketer – be an expert with a pulse on your market who's ready to go the distance for your visitors (and customers).

Earn their respect and trust. And lastly, offer products and services like no one else! 

This is when you’ll begin to generate income with your website and as you do, you’ll notice what your readers are responding to so that you can tweak your system and start to customize both your email sequences and the content on your web site, around what they are most interested in.

What services or products should you sell?
How do you turn free material into profit?
How could you use your blog as a lead generation system that will generate income steadily?

I’ll teach you how in the next section.

Optimizing for profits

Increase organic traffic with SEO

You might have the best quality, most useful content on your web site but you are leaving money on the table if you haven’t optimized for the search engines.

This must be one of the very first things you do when you create your blog, but also in case you’ve ignored this important element, here are a few simple methods to make sure that your blog site is developed to achieve your goals.

Increase organic traffic with SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) starts with your content. Make certain you are utilizing relevant keywords in your content as well as appealing headlines for your blog articles.

It's also advisable to link and comment on other blogs, concentrating mainly on established ones that will result in good backlinks.

Network with other bloggers

Feature other bloggers on your site and don’t be afraid to advertise and link to different websites.

They won’t take your traffic!

Successful blogging involves networking hence the more you consistently share content from pro bloggers, the better the chance they will share yours.

Post reviews of other different blogs on your site and expand on your ability to provide visitors with useful resources that are able to help them. Focus on influencers in your market because they will bring in the most website visitors.

Focus on resource guides that offer quick and easy tips, tools and checklists which can be helpful to your readers.

Run giveaways on your blog

Consider having a giveaway or contest on your site. I prefer the KingSumo software to run stunning giveaways on my site that bring in thousands of individuals and on top of that, after the contest has ended you have the option to download a CSV file that contains the full listing of entries!

Put those to your mailing list and watch it grow quickly. Giveaways could even go viral and inspire individuals to share your site with other people.

Think about interviewing other bloggers, and give guest blogging spots on your site. While you’ll need a decent amount of traffic before you’ll be attractive to most bloggers, begin with different brand new bloggers in your niche and community! 

The possibilities are endless.

The top income producer

Choose a blog monetization method

One of the most important elements of creating a successful blog is determining what type of monetization you should choose for your niche.

There are numerous options available for you, therefore, finding out which one to start with (and eventually, evaluating what format your audience will possibly respond to) is often the hardest element within the process.

Therefore, let’s break it straight down so that you can build a reliable strategy that will have you making money in a very short time, while eliminating the under-performing methods that so many people fall victim to.

You might build a blog just because you’re interested in creating content for your market. Maybe you have lots of information to share and you love helping others.

Excellent! But, you still need to define your goals.

Is your blog planned around attracting people with valuable content that you can convert into leads?
Are you considering to use your site to deliver a freebie in exchange for an email to build a subscriber list?

If that's the case, then your website is a lead generation system and it’s your goal.

The purpose of building a blog is not simply to earn money by directly selling services and products, either with your products or through affiliate marketing.

A blog should rather be a lead generation system, a method to tap into your market, and establish credibility in your market.

lead nurturing process

Well, exactly how should you start to generate income from your blog?

Make money as an affiliate marketer

The key is affiliate marketing!

Even if you own a product or service, in the event that you are brand new to your market and aren’t a well-known product creator, you should start by producing powerful content for your blog and making money with popular products and services with affiliate marketing possibilities.

Then you're able to siphon credibility from all of these well-known professionals, and you can let them perform the majority of the work!

Using affiliate marketing, you are never stuck in support desks wading through e-mail messages from clients who require assistance.

You aren’t dealing with graphic designers and marketing materials to be able to offer tools for marketers to use. You aren’t focusing on product updates, fixing issues or bugs in your software.

As being an affiliate, you've got one task to perform: Sell the products and earn money!

Affiliate marketing is definitely the smartest method.

Need more convincing?

Make money as an affiliate marketer

Affiliates can create lucrative blogs quicker than anybody else since you aren't spending several months investing money and time developing products. You can pick from tons of viable services and products and showcase them on your website with just a few clicks.

Affiliate marketers can build a nearly purely passive income. You aren’t concerned with support, programming or updates leaving you absolutely free to produce content, grow your email subscribers and review products as an affiliate that will bring you the revenue you want.

Plus, affiliate marketing might also introduce you to top-selling products, providing you ideas for your own products later on down the road when your website is more popular and you’re driving steady traffic!

You’ll understand exactly what type of products people buy without having to thoroughly test your own products, and reducing the risk.

This is definitely a win-win situation.

There is one exception: In case you are a service provider and your income is from offering consultation, selling real estate or any other kind of service, you should start selling them from the beginning.

But in case you're not a service provider, then affiliate marketing is most likely the business model you should focus on.

Not paid advertising or Google Adwords, not product creation – at least not in the beginning. Affiliate marketing is the way to go.

Sell high and maximize your revenue

What type of affiliate products to choose

If you’re wondering, “What type of affiliate products should I promote?”, we’re on the same page.

That's actually the only thing you must be concerned about when deciding on how to make money with a blog.

the product should solve a problem

The key to success isn't just to go after low priced opportunities. It’s a mistake when assuming it’s much better to sell a $20 product because more people will probably buy it.

That's neither logical nor true. In reality, you’ll make things more difficult and you’ll have to work much more to create a nice income every time.

So, do just what the professional bloggers do: focus on high ticket affiliate products ($300 and up) and work your way down. You will not only earn more income, but you won’t need to sell as many pieces in order to do so!

The only way a low priced offer works is in case you have a strong backend high priced offer. You're essentially selling at a low price to qualify potential buyers (and not freebie seekers), and encouraging them to purchase your more expensive backend items. That’s how you make the most of your money.

Using affiliate marketing, the only way to sell a cheap front-end offer makes sense when you have a series of high-ticket offers up for grabs.

The best way to do that is to build a sales funnel. Here you can find the best sales funnel builders.

After getting started in affiliate marketing and blogging, it is much easier to go for gold and promote more expensive products on the front end while you cut your teeth on the process.

Besides, as you promote products and grow your subscriber lists you’ll be ready to smoothly launch your own products later at a bigger price since you’ve developed a group of prospects that are ready to pay higher prices.

And keep in mind, the main metric above all others is usually the numbers in your subscriber list.

Don’t concern about RSS feed subscribers – that is not worth anymore – just concentrate on growing your email list because that is the real deciding factor of how much cash your blog generates.

Join the most popular affiliate marketplaces

So, how can you discover the best affiliate products for your website?

The simplest solution is by signing up for ClickBank affiliate marketplace right here.

clickbank

There are numerous advertising networks, but ClickBank is certainly one of the leading advertising companies online.

I have also tried the ones below. These are all great for new blog sites:

Commission Junction

This is actually the one I began with many years ago, and I also keep working with them today. Really trustworthy and reliable advertising network.

Amazon Affiliate Program

While the pay ratio is less than many other companies, they allow you to sell products from a very recognized brand – plus access to their complete inventory.

Rakuten Advertising

One of the biggest affiliate networks with millions of affiliate partnerships. You won't have any shortage of services and products to select from.

ShareASale

It’s a very popular advertising network with thousands of merchants participating so you’ll find a lot of affiliate products to promote.

I would recommend trying out a couple of products when you begin blogging as they are extremely easy to get started with. 

I’ll include a number of the other advertising networks that I’ve utilized at the end of this article in the resources area.

For now, join those companies and check their inventory for a couple of products that are highly related to your market and everything you feel your readers would be interested in.

Create top-quality content (or outsource)

And then, produce your content. In case you're on a limited budget and want to outsource your work, spend most of your money on content creation.

That is exactly how you’ll get noticed in your field, grab the attention of your target market and boost recurring traffic.

Create top-quality content (or outsource)

In the event that you do nothing else, invest some time (and money) producing the top-quality content possible. Maybe you don’t know what to write about?

Analyze the top 10-20 blogs in your market. Check out what they're writing about and what types of titles they have been using.

Which blog posts get the most comments and likes?

Take note of everything you discover, producing a swipe file of information that will allow you to build the type of content people in your market are most interested in.

Invest some time with this. If you don’t know what your audience wants most, spend time researching before you get started on.

By spending a couple of hours checking well-known blogs, you’ll easily have some great ideas.

Remember, everything you actually need to start running a blog is 4-5 top-notch articles. Or, flip the script and provide your readers with a mix of content types including videos, infographics, and articles. Bonus tip: Add subtitles to your video. It increases engagement and shareability.

And always place your email opt-in box on your pages before you start generating traffic to your site. If you'd like an affordable choice with a user-friendly interface, check out MailerLite or GetResponse.

Let's recap everything:

  • Produce 4-5 pieces of great content in the form of videos, articles, or infographics.
  • Use an autoresponder service and create your welcome/introduction e-mail. Don't sell in the first 2-3 emails.
  • Offer them a free gift: a case study, a free download, or another thing that will be appealing to your audience.
  • Use 4-5 affiliate products in your blog content and your email sequences.
  • When you're able to afford to, integrate an opt-in plugin that captures leads.

You can proceed without this by integrating your list sign up code into your page itself.

But actually, tools like OptinMonster are a much more professional because they not only will automatically place the pop-up boxes, but you can also personalize it so the forms appear according to user activity (how many times the person has been there, where the person is on your page, etc.)

  • Check out affiliate products consistently on the affiliate networks. Keep a pulse on your market, frequently visiting popular blogs in your niche in order to exactly learn the kind of content that is receiving lots of attention along with those products that are selling well.
  • Drive traffic. Engage people through social media, build ad campaigns with Google Ads, make use of communities and forums within your topic to introduce your website and maximize visibility.

It’s a mistake when numerous newbie bloggers do and think that they should first build a subscriber list up to at least 1,000 before they begin selling. Don’t be concerned about storing “enough” content on your blog.

Start by publishing 3-4 really informative articles on your blog that will win your audience and pick 4-5 affiliate products to market. Divide that up and promote one product for every 1-2 articles on your blog, with the other offers being sent out to your email subscribers.

The trick is not to become pushy. Provide useful content that will appeal to your website visitors and incorporate some affiliate offers within your blog’s structure.

This way, you aren’t shoving it in their faces but instead reminding them of a helpful service or tool that will assist them in some way.

And before publishing, don't forget to proofread your posts with grammar checker tools like Grammarly. Alternatively, Prowritingaid is a similar great tool. I'm using both.

Conclusion

I would like you to begin selling today.

It’s not easy to stay inspired as a blogger in case you aren’t earning money so by kick-starting your efforts straight away, instead of trying to master everything, you’ll see results much faster.

Plus, you’ll also have the ability to generate income that could get into building your team, hiring marketers and article writers.

Once you have received the first payment for your sales, believe me; you’ll be hooked.

About the author 

Peter Keszegh

Most people write this part in the third person but I won't. You're at the right place if you want to start or grow your online business. When I'm not busy scaling up my own or other people' businesses, you'll find me trying out new things and discovering new places. Connect with me on Facebook, just let me know how I can help.

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