Ideas for Monetizing a Blog-The Beginner’s Guide

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It seems like almost everyone either has a blog or is thinking of starting one. The savvy blogger is seeking ideas for monetizing a blog. This beginner’s guide on how to get started on a blog is the one I wish I had about six months ago.

Before you write one single post to monetize, it is important to do some pre-planning to determine your purpose, niche, and long-term goals. Follow the plan described in part one of how to get started on a blog.

nce you have a plan, it is time to purchase a domain address, set-up a WordPress website, secure hosting, and download the most important plug-ins. There are some outstanding free resources available to help you with this, such as this video on how to create a WordPress website. Here’s the thing though-you don’t know what you don’t know….and neither did I.

For instance, you can really slow down your fledgling new blog with too many plug-ins or pictures that are not optimized. Both will cause your site to load slowly. You don’t want that-site speed is a key criterion for website health.

Like me, you might need some comprehensive, all-in-one resources to help you navigate the blog set-up stage. The best resource I found was Wealthy Affiliate. Through this membership, I was able to ask other members for quick answers to my gazillions of questions. I was also able to keep things simple and get my domain, hosting, and website set-up all through Wealthy Affiliates Site Rubix partnership.

Content, Content, Content

A blogger is essentially a content creator. Once you sit down to write that first post it is important to not overthink it and just START. There is one very important question to ask yourself:  What problem am I solving?  Each post should address a pressing problem for your ideal reader with a clear call to action.

As you continue to narrow your niche and define your avatar (who you are writing for), you will want to organize yourself with an editorial calendar. Ideally, you would plan out a year’s worth of blog post topics with corresponding keywords. How often should you blog?  Three times a week would be fantastic, but aim for once weekly (and consistently).

What are you going to write about?  First, you want to organize your content around three pillars. For instance, if my niche was beauty for women over 40, I might arrange my pillars around skincare, make-up and hair.

Under my first content pillar of skincare, I might write articles on the most effective skin care products, the advantages and disadvantages of various cosmetic procedures, and one on how to age gracefully.

A make-up pillar might include content on new Fall trends and different make-up application techniques.

The final pillar would focus on hair with five to ten articles on the best haircuts for women over 40, why natural hair color treatments are preferred, and the best hair care products.

How to get started on a blog is to position yourself as an expert on a given niche. By writing 5-10 posts on each pillar category, you are quickly establishing yourself as the “go-to” blog for that topic.

Writing for a blog is quite different than other kinds of writing. To learn how to write for the blogosphere you will want to check out Smart Blogger’s wealth of resources on how to write blog posts.

Website Keywords for Seo Cause Major Traffic….in a Good Way

Ideas for monetizing a blog all begin with driving lots of traffic to your particular website. Your first goal is to build an audience and produce at least 1,000 raving fans. Therefore, it is important to have an avatar. Once you know the problems she is seeking solutions for, you can begin the keyword research process BEFORE you write a single post.

What are website keywords for SEO?  Let’s say I want a new haircut.  I might go to google and type in “best haircut for women over 40.”  A quick search shows that there are 74,100,000 searches-apparently lots of other women are looking for the same thing! To be competitive, I am going to want to write a post using a keyword with far fewer searches than this.

So far in my blogging journey, mastering the complexities of keyword research proved challenging. For a basic orientation on keyword research, this free beginner’s guide does the job. Once you understand the basics, investigate some advanced keyword research tools.

Before we delve into some ideas for monetizing a blog, it is important to clearly understand how blog traffic drives your monetization strategy. If you write posts, but no one ever finds them, all of your efforts are for naught. So how do you get people to your blog?

The most effective strategies for blog traffic are search engine optimization-SEO- and Pinterest marketing. Both topics are complex. At this point, you might be feeling overwhelmed by All the Stuff to Learn. Take. A. Deep. Breathe. When in doubt, chunk it down one bite at a time. In order of priority, this is what you should tackle first:

• Master keyword research strategies and tools
• Create a list of 50 possible keywords to build posts around
• Write first 10-20 posts applying proper on-page SEO strategies
• Begin applying proper off-page and Backlinking SEO strategies gradually
• Launch a Pinterest strategy

What is the difference between on-page and off-page SEO strategies?  Quite a bit, actually. The only way I could grasp these concepts was to devour every wordof Debbie Gartner’s two SEO books. Reading both books will improve your SEO skills rapidly.

In Debbie’s Gartner’s On-Page SEO E-book, she explains thaton-page and off-page SEO are both super important and each are responsible for 50% of your SEO efforts. A common new blogger mistake is to only pay attention to on-page SEO.

The second E-book, Debbie Gartner’s Off-Page SEO:  Easy Backlinks, addresses the second part of search engine optimization. Off-page SEO is all about getting other websites with high domain authority to link to YOUR site and share the all-important link juice. As a bonus, after you read this, you will understand the intricacies of achieving a high domain authority – one of your ultimate goals as a blogger.

Backlinks are one of those areas where what you DON’T know CAN hurt you. Do some of these steps incorrectly and you can hurt your Google Rank. Included are many ways to get backlinks and how to build them gradually. Most appreciated were suggestions of which activities to avoid because they are largely a waste of your very valuable time.

Ideas for Monetizing a Blog #1- Sell Ad Space on Your Blog

Once you have some steady traffic coming to your blog, it is time to think about how to monetize a blog for business purposes. What follows are some ideas for monetizing a blog:

Of all the ideas for monetizing a blog the most obvious is to turn your monthly pageviews into ad revenue. Even as a beginning blogger, you can place ads through Google Adsense onto your blog. According to Google, “Irrespective of any niche, the average CPM earning is $1 to $1.5 per 1,000 impressions. You can make $40 to $60 per day from 40,000-page views.”

WARNING:  I’ve been lurking about in several Facebook blogging groups for the last six months or so and the general opinion seems to be-don’t do it! Don’t load Adsense ads onto your site. The bottom line is that their ads really slow down your site speed which is a big no-no! For more details on this debate read Google Adsense is not a Good Monetization Strategy.

There are other ad companies that seem to get more favorable reviews. One is Monumetric, but you should know that you need to have at least 10,000 monthly pageviews to apply for an account. Many new bloggers make getting to 10,000 monthly pageviews their very first big goal so they can apply to be a Monumetric advertiser.

The company that seems to receive the most rave reviews is Mediavine. They have a reputation for paying better, providing great customer service, and NOT slowing down your site with their ads (an important consideration). So, what’s the catch?  They are the gold standard and only approve bloggers with 25,000+ pageviews per month.

As you consider your options around ad sales, you might want to copy my approach. Here’s my ad strategy:

• 0-9,999 pageviews=Do not load ads (revenue too low and might slow my site speed)
• 10,000-24,999 pageviews=Apply to Monumetric for ads
• 25,000+ pageviews=Apply to Mediavine for ads

Ideas for Monetizing a Blog # 2- Affiliate Marketing

As a new blogger with less than 10,000 monthly pageviews, you will want to learn all you can about affiliate marketing. According to Wikipedia, “Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.”

As an affiliate marketer, your role is to recommend products and services to your readers through an affiliate link. When the reader clicks on the link and buys, you receive a commission. This is probably one of the best ideas for monetizing a blog.

To get started, you must find affiliate programs and services that you are proud to promote. Amazon is a great place to start because of the breadth of their product offerings. The Amazon Associates program has a learning curve, but it is worth the effort.

Be strategic in planning your application to the Amazon Associates program. You are required to have three sales within the first six months or your account is rejected. Amazon is only interested in paying you a commission for driving business to their site that they otherwise would not have. They have all kinds of rules so make sure you read up on their requirements.

Here is why I love the Amazon affiliate program. Although I might be promoting one of my favorite books about blogging, if thereader clicks on my affiliate link, reads the book blurb and then clicks to another product to buy, I still get paid a commission. For instance, maybe she clicks to my affiliate link and suddenly remembers that she needs to buy her niece that new Kindle Oasis e-reader. The affiliate marketer now gets the commission from the electronic e-reader-considerably more than the commission on a book-for directing the reader to Amazon.

There are many different affiliate programs available and they each have their unique requirements. This list of affiliate programs will help you get started investigating the programs that fit your personal goals.

Ideas for Monetizing a Blog #3 – Sponsored Posts

A sponsored post is when a company provides their product or service and asks you to provide a review on your blog. A food blogger might be asked to use certain kitchen utensils in a recipe post or a travel blogger might be offered a free hotel stay in exchange for a review. Sometimes the free product or service is the only payment you will receive-make sure you check the terms before you agree.

Ideas for monetizing a blog #4-Create your own products or services

It seems that the bloggers that enter the Six-Figure Blogger Club all have something in common-they sell their OWN products or services. Success leaves clues………so let’s follow the clues so that we can enjoy something other than the leftover crumbs.

The preferred path is to create an audience first. Provide a valuable free product and gain e-mail contact details. Ideas on how to monetize a blog for business include selling ads and doing affiliate marketing while building the initial audience. Once you have an e-mail contact list of at least 1,000 raving fans, it is time to start creating your own products and services.

What are some product ideas?  The most common are printables, planners, crafts, digital courses, and e-books. Most service products focus around coaching and event planning (such as retreats).

Your top goal for blogging is likely to include the creation of your own products or services. Start thinking now about what those will look like. One of the best parts about blogging is that it truly is a growth exercise-just when you figure out One of the Things there is Another Thing to master. For people who love to learn and grow, blogging is a perfect fit. Which of the ideas for monetizing a blog are you most interested in learning more about?  Drop your thoughts in the comment section below.

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