How to Start a Money Making Blog
Anyone can setup a blog and start writing content, but only a few of those blogs ever develop into money making enterprises that generate significant income streams. If you want to know how to start a money making blog then read on…
There are fundamental differences between starting a blog and starting a blog that will end up being seen by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of visitors every month.
The key to running a successful blog is in how you set your blog up in the beginning. There are several key components to blogging success;
- Choosing a Profitable Niche
- Choosing the right Blogging Platform
- Choosing the most suitable URL
- Structuring your Content
- Optimizing your Content for Search
- Writing Quality Content
- Publishing on a Regular Basis
- Promoting your Blog Posts
- Monetizing your Content
Choosing a Profitable Niche
This is a fundamental that many people get wrong from the beginning. If you are going to ever make money from your blog, then it needs to be about something that already has a following.
You the Google Keyword Tool to look for existing traffic related to your Niche and study the numbers closely. When you use the keyword tool, opt for ‘exact match’ search terms as this gives precise figures of traffic for the exact phrase or keyword that you are typing in.
You are looking for exact match numbers of over 12,000 per month if you want to ever see an income from your blog. If you log into a Google account when using the keyword tool you will be able to see 800 results rather than 100 not logged in, and this will give you a good basis for potential blog post topics in the future.
Your goal is to rank first in Google for all of these terms and phrases. It is highly unlikely that you will ever achieve that ambition, I don’t think that anyone ever has, but that is your ultimate aim.
Once you have potential viable niches in mind, you need to think about your passion.
Without a passion for the subject that you are going to blog about, you will struggle to create high quality content on a long term basis. Blogging needs to be a passion if you are going to succeed. If you choose a niche without having a passion for it, you will eventually run out of steam and lose interest.
Choosing the Right Blogging Platform
It is vital that you choose the right blogging platform if you are going build a money making blog. Some platforms are better than others.
We recommend WordPress as it has a proven structure that is search engine friendly, is easy to setup and install and offers a large variety of free and paid design and functionality options.
Choosing a URL
Once you have chosen a blogging platform, and for the purposes of this article, we will assume you will be using WordPress, the next thing you need to do is to setup some hosting and install your WordPress files on your hosting. We have a Blogging Guide that walks you step by step through that process, making it as easy as possible.
You also need to buy a URL (Domain Name) for your blog. You can buy a URL from many different sources, Namesco being one popular one.
Your URL should be a.com preferably as they are the most powerful URL suffix on the internet and will instantly give your blog an advantage over other suffixed blogs.
Your blog URL should be as short as possible, keyword rich and preferably have only one spelling permutation. Before you decide on which URL to buy, try saying it outload as if directing someone to your blog over the phone. If this is not straight forward then choose another URL.
Content Structure
Your Content is incredibly important. Content is the ‘product’ that you are ‘selling’ and so needs to be of the highest quality.
Quality content can be defined as unique, valuable, well written, helpful and useful.
Ask yourself this question;
“Does my content add something useful to the Niche?”
In addition, the structure of your posts is very important. In order for your posts to rank well in search, you need to make sure that each post is optimized.
Your blog should also link your posts together. You want your readers to be able to find related content, so when you are writing about related subject matter, link to your related posts so that people can easily find their way around.
Optimizing your Content
We recommend WordPress SEO by Yoast for optimizing your blog posts. This is a free plugin that is easy to install, and which then checks each post advising you of additions that are needed in order for it to rank well.