How Blogs Make Money While You Sleep

A SHORT GUIDE TO DISCOVERING HOW TO START A BLOG AND MAKE MONEY FROM IT IN 2020!

There are many reasons why people own a blog. Some say they want to write about their passion; others say they want to share their opinions on specific matters while others start a blog because they want to make money. 

Honestly, it doesn’t matter why you start it. Having a blog that makes money is a great thing! It not only shows that you’re good at what you do, but it also shows that people agree that your words are valuable.

And there is only one great secret to how blogs make money:

Being valuable!

Blogging is like every other business, and like every other business, it will thrive if there are enough people who care about what the blog offers. Making money from a blog isn’t just about following your passion or sharing your opinions. It is about being strategic about what you offer and to whom you offer it to. 

This short article tells you what you need to know about starting a blog, making money as a blogger, and how blogs make money.

STARTING A BLOG

Starting a blog that makes money requires a reasonable amount of time and effort. A blog is similar to a small business of your own. Like in other traditional businesses, there will be deadlines to meet, customers to satisfy, products to sell, and a lot of strategizing to do. Even the most talented persons can spend around three to six years before making money as bloggers. 

You can start and make money from a blog if you do the following things well:

Selecting A Niche – One very important thing to note with successful blogs is selecting the right niche for blogging. Since blogging works like any other business, a successful blog must cater to the need of a large group of people. Therefore, you should consider the point where your motive for starting a blog and people’s interest in your passion intersect. Selecting a relevant niche is instrumental to how blogs make money.

Great Content – When you discover the point of intersection, great content comes next. Successful blogs provide great content! Having great ideas and powerful words to convey them are wonderful skills, but they aren’t enough. You’ve got to use those ideas and words to publish topics that many people take an interest in.

Here are a few things that can help you create great content that makes money for you as a blogger:

1. Know what content has the highest demand in your niche and write like hell on those areas. For instance, if your niche is politics, it’d be unwise to write about the history of political parties while a current presidential race is on. You should be writing about what is going on in the current race! That’s what people want to read!
2. You must learn to use a structure that is proven to attract readers. If I were a technical expert looking to teach people how to install a new product, my blog posts should be structured in a way that not only shows what to do but shows the exact manner in which they should be done!
3. Let your content deliver the best value to your reader. Better than any of the posts before yours.

Right traffic source – Google and Facebook are the biggest sources of written content. Using the right traffic source to push their content is another way how blogs make money. The wrong choice is going to expose your work to people who don’t need it, and that means you won’t have a profitable blog.

A tip: Google is better for content in areas such as product reviews, expert questions, DIYs, etc. If your traffic source is Google, think SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Facebook is more predisposed to content on self-help, pets, parenting, relationships, and other stuff like this. 

Some people say starting a blog is expensive. Here’s what you should know about the costs of starting a blog.

How Much Does It Cost to Start A Blog?

There’s no straight answer to this as it depends entirely on the owner of the blog. There exist several options for you to choose from. Some of these options are paid for, and others are free. 

I advise that since you’re just starting, choose the free option. This way, you are at liberty to experiment without fear of losing money. 

Getting started for free is pretty easy. You can register on an already made web platform with credibility and readers who access it constantly. One such example is Medium. Medium has got over 60 million readers who browse for content monthly! If your article gets featured on Medium, you can get a lot of publicity. WordPress, LinkedIn, Dzone are other platforms you could try out for free.

Once you start making enough progress and start gaining traction, you may then consider creating your blog website with money. Until you’ve tested the waters of places like Medium and gained experience, it is not advised that you spend so much on setting up a new site!

Monetizing YOUR BLOG!

Blogs make money, and that’s a fact! 

There are many examples of blogs that have made so much money. An example is CopyBlogger, These guys make around $1,000,000 in a month. More blogs make almost as much or even more every month too.  

Here’s how:

There are tested and trusted methods applied by successful blogs for making money, and you can try them too! Here are five ways that show how blogs make money:

Online Courses and Workshops: Many blogs make the bulk of their income from online courses and workshops. Once, you discover that people are willing to pay to learn what you know and to be taught, too, then set up online courses.

For a particular amount, people will pay to learn topics that they have interest in, thus making you money. You can also use this method to create restricted content meant for users who pay to view them.

Publishing Books: Successful blog writers have been known to get book deals.

Using content that is wanted by so many people, blog writers can secure book deals that could bring in money. 

Mark Manson is a great example here. In 2015, Mark Manson published an article that got so much traction that he leveraged on it to get a book deal. Now, he has sold over three million of that book. You’ve probably heard of ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck.’ It started as a blog post!

Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product or service to your audience in exchange for a referral commission for everyone who buys that product because of you. 

There are so many companies looking to market their products through affiliates, and that opens an entire world of opportunity to make money as a blogger. Digital Photography School has reported it made over$500,000 from the Amazon Affiliate Program by recommending photography equipment.

Sponsorship and Advertising: Many writers don’t like the idea of selling ads on their sites because advertisements can sometimes alienate an otherwise attentive audience.

Notwithstanding, advertisements remain a great source of income for bloggers and remains one of the most popular ways to make money as a blogger. Already established blogs use services like Google AdSense to make money from their blogs.

An alternative to direct advertisements is sponsored blog posts. With sponsorship, blogs review products and begin a conversation around it. This helps promote the product to better sell it. As with regular sponsorship deals, the bloggers will get paid for representing such a company.

Speaking Gigs, Coaching, and Counselling: Great blog writers are considered influential in whatever niche they specialize in. Chances are if many people read a blog, they’d be willing to pay to hear the blogger speak at an event. With speaking gigs, you can make money as a blogger.

There’s also an opportunity for bloggers to turn into coaches and counselors since their opinions are already seen as highly relevant. 

Can you actually make money as a blogger?

Hell yeah! You can make money as a blogger.

As I’ve said a few times in this article, being a blogger is equivalent to owning a business. The success or failure of the business is highly dependent on the winning strategies that you employ as a blogger. You’ve always got to stay updated and sensitive to the needs of the larger society and your potential audience.

Many blogs make as much as $1 million annually, and you can too. Your biggest task as a blogger is getting a relatively large audience and work on keeping them satisfied with the value you give.

The more valuable your content is, the more likely you’ll make more money as a blogger.

CONCLUSION

Running a blog is no small task. Running a blog that makes money is an even bigger task. 

However, if you commit yourself to growth and pay strong attention to the details in this piece, you’ll make money as a blogger. 

One more thing:

Patience is important. Don’t quit too early. Many blogs fail to make money because they quit just as they started. I assure you that once you get things started after a while, you can sit at home and continuously earn money from your blog.

This is the truth. This is how blogs make money!