How to Start a Blog (And Make Money on It) in 2022
Blogs are just like opinions: Everybody has one. And for good reason!
A well-designed blog full of informative content is among the most powerful marketing tools on the planet. This shows prospective customers that they're experts in the field and also builds your reputation on the internet. It also shows potential customers that you're a media Centric SaaS Companies like Hubspot that maintain useful, active blogs can even see higher traffic levels than other major media outlets in their respective industries. That's massive.
In this piece we'll explain why blogs are an important brand-building strategy, before diving into the details of starting a blog. We'll then go over the most effective strategies that bloggers employ to make money from their blog to give you a roadmap to turning your blog into an effective source of income that is passive. (Because there's no one who doesn't want to think about it!)
So let's dive in, and help you go from a beginner to a blogging superstar. Here are some shortcuts, if you're eager to skip ahead to a specific section:
The benefits of blogging
from allowing your site to be more prominent in search results, and to helping build your brand's bond with your audience there are several motives why each creator and company needs the blog.
Enhancing the traffic on your site
It's not necessary to go through terminology, but this technique is known as "inbound marketing. You blog about a subject the people actually are looking for, and, along this route, people will find your brand. That means you won't need to spend money on ads to be seen. (That's outsidebound marketing!)
Conway later explains that by making a statement on the hot topics in his field Conway saw an "huge growth in traffic" and grew his readership to over 20,000 readers per month. Now, he works alongside a group of freelancers who produce great articles. It's an approach you can copy, regardless of the industry you're in.
Getting discovered via social media
Blog content isn't just good to drive users to your site- it can also be used for use on social media. Through this method, you'll grow your audience for your business and connect with leads that you would not find in other ways. It's better illustrated than explained, so we'll dive into the details of an illustration.
Imagine you're selling lint-rollers in the form of a blog post about strategies for removing cat hair from couches. You go in-depth, and describe every way to get the cat off of your recliner. (Meow.) That post and the research you've put into it constitute the foundation of your work.
To take it one step further, you can make a Twitter thread in which you break the hair removal techniques in under 280 characters. It's shorter, more digestible as well as allowing you to reach out to a brand-new audience. Additionally, you can make an Instagram-based carousel which highlights your top 5 tips for getting cats off of couches. If you're feeling adventurous You could also create an instructional TikTok tutorial on how to make a professional lint roll.
Now, the blog post isn't just a piece of writing. It's an entire mini content marketing strategy, with components that you can use to advertise your business across various social media channels. It's the blog post that's the place you'll need to spend longest. After you've finished writing it there's a chance you'd miss out if you didn't spend an hour or two spinning it out for social media.
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Building your online reputation
Blogging is also an effective way to build your online reputation and establish yourself as an expert in your field. A well-established online reputation can be beneficial for entrepreneurs who are solo and large companies Your blog posts and content that you write today will influence customers for years to come.
Simply put, people prefer to buy from businesses that help them than from anonymous corporate behemoths. The companies would rather employ consultants who give away some value up-front rather than consultants with no proof they'll deliver on their claim to deliver.
A consistent, top-quality blog can help you share that value and prove your worth.
Long-term business creation
Another massive benefit of blogging is the ability to create long-term revenue for your brand. After you've written an article, it's yours alone (and it's there for all time). You are able to edit and publish important articles every year to ensure they're ranked well, and people will continue finding your company through your blog, all independently.
Most importantly, the content you post on your blog will create the first impressions of you. If a client or customer contacts you on the first occasion, they'll have an impression of who you are based on the blog articles. You won't have to introduce yourself -- and you'll be able focus on solving their problems and building relations with them.
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How do you begin a blog that will be successful in 2022
So now that you know why blogs are so well-known, let's dive into the nitty gritty details regarding how to create a successful blog. Since blogging has evolved a significant amount since the beginning of LiveJournal and TypePad and is expected to be effective in the year 2022, you must to establish a clear plan and strategy for your blog at the beginning.
1. Pick your niche
Before you even begin your blog, you need to pick the core subject you'll be focusing the content you write about. That's your niche.
However, if you pick an overly specific niche, nobody will ever discover the time to find. Sure, you might be the biggest fish in a tiny lake, but if no one is fishing there and you don't think that it's likely to make a huge impact on the business.
Imagine you're a tailor that is obsessed with making quilted reproductions of album covers in the 1960s and 1970s. Sure, there might be some people that want to see your Trout Mask Replica quilt. If you're looking to find new customers for your company, you may want to blog about sewing. It's a broader niche, and there's more people seeking it.
Luckily, there are a few steps you can take to find a profitable niche -- one that's not very crowded or that people are searching for. Here's how you do it:
Think about your passions or skills as well as business
Your search for a blog topic should begin with some serious self-reflection. Consider the following questions--and jot down some bullet notes, while you're at it:
- What do you love to do? What can you discuss all day?
- What skills or life knowledge could you share or share with your peers?
- In the field you're interested in, which angles haven't been covered to death yet?
Most likely the real world or your work hobbies will be the subject that your blog should concentrate on. These are areas where you're already a subject-matter expert.
Being aware of your subject is essential, since it'll take time to build the readership of your blog. If you're not passionate about your blog niche it's likely that you'll experience an unending crisis, and then abandon your blog before you reach the year-mark. (And it won't be a pleasant experience (I promise you that). )
Check Google Trends to find out how well-known your field is
Once you've identified an area of interest, you'll need to conduct some basic study to find out what people are searching for within your niche. It's a lot easier and won't take any soul-searching.
Go to Google Trends -- the easiest and most cost-free method of measuring traffic to search (a.k.a. the number of times that people search for phrases in Google each month). Think of important keywords for your area of expertise. If your niche is photography, think of phrases such as "learning photography,"" "best camera for beginner," and even just "photography." Input these phrases into Google Trends, and you'll get a view of the volume of searches over the course of.
It's that simple, actually. What the Google Trends study process is doing is it tells you which pathways people are taking to reach your niche online. It will reveal trends within your particular field and indicate whether your area of expertise is growing or shrinking.
This step can allow you to determine if your area of expertise is the best one for you. If you're afraid that your niche is too competitive to be noticed, keep looking -- it's something you can fix.
Explore further to discover a sub-niche you can have your own
The niche you choose for your blog could be something already well-known, such as photography, personal finance or eating healthy. But if you ask yourself which areas within the niche aren't yet saturated, you can carve out a healthy sub-niche to own.
If, for instance, you're a photographer, then you can narrow your focus from the overcrowded niche of photography into the niche of studio photography. It's up to someone else to write about long-exposure landscape photos. It is possible to concentrate on lighting, setting up indoor photo shoots, and the must-have studio gear.
This way you'll appear as a master of a specific profession. (Which will help make your company be noticed, as well. What's the point?)
2. Pick a name for the blog
Once you've picked your niche (or sub-niche! ) then it's time to select the name of your blog. This is the name that users will look for and remember, so it's crucial to pick one that is simple, memorable and true to the brand you've created.
In choosing your username it is important to think about your target readers, what you'll be writing about, and also what your writing voice has to sound like.
With this background in mind now you're ready to choose names. Below are some possible ways to name strategies to name your blog
Use your own name
The creative director Nathan Allebach uses his last name to name his blog and communications firm. This strategy has helped people who have read about his experience in Steak-Umm find his company and eventually become customers.
On the flipside the other hand, this strategy of naming may not work for teams, or for blogs with a focus on industries. For instance, if you've got an unpopular name, such as John Smith, you may not be ranking well in Google. (But hey, that's what middle names are for you know? )
Get a dictionary
If your blog is geared towards specific industry or field, using your own name might pigeon-hole your blog. You may want to use a broader title that reflects the sort of material you're posting about.
This can be tricky, but you should grab your nearest thesaurus (or Thesaurus.com). The plan is to select the industry-related keywords you thought of earlier then plug them into the search engine and look for similar words or synonyms to make a base for your blog title.
As an example, a name such as The Camera Blog feels generic, so take the term "camera" and type it into the online dictionary. There are related words like "lens," "mirror" and "35mm" -It suddenly seems more intriguing.
It is easy to flip them to a brand new name that fits your blog -such as Lens Tracker or 35mm Mayhem, or Mirrorless Magic. Anyone searching for photography will be able to identify the blog's theme about, and you won't vanish into the abyss of badly-named blogs.
Use a blog name generator
Another option to name your blog is by plugging certain terms into a blog name generator. Choose a couple of terms that are related to your industry, and let a naming tool like BlogTyrant's do the hard work. (This name generator can even check the availability of domain names. )
There's no greater evidence of the effectiveness generated by name generators then the future EGOT awardee Childish Gambino. The name he chose for his stage debut through an Wu-Tang Clan name generator in the 2000s, which is still doing the rounds with it even a decade after. (It's still online. Connect "Donald Glover" here, if curious. )
There's nothing wrong with letting the robot assist you in brainstorming. So long as you get a good, original name, it will never matter how you got it.
3. Create your blog's hosting
In order to start your website, you'll have to establish hosting. This is buying your domain or the URL your blog audience will search to read your articles.
Be sure to select an established hosting service. If you go with a bottom-of-the-barrel, extra-cheap hosting provider, your blog may see performance issues, such as lag time while loading. This may not be apparent to you however Google's algorithm for searching is sure to notice it, so you're at risk of being left out of the search results.
Hosting isn't expensive at all. Indeed, many hosting providers will only cost you a couple coffees every month. They'll maintain your blog operating 24/7.
Our 5 top hosting recommendations from our hosting providers are (in the order that is not specific):
4. Make your blog available on a CMS
Now that you own your domain and you're now ready to start building your website in an Content Management System, also commonly referred to as CMS. CMS.
CMS platforms allow you to build your own website without having code. The CMS is where you'll go to build new pages, publish articles, and update old information in the near future. If you're a blogger picking a CMS is like picking your significant other make sure you pick it carefully.
The most common CMS software is WordPress which is an open source classic that is used by companies of any size. There are plenty of excellent CMS options available, however. We've compiled our top recommendations to get you started:
5. Create and distribute content
After you've got your CMS set up, your next step will be creating and publishing your content. Content creation is a topic on its own, and we could write an entire book (or cry you a river) about the strategy that goes into choosing which content to publish.
always want to consider these concerns:
- Who is my target audience?
- What do they like about HTML0?- and what problems do they face?
- What can I teach them?
This approach will stop from going outside of your niche, creating off-brand articles, or even creating content on topics that someone else has written about. It will also help you discover interesting, hidden stories to bring to life for your audience. Enjoy writing with me, dear readers!
6. Make sure to promote your blog
After you've got your material available Next step is to promote it.
One of the first strategies we'd suggest is to reuse blog posts for your social media platforms. Transform a long-form blog post into the form of a carousel-style post on Instagram, or the deep dive on Twitter. Open your iPhone and take an TikTok which breaks down the major points of your article, and then send people to your site for the full story.
This kills two birds with one stone. This solution helps solve the "what to post on Instagram" dilemma, as well as it also brings users to return to the original blog post.
In addition to content reuse as well, we recommend making your blog searchable. It requires a bit of SEO study, but it's an exciting rabbit hole worth going down. You just have to do some keyword research, find important terms that rank high, and then incorporate the terms into your post.
This informs Google that your content answers the issues that users are looking for. It will also increase your organic page's traffic to the next level.
How to make money blogging using Four ways to make money blogging:
At this point, you've created your blog and are up and. Congrats! The people are finding your blog and it appears that they're really enjoying the articles you're putting up.
What is the best way to earn money off all this video content?
It is important to know the ways that content creators earn income:
- If you sell your content and earn money directly from users. For instance, when content is locked behind paywalls, or incorporated into an online course, you're selling your product.
- If you're marketing awareness to an audience, you're working with a third party to fulfill their marketing needs. Consider the "word from our sponsors" section of your preferred podcast or links to your recipe site that lead to Amazon products. These are all examples of how to sell your viewers.
1. Advertise on your blog
Enabling Google AdSense (Google's advertising toolkit) on your blog is a great way to turn the clicks your blog is earning into cold, hard direct transfers to your bank account.
What is the process? You make your blog available to the Google's advertising network and allow ads to be shown on your blog. Clicks and impressions from ads make up a monthly AdSense pay-out.
AdSense is completely free to join, the eligibility requirements are low and the amount you earn from advertising is scalable according to the blog you run also.
There are a variety of different types of AdSense advertisements, such as:
- Image ads: Graphic ads that come in a variety of sizes.
- Text ads: Text-only ads which display one or multiple offers.
- Rich media advertisements include video, HTML, as well as flash advertisements.
- GIF advertisements: animated image ads.
That means that if notice that an ad is distracting from your blog content It is possible to swap it for something that's more discreet. Also, if you're hoping to earn huge sums by selling large amounts of advertising spaces, there are ads that'll permit you to do so too.
2. Affiliate network
Affiliate marketing can be a reliable way to monetize your blog. The affiliate link you provide to productsand each time someone who has started their journey on your blog makes a purchase, you get a tasty commission.
You'll want to advertise products that your audience is actually interested in. Your readers on your cooking blogs at home doesn't want to buy moisturizing products... But they'll surely be intrigued by Crockpot tips. Choose the best products and you'll transform the affiliate advertisements that promote cast iron cookware into gold.
We know from experience that there's a ton of misinformation available concerning affiliate programs. Since we're interested, we've compiled a list of 8 reputable affiliate networks to join now:
- Instagram Affiliate
- FlexOffers
- AWIN (prev. Affiliate Window)
- Amazon Associates Program
- CJ Affiliate
- Affiliaxe
- Affiliate Program
- ShareASale
- Udemy Affiliates Program
3. Create sponsored posts
Sponsored posts are a great method to convert the traffic on your blog into passive income particularly once you've got a dedicated public. In exchange for a per-post fee, you'll blend ads for products of the company into your blog posts.
This is win-win. For you, the benefit is the money. For your sponsor, it's an authentic, third-party piece of content that promotes their product (without it looking like an empty brand placement).
Sponsored posts can actually come in a variety of formats such as:
- Articles created by sponsors that you share
- Blogs that you write regarding a sponsored product
- Links to sponsors' webpage or product page
- A list that includes positive coverage of a sponsor's product
- A product announcement that provides a discount of a certain amount to blog users
It's vital to point out that most of the time it is possible to be asked to create content for sponsored companies. It's not a good idea to pursue advertisers, and in reality this can make you look desperate. Just focus on creating quality content that is distinctive in your niche And, over time, they'll find you.
4. Sell online courses
Offering online courses is the fastest and most scalable way to earn money from your blog. Blog content is a fantastic opportunity to let people know about the personal brand or company you represent however, combining your knowledge into well-organized courses is better. (And, it can be very profitable!)
Furthermore, after you've developed a course the course is done. There may be a need to revise the course content from time to time, but it's still a finished asset that you can send your blog readers for the rest of time. If your blog is the go-to for your particular niche then your financial account will increase in value. (No not really, we've seen it happen many times. )
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So, what's next?
Once you've figured out how to create your own blog, you're likely to be trying to figure out how to make your website into a cash cow. As we've said before: the most quick, efficient method to make money from your blog as well as generate the foundation for passive income is by making classes.
Here's where the power comes to. We make it easy to drive revenue from your blog through repurposing material into self-guided online courses and membership websites. Our simple-to-use platform for course design aids educators, coaches as well as digital content creators create interactive, customized e-Learning experiences and grow sustainable online business.
Start for no cost and receive the course creation as well as marketing and sales equipment you require to move your business up a notch. (No tech skills required! )