Blogging

How to Start a Money Making Blog

money making blog

People want to know that how they can start money making blogging. They are curious to find out that what it takes to start a money making blog. A lot of them know about the blogs but what they don’t know is that how a blog makes money, in actual.

Here I come…

I talk to people on Facebook.

They discuss their blogging matters all the time.

In fact, we all try to find the point that turns the blog into a money making blog.

People try to find the secrets of a money making blog.

Well, they try to look behind the backdrop.

But they find nothing. What I want them to do is drop the curtain…

So, when they talk to me on Facebook, they ask me about blogging. I’m not being an expert of blogging here. I’m just a student of blogging like Joe Pulizzi once told me that we’re all students…

joe-pulizzi

So, Facebook friends talk to me about blogging techniques, niche selection, and monetization ideas.

I wonder sometimes they value my opinion and apply the techniques that I tell them…

Do they forward the same excitement, passion, and honesty to their readers?

They probably FOCUS on learning something awesome… (which is good, everyone should be doing that)

But I focus on DELIVERING TO THEM while we talk.

When people tell me that they want to start a blog. I ask them two questions?

Question #1: Do you just want to write for expressing your thoughts or you want to make money off of it?

I ask this question because:

If they just want to write for fun. There is no point of giving them a lecture on money making. People do write blogs just for the sake of expression. It makes them feel good when they put the words out there. I can tell you because I started off that way in 2008.

Question #2: What’s your passion?

I ask this question because:

If they don’t follow their passion in blogging, they’ll eventually quit at some point even if they want to make money off of it. Bloggers quit blogging when they don’t see any traction, engagement, and money out of it. The passion is something that keeps a blogger going and stops from going off the hook, which ultimately results in making money.

After those two questions, they start to pursue the game differently…

Now, I’m going to share a few steps with you that will help you squeeze the huge things that contain the sheer learning of my last 6 years in blogging and I’ll try my best to share with you folks:

Step #1: Define your blogging purpose

It’s simple. Tell yourself whether you want to build a career around blogging, meaning, you want to start blogging and make money off of it and want to see yourself as a pro-blogger or you just want to have fun while you’re at home and you think blogging could be a fun thing to do.

It’s important.

Because

If you want to start blogging and make a career around it, then you have to pursue it to become a pro-blogger. A pro-blogger is a blogger who blogs for a living and he or she does make money off of blogging. You can’t be a pro-blogger if you have a bank job and you write your blog once a month.

If you’re pursuing this to make money then your pathway should be like this:

  • Using the paid services: A blog requires a number of things such as web hosting, domain name, and blog template (and even more). All these things must be the premium products in order to make a professional start. Some newbie bloggers try to play smart and find cheap web hosting service and cracked blog templates that do damage to their blogs in the long run.
  • Blog consistently: You have to be regular if you really want to be a successful blogger. A blog is just like establishing a business from the scratch. In the beginning, you don’t earn money. All you need is to give your money, hard work, and sweat to get things going. The consistency refers to the blog posting, researching, creating content, and being social on the regular basis.
  • Learning process: As a pro-blogger, your learning doesn’t stop at any point. Once you get into this and you start to learn things, you’ll find blogging similar to a sea that never ends. There are always new ideas, concepts, and techniques to test, analyze, and adapt. It’s a commitment of a lifetime, you don’t have to do it if you aren’t passionate about blogging.

On the other hand…

If you want to blog just for fun or you want to do it because your best friend has started doing it, then it’s totally cool. You can do that too.

You will need to do this:

  • Pick a blogging platform to get started: Since you’ve decided that you don’t want to make money off of it. It means a lot of troubles might go away instantly such as the cost of launching a blog, maintenance, and the premium services you may need to acquire. You can feel free to start a blog on the free platforms like Medium, WordPress.com, or Tumblr.
  • Fill up the blog with information: It might take a few minutes to create a free blog. The next up is the process of creating some of the important pages of your blog and filling them up. The pages such as  About me, Contact, Mission. Moreover, you might want to create some categories to use in the content creation. Make categories related to your blog’s niche (niche meaning, the type of your blog).

If you’ve made this far, you would come to know that both the ideas have different directions, which is why I emphasized on defining the blogging purpose. Because if you don’t define why you want to launch a blog, you won’t succeed in blogging.

why of my blog

For instance, I started a niche blog called vlogging.pk. I clearly defined that vlogging.pk is a blog to help guide Pakistani audience who wants to start vlogging. In fact, I explained that why I launched that blog so that someone who visits that About Page of vlogging.pk should come across the ‘Why’ of my blog.

why-i-started-vloggingpk

I have had a chance to listen to Simon Sinek. His TED Talk and tons of other interviews have gone viral on the internet.

start-with-why

Image source: startwithwhy.com

He wrote a book called ‘START WITH WHY‘ and I’m going to read it for sure. It’s on my list to get my hands on in the near future. He often talks about his book which revolves around the WHY.

Step #2: Choose the Specific Niche

‘Niche’ is a category of your blog. The word niche is probably one of the used words when it comes to blogging tips. It’s true that selecting a niche is very important. We’ve been told a lot about choosing our blog niche wisely and the more we grow as a blogger, the more we emphasize on niche blogging.

I want to dig deeper.

I don’t want to run away by giving you typical niche tips that everybody knows about. I learned the hard way. I did mistakes in my blogging and choosing the niche was one of those mistakes in my blogging career.

I want you to connect the NICHE with the INTENT.

This will get a lot whole easier for almost everyone who wants to start a blog or who wants to get better at blogging.

Let me explain this.

In general, a niche could be blogging tips, android OS, photography, or YouTube.

But in my opinion, you have to choose a specific niche and define a certain intention inside that niche.

Not only will it make you stand out from the crowd but it will also vaporize the possible competition.

Let’s call it a sub-niche.

For instance,

  • Bloggers who are failing at Affiliate Marketing
  • Females who want to start an online boutique
  • Newbie bloggers who are starting a blog
  • People who are going to join a gym

The idea is your niche shouldn’t be so general that thousands of bloggers already targeting the same kind of niche and you find yourself among the noisy crowd. So, this is quite important to consider while starting a money making blog.

One of my favorite bloggers Sue Anne Dunlevie wrote a blog post about growing a blog. She also mentioned choosing a specific niche for blogging success. I was thrilled to read her post and decided to add up here and share with you guys.

Step #3: Select the Right Platform

This is one of the most underrated blogging tips. I mean, you’d always find bloggers talking about the blogging platform and telling the readers about the different platforms but you may not find them emphasizing a lot on the importance of the right platform.

I want to clarify this. Write it down somewhere.

The blogging platform is extremely important in your blogging journey.

It’s like going on a long road-trip without choosing the right car for the journey. If you have ever been on the road for a long drive, you would know that the car type, maintenance, and the condition are the essential things to make that happen.

Similarly, if you’re passionate about blogging, it means you’re making a long commitment to it and you may not stop blogging in your lifetime, then the blogging platform is something you can’t compromise on. In fact, learning more about the best platforms and especially the current one you’re on is crucial to the success.

I’m a huge fan of WordPress (self-hosted) platform to run any website or blog. In the beginning, back in 2008, I started off with the blogger.com, and eventually after a year of using it, I jumped off and decided to buy a web hosting account and chose WordPress blogging platform. Ever since I haven’t had even a thought in my mind to change my blogging platform. The reason is that this platform is reliable, ever-growing, and built around the open-source concept, meaning, there are tons of contributors who develop themes (web templates) and plugins (site modules), which makes it easier to run any kind of a site or blog.

I want you to take a few steps back here.

Remember the step #1?

Blogging Purpose…

See, it also comes in play here. If you want to start a blog that could make money for you, it means you have to turn yourself into a professional blogger, which would ultimately require you to put not only just effort but also some professional equipment (such as a reliable web hosting service, a premium theme, and some paid plugins).

Otherwise, if you don’t have the intention of becoming a pro-blogger, then you may not have to spend money on this. You can begin with the free blogging platforms.

The other day I really liked an article that I stumbled upon through Facebook and I had no idea about the platform of that blog. The moment I completed reading that article, I thought to leave a comment underneath that article and it took me some time to figure out about the commenting. Perhaps, I’m so used to of the easiness of WordPress that I couldn’t quickly respond to the features of that platform.

So, I managed to leave the comment as it asked me to log in to be able to leave a comment. Since I wasn’t on that platform, so I had to choose Twitter to leave the comment. On the other hand, if you’re using WordPress either .com or .org, you know that it’s quite simple to leave a comment. All you need to put is your basic information such as name, email, and URL. Moreover, anyone can leave the comment in WordPress.

Step #4: Start Changing Lives

This is something you need to make your blog thrive. All the efforts you are told before this point would help you meet your audience, meaning, when you know the purpose of your blogging, you would be able to define your content strategy accordingly, when you would know your niche, you’d write the content that would help the specific audience looking for the very same information and insights. Moreover, if you don’t choose the right platform to launch your blog, nothing else would matter because all of your efforts could go in vain.

I’m supposing you’ve taken care of first three steps and you’re just meeting your audience now, meaning, your target audience has started coming to your blog through search engines and social media. It takes a while to reach that point, so don’t panic in the second week of your blogging if this isn’t happening. I’m talking about almost the second or third month of your blogging…(of course, if everything goes right)

Now the readers meet your content. What happens next?

  • Is your content helpful for them?
  • Are they liking it?
  • Are they leaving the comments?
  • Are they subscribing to your blog?

The long story short, you have to change their lives with your content. Now, you must know that what the ingredients of making such a life-changing content would be. Here we go:

  • Storytelling – The stories will attract the people to come over and check out the content.
  • Case Studies – The case studies always help the readers in understanding the phenomenon behind the reasoning.
  • Examples – We all know since 5th grade that examples are necessary to help convey the message.
  • Personal experiences – This is something that adds a personal taste. Nothing is better than sharing the first-hand experience. So, consider adding a relatable experience that you could possibly share.

When you create the content that really helps the audience. It builds a connection between you and your readers because you deliver value to them and it helps them get through. They subscribe and become the regular readers, which leads them to be loyal to your blog and your voice. It doesn’t happen so quickly. It takes years and years to build that trust and connection. Your consistency of creating content and commitment to keep helping the audience would make it happen. At some point, you start to realize that your voice is being heard. Your subscribers wait for your signal to take a certain action. In fact, it adds more responsibility to your job because a single bad decision could spoil things, however, the loyalty factor does help you to get through because you probably helped the subscribers hundreds of times in the past. But you have to be very careful with this thing.

Where does the money come from?

You might be thinking where is money in the whole procedure.

Well, the money comes after the step#4.

There are lots of ways to make money on the internet.

A money making blog doesn’t rely on a single income stream. If you’re thinking I would end up saying that find the relevant products and start affiliate marketing, then you’re wrong. I don’t want to tie you with a single monetization strategy.

In fact, you should try different ones.

Don’t start with a PPC program like Google Adsense. This is something almost every new starter does. The reason I’m saying ‘NO’ to this is because you wouldn’t have much blog traffic to take advantage off of a PPC program. Instead, try an affiliate program first.

Let me dig in a little bit more into this.

You don’t have to try a couple of things in affiliate marketing. Because it’s not how it works. You may have to try a dozen things before finding the right product to promote.

One of the biggest success factors in affiliate marketing is USE IT FIRST.

When you use the product rather than promoting directly, you get the proof that it works. Don’t promote the product if it doesn’t worth it. No one ever succeeded in affiliate marketing without using the product.

Remember the ingredients of a life changing content?

One of them was a personal experience.

best optin plugin for WordPress

See, I’ve been using List Fusion optin plugin for more than a year now and I found it extremely helpful.

After trying the affiliate marketing, you can add up another income stream.

Try to sell a service that you’re passionate about.

Have you ever seen a little ‘HIRE ME’ CTA on the blogs?

Bloggers use their blogs to sell their services.

In fact, you can sell the products as well. Use e-junkie or payloadz for selling online products.

(I made a mistake. I started off with Google Adsense, then shifted to Affiliate Marketing. I should have started with the Affiliate Marketing. I was naïve. I didn’t know anything, so I made a lot of mistakes in my blogging)

A money making blog doesn’t always depend on Google Adsense and Affiliate Marketing. You can master the skills to offer something that hasn’t been offered yet. If you have a strong connection with your audience, they will come forward to buy the products from you. Whether it’s a webinar training or e-books.

Look at the Problogger E-books section. They’ve developed multiple income streams and e-books is one of them.

Similarly, SmartBlogger is popular when it comes to selling their courses and certifications.

The point is simple. A money making blog doesn’t get shaped up in two months. Problogger became what it is today after almost a decade.

Besides that, you don’t have to be overwhelmed with some bloggers who keep on sharing their payments screenshots on Facebook.

They all were at the same spot as you’re now.

They were thinking to start a blog. They were finding the ways to make money off of their blogs.

Why are they successful?

Any idea?

Let me tell you!

Because they never stopped trying. They kept the journey going. They were never stopped by the hurdles. They never stopped learning. They never stopped believing. They didn’t quit. And, now they’re successful.

So, a money-making blog isn’t a formula, it’s rather a pathway that you have to follow and reach down the road. You don’t have to skip past to the end, instead, you have to live that experience.

Now, tell me something.

Do you want to start a money-making blog?

Disclaimer: This blog post has a few affiliate links. It means I could make a little money if you buy those products and it doesn’t cost you extra money. 

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13 Comments

  1. Hey Hassaan,

    Good job with the article. I’m certainly one of those friends who discuss blogging matters with you and, no doubt, that you’re always helpful. I’d like to add that I’ve written a detailed (4500+ words) article on choosing blog niche/topic. I’ve put all my research in there.
    I’m definitely going to link to this blog post somewhere down the line. This one is great! Cheers

    1. Ilyas,

      Thank you so much for reading this and letting me know that you enjoyed the post. I’m glad you wrote about that too. I’ll definitely check it out and link to your post because choosing a niche is one of the most important steps to make.

      Thanks, again!

  2. @Hassaan, This is my first time visit on your blog.

    The knowledge you sharing through your post is good and worth reading. I really enjoyed your vivid post.

    Thanks for the great share. I will definitely coming back!

    1. Nikhil,
      Thanks for checking this out. I’m glad you enjoyed the post. You used the word ‘vivid’ for the post which makes me so happy because I try to clarify the message as much as I can.

      Thank you so much for your comment. I’m looking forward to reading your blog.

      THANKS, again!

  3. Although we are friends for years, but I’m visiting your blog for the first time and it honestly feels so good. 🙂

    Hassaan, you really are doing a fabulous job by speaking about blogging and how it can change ones life. And, to be honest, I’m gonna bookmark your blog from now, so that i can get my eyes on some crispy articles to improve my knowledge. 🙂

    Cheers.
    Hassaan Naeem

    1. Hassaan, thank you so much, man. I appreciate you’ve given your time to this. We, kind of, have a responsibility on our shoulders to speak about blogging and help people understand it.

      I’d be more than happy if you subscribe to my blog and come back soon.

      THANK YOU SO MUCH!

  4. Very nice written (as usual)
    I loved this post because you have described all those necessary steps which are essential for starting a blog. And you have described the second step in depth which will help the beginners to find their niche easily. It took me about two years to find it, and I am sure if a beginner read your article he/she can find this in just a few days.

    Whatever it was a great article.

    And thanks for the update on Facebook.

    1. Fahad,
      Thank you for reading this. Speaking of niche selection, it’s good to know what you want to do and once you come to know about it, your blogging career gets onto a better track.

      Thank you for stopping by and leaving your comment.

  5. Hello, Hassan!

    A very informative blog you got there!

    I have one question: Why not start with AdSense and Affiliate together? IS there any harm in integrating AdSense in your blog while you focus on Affiliate?

    1. Hello!
      Thank you so much for reading my blog post.

      Great question.

      Actually, when you use Adsense, you need a high amount of traffic with a lot of other things (that make your blog compliance with Adsense and yet optimized for clickability).

      Whereas, in affiliate marketing, you don’t need a bulk traffic to make things work. All you need is quality traffic that is your target audience. Although, it happens when you create your content strategy that way.

      For example, if your blog is about people who need to start a blog, you could develop a content strategy regarding a sub-niche called “New Bloggers Who Want to Buy a Web Hosting Account”, that way, you’ll cut off a lot of distractions and specifically target an audience who is starting out.

      Affiliate Marketing success comes with a better conversion rate and the good conversion rate is only possible if you’re good at targeting the right audience.

      I hope this will help you!

  6. Hello Brother,
    I went through your blog, its informative. But one question did you ever apply for adsense and got reply for disapproval because of insufficient content?
    As, i am running a YouTube Channel “Damin Studio” . I saw your Vlogs Channel its good to see some one take initiate. If you Believe me I recorded my first vlog two months before but didn’t upload as yet.

    1. Hello, bro!
      Thanks for the comment. If your application got rejected because of the insufficient content, then it means they didn’t like your content. Try adding quality, in-depth content for the next two months, then get back to them.

  7. I just want to commend you for sharing such an informative content about making money with blogging. It’s really important to specify or define the purpose for blogging as this will definitely help a lot in working perfectly for bottom-line profits.

    The pathway to a successful blogging business should focus on the use of paid services such as domain registration, web hosting, WordPress themes and lots more. Using these will ensure that you build trust and credibility in the minds of your target audience. It also speeds the ranking speed of your site as well.

    As it’s required for success, learning while blogging is a continuous process and that must be kept in mind while progressing in the business. You will eventually succeed in turning your passion into a thriving online business soonest.

    Posting regularly coupled with site engagement will further help and maximize your ranking potential. Some bloggers do complain that they are not converting as expected. Failure to blog regularly might be responsible for this.

    Cheers,
    Israel Olatunji!

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