How do you earn from your own blog? From choosing a niche to monetisation

Running a blog seems simple when it is a hobby. If you want more and plan to earn from your blog, the matter has to be approached more seriously and thoroughly. In this article we will cover:

• How and on which platform do you launch a blog?

• Which subject should you choose? 

• What does it take for a blog to succeed?

• How do you earn from a blog? Which models of monetisation exist? 

Knowing the answers to all these questions, you will be able to launch a resource of your own and turn it into a profitable business. 

Why do people start blogs at all? 

To understand how to get value out of a blog, let us work out why people run them. There are several possibilities: 

• To share opinions, to write about a hobby and about life (the most common and least commercial option).

• To teach something (that is already a chance to earn). 

• To sell or advertise something — goods or services. 

Combinations of all of the above are common too. 

Where do you start if you want to become a blogger? 

To turn a blog into a business project, draw up a detailed plan for running and promoting it. The plan has to answer several questions: 

• How will you monetise the future site? 

• Which audience is the resource aimed at?

• Which platform will the blog run on?

• Which subjects do you plan to cover and how often will you publish updates? 

Ways of monetising a blog

Blog articles are called informational content. But if you think about it, the goal of blogs is to sell. By publishing useful content we overcome the resistance to plain head-on selling and earn permission to advertise and to sell. There are several ways of monetising a blog. The main ones: 

• selling services (writing texts, business consulting, education);

• selling a book (here the blog is needed to build expertise and popularise the book);

• becoming a company's partner and earning commission on every sale of goods and services (Host4Biz, for instance, has an affiliate programme , and by launching a blog on IT and internet marketing you will be able to earn by promoting our services);

• reviews of partners' products (one such publication can cost a great deal and bring hundreds, if not thousands, of buyers who become regulars and can make a product hugely popular);

• building a personal brand through the blog and receiving orders for services from its regular readers (a long and difficult route, but the profit can be very high too). 

How much can you earn from a blog? 

The decision whether to launch a blog depends on how much and how quickly you can earn from it. When a blog becomes profitable depends on the right strategy, the niche chosen and other factors. A blog's revenue is a little easier to forecast. 

• If a blog gets fewer than 500 visitors a day, it will bring in roughly 30 to 70 USD of income a month. Incidentally, we strongly advise against publishing a lot of advertising in young blogs. It scares the audience away — use Google AdSense carefully. 

• Bring the traffic up to 1,000–2,000 people a day and the monthly income can already be 300 to 600 USD. It all depends on the price of the advertising and on which affiliate programmes you use. When a blog reaches that level it becomes interesting to direct advertisers. 

• Blogs with more than 2,000 visitors can bring you 1,500 USD a month and more. In such cases a blog can become a very serious business and, quite likely, you will want to launch several similar projects. 

Affiliate programmes 

Depending on your blog's subject, you can connect it to various affiliate programmes: 

• A travel blog suits Booking, Admitad and others.

• A blog on finance can earn by working with banks or with the Payoneer service. 

• Resources about interior design can work with online shops, which also have affiliate programmes. 

Choose a niche and find your angle 

There is an enormous amount of content on the internet. That means standing out and catching attention will not be easy. But there is a solution. You can choose one of several options: 

• create content unique in form and substance (articles about the newest software with infographics, articles about unusual travel locations, unconventional recipes with original video);

• find a specific audience. 

Examples of unconventional decisions: 

• a blog about a city and life in it (it could be a small town in the USA, Italy or Spain);

• a site with recipes for vegans (do not be afraid to narrow the audience);

• try writing in a particular style (with sarcasm, in youth slang and so on);

• write about what you know very well (healthy eating, marketing, the psychology of relationships, books).

Where should you run a blog? 

There are many free and nominally free blogging platforms. But it is easy to get lost on them. The best option for building a personal brand and promoting a business is to launch the blog on your own site. 

For that you need to: 

• choose hosting;

• buy a domain name;

• think through the content plan and the sections of your blog (they will form the basis of the site's structure);

• commission the site or build it yourself. 

You can choose different engines for a site, but such resources are most often built on WordPress. 

The name of the resource 

Remember that a good name is one of the important factors of success. So the name is worth thinking about carefully. It often becomes the basis of the site's domain name too. When choosing a name, follow several rules: 

• it has to read easily both in the original and in transliteration;

• the name should point to the blog's subject;

• it has to be unique. 

A blog's name can also be connected with the name of your company.

Promoting a blog: search traffic and social media 

When running a blog, always keep the SEO factor in mind. That does not mean stuffing every article with keywords. Take a different route. 

• To draw up a content plan, use Google's keyword planner, Serpstat or other services. 

• Pick out the highest-volume queries in your subject. They will suggest the subjects of sections or of individual publications. 

• Sort the queries and find the ones related to them. For example, the query "hosting" can become the main one for the section of an IT blog, while "hosting for WordPress sites" becomes the subject of one publication in that section.  

• Having chosen the subjects for publications by query, analyse the top 10 results. See how competitors treat the subject. Combine their solutions. On the basis of that analysis draw up a plan of the article — what must be mentioned so that the piece covers the subject fully and the information is current. Low-volume keywords can also suggest what to write to make the article more complete. To use that valuable resource, pay attention to Google's search suggestions. 

As a result your content will only gain and the user will be satisfied. Remember that keywords can be used in more than their exact form. 

Activity on social media 

Let us name the main mistake connected with SMM straight away. Do not try to cover every social network. You will most likely lack the time, the energy and the skills. Concentrate on two or three main ones. 

Most often these are: 

• Facebook;

• YouTube;

• Instagram. 

If you write about construction and design, Pinterest can be a valuable source of traffic. It is especially effective when promoting a blog in English-speaking countries. 

When posting, bear in mind that links to blog publications are best placed in roughly every third post. 

Be sure to use analytics 

A business does not work blind. So be sure to use the possibilities analytics tools give you. Connect Google Analytics to the site and track the figures. 

The Similarweb service will be useful too. Even in its free version it gives a lot of valuable information about traffic sources and visits. If you find extra funds and spend them on paid tools for analytics and content creation, the return will be greater still. 

Which types of content should you use? 

So what should you publish in a blog? Several types can be picked out: 

• Articles on subjects that will not go out of date (evergreen content). An example of such a publication is an article about where to go on holiday with children. 

• Publications on trending subjects — in every field there are events people talk about a great deal. It might be the launch of a new car, a new service or the opening of a hotel. Track such things through Google Trends and write about them. 

• Collections of useful advice and useful links. 

• Reviews, interviews and long reads on subjects that matter to the audience. 

• Various kinds of interactive and visual content. 

Conclusions 

A successful blog can become a successful business. To achieve that, it is important to choose the blog's niche correctly and to create interesting, informative content. Stick to the strategy strictly and within a few months you will be able to start earning from the blog. 

When the traffic grows, you will need reliable hosting or even a virtual server. Host4Biz will provide it. 

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