If you’re in business or you’re a budding entrepreneur, you’ve likely already realized the utility in blogging. Bloggers from around the world have built massive and sizable audiences that have garnered 6, 7 and 8-figure incomes, while also providing an amplification of voice in virtually every niche. You’ve likely already heard some of those stories before but you’re wondering what blogging really is and how you might be able to leverage it to make money online today.
Well, before I dive into the specifics of how bloggers like me earn an income, I wanted to explain a bit about what blogging actually is and what it isn’t. The truth is that many people are drawn into the allure of blogging. They’re potentially looking to get rich quickly (or relatively quickly), possibly leave their 9-to-5 job, or simply create a side hustle business that they can slowly grow over time.
Can blogging make you rich? Sure, it can definitely make you rich. Take the example of Gerard Adams who started Elite Daily and grew its audience over 3 years, selling it for a nice profit of $50 million. Did he get rich? Of course. Is it highly likely that you’ll get rich by blogging? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make a lot of money. There’s a difference between making lots of money online and getting filthy rich. Obviously.
But at the end of the day, if you’re hell-bent on starting a blog and you’re looking for a blueprint or a walkthrough, then you’ve definitely come to the right place. I’ve written extensively on this topic and even have a number of courses that can help you along the way. Just understand that blogging isn’t just about writing creatively on a weekly basis. You also have to understand the mechanics of online marketing and just how you can generate an income from your blog.
It isn’t simple. But it is well worth it. Blogging can afford you a location-independent lifestyle and allow you to travel the world freely as a digital nomad, living from country to country. Or simply put, you can live right at home where you are and quit your day job. Just don’t expect that to happen overnight. But with a properly executed plan, and the right support, you can expect an increase in the chances of it actually happening.
As you already know, nothing in life is guaranteed. If you don’t put in the work and the effort, you can’t expect to gain the results. It’s easy to put off for tomorrow what you should be doing today. But with blogging, you can’t do that. You have to put in the time and the energy to learn and grow your platform, nurture your audience, and eventually create a digital destination that’s going to give you the freedoms that you’ve been looking for your entire life.
What’s A Blog And How Do You Start One?
As real-world magazines fade away, we’re left with their digital counterparts. In fact, blogs are the future. They’re also the present. People are no longer turning to printed publications for their news and entertainment. They’re searching the web and checking their favorite blogs. So, what’s a blog at the end of the day? Simply this. A blog is an online destination for topical news, events and information in a particular niche.
Clearly, you’ll find blogs in all types of niches. Literally. As opposed to newspapers and other national publications that focus on global news and events, blogs are oftentimes very topical. Some blogs can veer off topic from time to time, but at the end of the day, most of them stay topical because that’s what readers expect when visiting a blog. They’re looking for news, information, events or entertainment in a particular niche. That’s it.
Now, if you’re looking to start a blog, I’d suggest that you read this post. I’ve gone into detail about the exact steps you need to take to launch a blog. You can also check out my course here, that’ll teach you the steps I took to build a 7-figure blog. Sure, it all sounds very appealing, but keep in mind that you’re going to have to work at this to achieve your dreams. And we all know how easy it is to get sidetracked, right?
That’s why having someone in your corner, like a blogging coach, is pretty useful. Not only do you need to understand the basic mechanics of blogging, but you also need to understand the basics of things like search engine optimization and how to best position your blog to make money online. It isn’t simple to figure it all out on your own. If you’re serious about it, find a good course or a coach that you can join.
Why Is Blogging So Popular?
If you know anything about SEO, then you’ll know that there’s a mild obsession these days with content. Search engines like Google are constantly on the lookout for great content because it adds value to the web. And for the blogs that add the most value, relevancy is the end result. When you’re deemed relevant, you appear in organic search, thus bringing you the ability to generate more leads and sales organically, for free.
When you blog about a particular topic or niche, and you do so consistently, you’re adding to a foundational layer of content that breeds relevancy. The more relevant you are, the higher you appear in a variety of search results. Now, there’s more to that equation, but the reason why blogging has become so popular isn’t just for the fact that you can make a lot of money doing it, but also because it’s an effective way to help build up that relevancy.
Relevancy doesn’t just get you to the top of search engines. It also helps you establish authority. When you’re an authority, you can command a big audience, giving you leverage and the ability to earn money more freely by promoting to an existing base of subscribers through a list.
How To Make Money Blogging
Blogs can be used in a variety of ways to make money. However, certain strategies work far better than others. For example, most people think that blogs can generate a lot of income from ads. While that’s true if a blog has tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of visitors per day, without that kind of traffic, you’ll struggle to make any real money through PPC ad networks like Google’s Adsense.
In fact, when you have that kind of traffic, you’ll likely attract big-brand sponsors that will pay you a lot of money to help promote whatever it is that they’re peddling. However, most people do start with the PPC networks. I know I did. But the income generated is relatively small for the detraction it takes from the user’s experience. The reason why you don’t see ads on a lot of popular blogs is because they often sell other things.
What are those other things? Well, for starters, information products are huge. Things like ebooks, digital courses and other tutorial-based membership areas and even paywalls help to bring in the big bucks. But it’s easy to make mistakes when you’re setting this up. If you don’t keep your paid content topical, then you’re largely wasting your time and taking away from a high-end user experience. Keep anything you sell topical to the content of your blog.
However, if you’re serious about making real money from your blog, you need to build a sales funnel. If you have no idea what a sales funnel is, then it’s time to learn. Sales funnels can be used in all types of businesses. They are ideal for selling just about anything online and they offer sales automation that will help you create passive income, literally allowing you to make money while you sleep.
A sales funnel is going to include a lead magnet, which can come in the form of an ebook, a checklist, cheatsheet, trial software download, and so on. It’s also going to include things like an email warming sequence, a one-time offer, up-sells, down-sells, a trip wire, a sales page, and so on. It can get rather complex. Yes. But having a sales funnel built into your blog is the best way to sell digital information products, high-ticket coaching, ecommerce products (with free-plus-shipping offers), and so on.
If you have no idea where to start with building a sales funnel, then be sure to checkout ClickFunnels, which is by far one of the best sales funnel automation softwares out there. Today, I build nearly all my sales funnels with it. And, although I’m an affiliate for ClickFunnels, I can confidently and wholeheartedly recommend that platform to anyone. Use it to build your funnels to pitch webinars, ecommerce products, high-ticket coaching, and everything else you can imagine selling on a blog.
How To Start Your Blog
Clearly, you understand what blogging is. But if you’re ready to start your blog, I would highly suggest you reading this post here, which will walk you through what it takes to get things off the ground. You should also read this post, which will show you how you can uncover a profitable niche. Because, let’s face it, if you’re serious about making money by blogging, then you need to first pick a niche that will bring you substantial profits.
High profit niches are in-demand and effectively labeled as hot markets. They’re located amidst three industries that provide the quickest source to income generation. You can read about those industries within that particular article. So don’t attempt to start your blog without first identifying the right niche that will bring you substantial profits. Now, if you really are serious about building out a 6 or 7-figure blog, then I’d highly suggest checking out my course here.