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How to Make Money Blogging in 10 Easy Steps

The ultimate guide to turn your blog into a business

Admin Nas Academy

16 Sep · 9 mins read

Many people wonder: Can you actually make money blogging? Are blogs even relevant nowadays?

And we’re here to tell you that yes, you absolutely can – and they absolutely are. 

While you may think blogging is dead or purely meant for hobbyists, it’s actually a very effective side-hustle for many people; and for some, it’s even a full-time career. But while it may not be the easiest career to make millions in (as with most creative jobs), it doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

Statistics show that 409 million people read over 20 billion pages of blogs on a monthly basis. And many marketers will agree that blogging is an extremely effective way of getting eyes on your business or to promote your work. After all, according to Semrush, blogs account for one-third of web pages on the internet.

How Do Bloggers Make Money?

People who dedicate their careers to blogging make money through various revenue streams. It normally takes a while for bloggers to build up enough of a following and enough site traffic to generate much income – but site traffic alone isn’t enough.

Getting high volumes of site visitors does have the opportunity to generate a decent amount of revenue from ads that you can set up on your site through Google Adsense, or any other ad network available. But it’s not everything – this is only one of the many passive income streams that can get you money as a blogger.

The largest contributor to your revenue and steady income as a blogger, will most likely be affiliates, brand deals, or sales of products and services. According to Semrush, bloggers who earn between $7,500–$25,000 per month, actually earn 42% of that income through affiliate marketing alone.

How Much Can You Make Blogging?

There’s clearly big money to be made in the blogging world – with the average blogging income being $8,000 a month. But your income as a blogger will vary depending on many factors.

When it comes to ad revenue, it’s estimated that bloggers in 2021 can make anywhere from $0.01–$0.10 per page view. With 1,000 monthly views on your article, you could be making anywhere from $10–$100 a month. 

Laptop Blog Post Editing

And this means, as time goes on, if you can get your average page views up to 10,000 a day, you could be earning up to $10,000 in monthly income from ads. 

Pretty good, right? 

Tips to Make Money While Blogging

We’ve got 10 blogging tips and steps you can take to start monetizing your blog, starting today, and finally begin your dream of making money as a writer.

1. Set Your Goals

When it comes to blogging, knowing the story you’re writing about, inside and out, is the single most important thing you can do as a content creator – but you can’t tell a good story if you don’t know why you’re telling it. 

So, start by laying out your goals, your mission, and what you hope to achieve financially as well as internally from your blog. Try asking yourself some simple questions:

  • • What is my mission as a blogger?
  • • What do I want to provide for others?
  • • What are some realistic goals for me and my schedule?
  • • Why am I doing this, and where do I want to be in X months or years?
  • • Do I want to try doing this as a full-time job?
  • • Is this just a side-hustle?

Are you starting your blog to make a difference? Are you doing it because you hate the job you have now? Not only will this help you tell a more powerful story, but it will keep you motivated and engaged to see this through (despite the inevitable set-backs you will encounter).

2. Identify Your Niche

Once you have your “why” behind beginning a blog, you can now move onto your what. What blogging niche will help you accomplish these goals that you have laid out? 

Beginner bloggers will often just write about anything they’re interested in – but unfortunately, passion alone isn’t going to generate income. If you really want to make money blogging,  narrow your focus and target a specific area of interest. When finding your niche, look for something that you are passionate about, that has an equally large market demand, and opportunities for success.

Here’s a list of the highest earning niches in 2021:

Infographic - niches

People seek value from blogs, and niching down to create solid, focused content will help you show readers that you have value and expertise to share. This is the way to get people to invest in youand make you money. And while passion is key for your own sustainability in creating, it’s also recommended by successful bloggers to find a niche that targets a market with the actual resources to invest.

With this in mind, you might want to try choosing a B2B (business-to-business) approach, which means your content and niche targets other businesses instead of individuals. For example, you might try targeting your blog towards other bloggers or creators who will use your services, advice, and products to invest back into their own businesses – rather than targeting college students who might not have much money to spend. 

3. Set Up Your Blog

Hosting & Domains

If you want to make money blogging, you have to set up your blog properly – and the first step is picking the right website host. While there are many website hosting options, for bloggers looking to monetize, WordPress is most often recommended over the rest.

Here’s a simple guide to help you start building your website with WordPress. 

Once you pick your host, you have to pick your blog and domain name. Your domain name is your webpage address that people will find when they search for you on Google. Make your domain the same as the title of your blog, and the title of your blog should ultimately reflect the content you create. This will ensure a consistent experience for your viewers, making it easy for people to discover you and bring traffic to your site.

When using WordPress, your domain and hosting is purchased through separate sites like Bluehost or GoDaddy. On their own, domains are pretty cheap – ranging from about $10–15 a year. 

Site Design

When you’re setting up your blog, it’s equally as important to consider designs and layout. Think about building your site from a storytelling perspective – everything about your blog, written or visual, is contributing to the overall narrative that you are conveying to your readers.

And this narrative is going to let readers decide whether or not they want to engage with you. In order to show consistency and expertise, you have to organize your site in a way that makes sense and won’t annoy readers.

Make headlines catchy, use footers and sidebars to your advantage, and prompt people to engage further with your content and offers. Always provide a call-to-action (CTA) in your posts and allow people the opportunity to further engage with you either on the blog, through a shop, email list, social media, or elsewhere.

4. Write Quality Content 

When you’re just starting to create content, it’s recommended to focus on quantity over quality. It helps you practice getting into a routine, as being a money-making blogger requires consistency and dedication – and that doesn’t always come easily.

But the secret around how to start a blog and make money is being able to deliver value on a consistent basis to your readers. You have to build authority in order to get brand deals and get sales to generate revenue, and building authority means creating quality content. In fact, bloggers earning $50,000+ per year say that this is the most important factor in their content strategies. 

Some elements to create quality content include:

  • • Making your posts easy to skim with short paragraphs and broken down sections
  • • Create relevant, SEO optimized headlines that containing words often searched for in relation to your topic (keywords)
  • • Come at your content from a unique perspective
  • • Make longer, in-depth posts about your topics

A study done by Growth Badger showed through interviewing over 1,100 different bloggers, that those “who earn over $50,000 per year say their most popular blog posts are 2,424 words long on average: 83% longer than those from lower-income bloggers.”

Other digital marketers, like Eric Engem, have also noted the importance of longer, in-depth content when it comes to ranking on Google.

“We tracked the SEO performance of a number of different sites. The sites that provided exceptional depth in quality content coverage literally soared in rankings throughout the year. Sites that were weaker in their content depth suffered in comparison.” 

If you want to know how to make a blog that will earn you money, take a look at the competition and what posts tend to do best – then, use them as reference. Growth Badger’s study also demonstrated that the type of content that was most created over a 12-month period by high-earning bloggers ($50,000/year) were list-based posts.

Bloggers Content Styles - Post Types

While post style and length is important, your story and storytelling techniques are equally as (if not more) crucial for generating an income. Providing value and creating interest will prompt people to follow and invest in you – because you have shown them you are also there to tell a story and help them.

5. Set Up Ads

When you have great content that will generate traffic, then it’s important to start setting up some passive income streams on your blog to generate revenue. Passive income is money made through work that you put in one time, and that continues to generate income without much intervention afterwards. An example of this is selling your own ebook on Amazon. It continues to generate income on it’s own, as long as you continue to stay relevant to people on your platform. But the bulk of the work was only done once, when you wrote it.

So, bloggers often generate passive income, first, by using ad services like Google Adsense or other ad networks. Google Adsense, specifically, will pay you as a blogger to display relevant ads on your articles, and you will earn money according to the type of ad, and the amount of clicks and impressions that ad receives. You can see Google Adsense in action through the screenshot below of an article from thebalancesmb.com.

Small Business Screenshot

However, with ads, it’s important to be conscious of how many are being displayed on your site as this can slow it down, and annoy users to the point of not wanting to return – costing you possible income. So while it can be an effective way of generating revenue, it also has its faults.

6. Affiliates and Sponsorships

Affiliate marketing and sponsored posts are another great way to make money blogging. Although, this usually comes later – once you have built up enough of a presence online. Being an affiliate means you have partnered up with a company, and you are linking to their products or services in your posts. Then, every time somebody clicks on that link and makes a purchase, you earn a commission fee.

Once you really gain recognition, working with brands to do sponsored posts is another large source of income for bloggers (whether it be on your blog or through your social accounts). Depending on the brand and your scale as a creator, it’s possible for large creators to use sponsorships to bring in thousands, if not millions, of dollars like we’ve seen with other popular internet creators such as Casey Neistat.

7. Create a Product or Sell a Service

While ads and pairing up with brands are great ways to generate income, turning your readers into your own customers can make you even more money as a blogger. And that means creating real products or providing services readers can pay for. You could approach this in many ways:

  • • Ebooks
  • • Printable Templates
  • • Guides
  • • Worksheets
  • • Pre-made themes, designs or other specialized, downloadable packages 
  • • Selling branded merchandise on your website, or through Etsy
  • • Consulting or coaching services
  • • Selling other freelance services that fit your niche
  • • Teaching online courses (on-demand or live)

Whatever your industry, try and find some kind of value you can sell and promote through your blog posts. Furthermore, diversify yourself through different social platforms and mediums, and allow your blog to be a promotional platform to bring traffic to those areas and generate even more income.

The best thing about creating and selling products and services through your blog, is it shows that you have authority and that you are committed. By building your presence in this way, and investing in your blog as if it’s a business, is what’s going to help you continue to earn more and more income over time. It will prompt people and brands to get more involved with you, and your name will become more relevant in your industry.

Woman announcement

Note: make sure to request testimonials and reviews once you develop a product or service. Showcase them on the front page of your website to further increase your authority and boost incentive for newcomers who stumble across your blog.

8. Create a Sales Funnel

While you might have a great product to sell, it’s effectiveness in making you money depends on whether or not you tell your story well enough to convince people to buy it. 

The way you structure your posts and your marketing strategy is what is going to help you build expertise and convince people that you are worth their time or money. And an effective way of doing this is by creating what’s called a sales funnel. 

A sale’s funnel is how you approach turning your viewers into customers through a step-by-step process; it’s how you draw them in using storytelling, and carry them through a series of steps to make a purchase.

Adam Enfroy, a successful internet blogger, claims there’s a 4-step process on creating effective sales funnels for your blog:

Step 1. Get people’s interest and turn them into leads

Write quality content that urges customers to want more – and with this content, always slip in that you create monetizable products or services as well, to show people what you can do and what you have to offer.

Step 2. Give your leads a free resource

Give them a freebie that they can get by simply signing up for your email list. This will allow them an opportunity to test your products and also keep up to date with what you’re creating.

Step 3. Your emails and freebies will tell a story and prompt further engagement

Oftentimes, creators will continue to provide free content through these newsletters to keep people subscribed, and then promote an extension of those free elements that users can purchase. Part of good storytelling in your sales funnel is always adding a CTA to guide customers to a sale. 

Step 4. Your lead finally invests in you, and become your customer

A sales funnel is a process that is crucial to help you make money as a blogger. To get started, set up your email list and plan out a newsletter to keep your audience engaged. There are plenty of different email marketing softwares you can choose from to add to your blog, but finding which one is best for you, will depend on your site software, budget, and overall goals.

9. Stay Consistent

Consistency matters greatly if you want to make money blogging. It demonstrates integrity, authority, loyalty, and is also very important to get your content ranking on Google. 

In fact, consistency is one of the 6 basic principles of persuasion, outlined by author and Professor, Dr. Robert Cialdini – and it’s one of the most important blogging tips that help you make money. So, when blogging, remember to stay consistent in your: 

  • • Domain name and your social media names
  • • Posting schedules
  • • Quality and brand voice of your content
  • • What stories and messaging you share

By staying consistent, people will recognize you across platforms, they will build an emotional connection and sense of familiarity with your brand. And all of these things are crucial when trying to generate sales and income from your blog.

10. Share YOUR Story

As important as it is to have effective storytelling in your blog posts, it’s just as important to tell your own story effectively with the rest of the world. Use social media to your advantage and cross-promote your blog and your work, using these platforms as marketing tools will drive traffic to your blog and help you successfully grow your site, and make money as a blogger.

Girl on laptop with a graphic

After all, studies have shown that there are higher income prospects linked to high marketing focus when it comes to blogging. Those who focus largely on SEO, keyword research, and properly promoting their brand (along with their content quality) will have the most success in monetizing their blogs.

And while you might feel insecure about telling the world that you have a blog or that you’re creating content, most people will actually admire you for following your passion and doing what you love.

So if you find yourself drowning in anxiety and self doubt, think about how you feel when you see a loved one completely in their element, committed, and doing what they feel they were meant to do.

It’s heartwarming and most of all: it’s inspiring. 

So, tell people – because you’ll inspire so many in ways you never thought possible simply by doing what you are passionate about, and sharing your story with the world.

Learn from Nuseir Yassin On How To Tell Your Own Story 

Nuseir Yassin Course CardCheck out Nuseir’s Yassin’s “Art Of Storytelling’”course and learn how you can become the best storyteller in your industry.

In this course, Nuseir will share his trade secrets with you on how to tell your stories effectively, and grow your brand as a creator.

Or, if you’re already a pro and ready to start your own Academy, there’s never been a better time than today. Sign up in just a few simple steps, and we’ll help you become an educator.

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Lean how to tell YOUR story!

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