Blogs have become very, very popular in recent times and that popularity continues to grow by the day. Many blogs are run solely as a social outlet to share views, interests, information, etc. with friends and anyone else who wants to read. The vast majority of bloggers are not particularly interested in using their blogs as a means of generating income but some people have taken advantage of what is a great profitable opportunity.
However, if you are considering the latter option, simply sitting in front of your computer and typing will not generate the money you are looking for. So how can you turn your blogging into a viable business? There are a number of ways in which this can be accomplished. Here are some tips to get you started and hopefully help you turn your hobby into a profitable career.
First of all, obviously, if you don’t already have a blog, you should create one. Two of the most popular platforms these days seem to be ‘WordPress’ and Google’s ‘Blogger’. One big advantage of blogging sites is that they are usually free to set up and use. These are very easy to set up and there are plenty of how-to videos on You Tube to help you with this.
Second, you need to decide how you are going to generate income streams from your blog. There are several ways to do just that. The most popular way is to place ads on your blog site. There are several internet based companies that will place ads on your site for you. You will then receive a financial reward every time someone clicks on one of these ads. Google AdSense is one of the most used. An alternative is to sell a product or service from your website and use your blog to attract customers. Sort of a combination of these two strategies would be to advertise someone else’s product on your site and then get some sort of commission from that person. Whichever method you decide to monetize your blog, you need a plan, a strategy to follow consistently to maximize your profits. Once you have your blog and strategy in place, it will be your path to a blogging career.
The third and most important step is to drive traffic to your site. Once your blog is set up, it will only be effective as a source of income if people visit it. Internet marketing, to a large extent, is a numbers game. The more traffic you can drive to your website, the more people will read your blogs and other content. According to the law of averages, more visitors equals more sales and/or ad clicks. So how are you going to drive that traffic to your blog site? In this the use of keywords is important. There was a time when keywords were almost the only criteria. That is no longer the case. Search engines now respond to activity (ie new serials, backlinks, etc.). You need high-quality content on your site to drive search engine traffic to your blog.
Blogging is an enjoyable hobby for many, but there is also the potential to build a profitable business if you are prepared to put in the time and effort to learn how.