5 Tips to Finally Get Your Blog Making Money

It seems everyone has a blog these days, and that is in no way a bad thing.  After all, you need one.  Whether it’s connected to your product or service business or your blog itself is your primary source of income, there isn’t anyone who can’t benefit from blogging.  For those who are trying to make a living blogging, there are a lot of things you can do to get your blog making money.  What we’re focusing on today aren’t sources of income, like affiliate programs or selling e-books.  Instead, we’re presenting steps you can take to make sure those sources pay off for you.  No matter what you’re doing to make money with your blog, these are five things you’d be wise to do to optimize those efforts:

1. Don’t quit. This is the first rule of success, and it’s the first rule for being successful with your blog.  If you browse the web looking for interesting blogs, you’ll be amazed at the number of decent blogs with good design and solid content with no posts for the past six months or more.  These are undoubtedly the blogs of people who had great intentions starting out and didn’t see results as quickly as they had hoped, so they quit.  Chances are, these bloggers had unrealistic expectations about how long it takes to see results from a blog.  Sure, there are sites out there telling you that it’s possible to make $100k a year starting next week, but the truth is it takes consistent, steady effort over a considerable period of time to really make a good living blogging.  So if you aren’t willing to put in the work, don’t start.  But if you are, then keep at it.  The last thing you want to do is quit just before you hit the tipping point and your blog really takes off!

2. Collaborate. Trying to be a “one-man show” isn’t always a good idea.  Chances are you’re really good at one or two things and not as good at others.  So rather than having a blog with outstanding design and lame content, or great content that no one ever sees because you don’t know how to market, why not team up with one or more other bloggers?  True, a collaborative effort means sharing the profits, but your profits will be many-fold greater if your blog is at its best.  So consider collaborating and make your blog – and your bank account – all it can be!

3. Don’t get all weird. Creativity is great, and sometimes out-of-the-box thinking is commendable.  But when it comes to optimizing your blog earnings, keep in mind what your readers are used to.  No one wants to have to learn a new way of weeding through your information.  For the most part, people want your logo in the top left, and your sidebar on the right, and when it comes to buying your product or supporting your sponsors, they want a smooth, easy, simple transaction.  So keep it simple and as close to normal as possible, and save the creativity for your content.  You’ll keep your readers happy and reap the rewards!

4. Market like it’s your job. When it comes to marketing, there’s no such thing as too much.  To monetize your blog, you need traffic, and you won’t get that traffic without marketing.  Utilize Twitter, Facebook, and other Social Media outlets, make sure your SEO is ship-shape, and spend as much as you can afford on PPC.  A word of advice first though: Educate yourself on these tools!  This is especially important for anything that’s costing you money.  Losing money on a failed PPC campaign can lead to wanting to do what point #1 above warns against!  Once you learn the right way to do it (and learn it fast so you don’t waste all your time learning and not doing), pretend marketing is your job.  Treat it like your living depends on it.  Because it does!

5. Begin! So many people say they want to start a blog and go on and on researching but never actually do it.  Whatever’s holding you back, get over it and start your blog.  If you’ve started but haven’t taken the steps to monetize, get off your butt and take those steps now.  The very worst that can happen is you “fail” and end up learning in the process.  Entrepreneurship, whether it’s a blog, a product or service site, or a brick and mortar business, is not without risk.  But the rewards are so fantastic that they far outweigh any perceived risk.  So in the words of Nike, “Just Do It!”