How to Make Money Blogging

Transcription

1 How to Make Money Blogging Step by Step Guide In this guide you'll be "taken by the hand" and shown step by step how you can start your very own blog & make money blogging. This guide has been written by 6-figure blogger Dale Rodgers (founder of Blog & Bank). Find Dale on Instagram Friend Dale on Facebook Follow Dale on Twitter

2 Freedom Through Blogging Time Freedom, Money Freedom & Location Freedom. Blogging is the new "big thing" and if you don't already have a blog then you're already getting left behind. As a blogger you're given the ability to not only write about your passion, but to make money from it too - and there's no ceiling on the amount of money that you can make. There are many bloggers than earn in excess of 5, and even 6 figures per month, every month. But on top of the money freedom that a blog can provide, the amazing thing about blogging is that it can provide you with both time freedom & location freedom too. You see when you write a blog post it doesn't disappear overnight, it stays around for people to read - and for all the time your blog post is attracting readers, you have the opportunity to make money. So an initial 1 or 2-hour effort of writing a blog post can pay dividends for years to come, and since you can work on your blog from wherever you can grab an internet connection it's fair to say that as a blogger you pretty much have total freedom. The bottom line is that blogging is awesome and I created Blog & Bank with the intention to help as many people as I possibly could to start their own blogs & learn how to make money by blogging. Learn better by watching? Join FREE here to access the step-by-step video training series.

3 What Will I Learn? I ve kept this guide super simple and broken everything down step-by-step to help brand new people learn how to build their own blog & how they can then make money by blogging. Here are just a few of the things you ll learn in this guide: How To Start Your Own Blog (the right way) How To Configure, Customize & Post On Your Blog What An List Is, Why You Need One & How To Build One How To Make Money Blogging, And How To Take Your Income To The Next Level How To Get a Truckload of Traffic To Your Blog My Blueprint For Building a Profitable Blog So if that sounds interesting to you, and you re ready to join the world of blogging then stick around & let me show you how. Step 1. How To Set Up Your Blog In order to set up a blog (the right way) there are 2 things you ll absolutely need a domain name & some web hosting. Now you might have heard that you can start a blog for free, and whilst that s true let me explain why you shouldn t do it If you blog using a free blog: You do not own the blog meaning it could be deleted/disabled at any time. You will most likely have limitations on what you can do with the blog (for example limited themes or plugins available). Most importantly whoever provided you with the blog will most likely put adverts on your it meaning they will be making the money from the blog, not you. I understand that can be tempting to go down the route of a free blog, because well ultimately it s free, but take it from me that it s a bad move & one that you ll no doubt only regret later on down the line. So if you want to do things the right way, then hosting the blog yourself is definitely the way to go. Hosting it yourself means that you can rest assured that it s 100% yours, so you ll have full control over it, you can do as you please with it & most importantly you will be able to make money from it.

4 Some people are put off hosting their own blog because they are led to believe that it s difficult to do, but take it from me it s not. In fact, I ll show that hosting your own blog is actually super easy, and can be done with just a couple of clicks. With the help of this guide you can have your blog live on the web in less than 10 minutes from now. Step 1.1) Getting Your Domain Name & Web Hosting Since we ve established that you re going to need a domain name & web hosting in order to get your blog set up, the next thing you ll need to do is actually go ahead & get them. A "domain name" is just techy-talk for the bit somebody types into their web browser to get to your blog. As an example, the domain name for the Blog & Bank website is BlogAndBank.com. The easiest thing to do is to get your domain & web hosting from the same place, this way they ll already be connected for you. If you were to purchase them from 2 different companies then you d have to manually point your domain name to your web hosting (to tell the web browser which website to load when somebody types it in) which can get a little bit confusing. In order to avoid that we ll just get them both from the same place & that way everything will already have been done for us meaning no technical stuff to mess around with. The company I recommend you get your domain & hosting from is a company called Bluehost.

5 Why I recommend Bluehost: They offer low-cost, fast web-hosting. You get a free domain when you get your hosting. Once you ve got your hosting with Bluehost you can install your blog very easily with their 1-click installer. Fast web hosting is very important because it helps your blog rank higher in search engines such as Google, Yahoo & Bing. The higher your website in ranks in search engines the more visitors you ll get, which ultimately means the more money you ll make. That s one of the main reasons I recommend Bluehost, because their web hosting is super-fast. So the first thing you ll need to do is click the big button above which will take you to the Bluehost website. Once at Bluehost hit the Get started now button & you ll be shown a choice of hosting plans

6 All you need to do from here is simply select the cheapest hosting plan, which is only around $3.95 per month. Now the important thing that you ll need to do next is select that you want to register a new domain.

7 Tip: Ideally you should stick with a ".com" or ".net" domain name as these are more widely recognized around the world - we advise only choosing a different extension if you either want to target a specific country (e.g. a.co.uk domain would better target the United Kingdom) or if you know what you're doing. Tips for picking your domain name: As mentioned above, try and stick with a.com or.net if possible they ll rank higher in search engines. Ideally your domain should be represent what the website s about. Try to keep it short, snappy & easy to remember. Avoid using hyphens in your domain name. If you get stuck for ideas, here s a website that will help you out: Dotomator Random Domain Name Generator. Once you ve decided on a domain name continue the signup process with Bluehost & create your web hosting account so that you can move onto the next step where I ll show you how to begin installing & setting up your blog. Step 1.2) Installing & Setting Up Your Blog After creating your web hosting account with Bluehost in the previous step, you should have received an containing details of how to log into your web hosting control panel. Go ahead & dig those details out, because the first thing you ll need to do is log yourself in. Once you ve successfully managed to log into your Bluehost control panel you should be presented with a page that looks somewhat like the one below:

8 From this page you ll need to look for the button that says Install WordPress. WordPress is the software that you ll be installing into your web hosting account which will power your blog. After clicking Install WordPress you ll be taken to a page where you ll be welcomed to the Bluehost Marketplace, from here you simply need to hit the green Get Started button at the bottom of the page.

9 That button will take you to the initial WordPress installation page, where you ll be asked which domain name you wish to install WordPress (your blog) on. From the dropdown box on the left (shown by the red arrow in the image below) simply choose your domain name from the list, and then hit the green Next button. You do not need to enter anything into the directory box this is only to be filled in by advanced users who wish to install their blog in a subfolder on their website. After clicking Next you ll be asked for some additional settings before WordPress (your blog) will begin installing. Firstly you ll be asked to give your blog a title & then secondly you have the option to change the auto-generated details of the admin account. Once you ve made the necessary changes make sure the three boxes are checked and then simply hit Install. You ll immediately be taken to another page which will show you the progress of the installation. Give yourself a pat on the back - you've just installed your blog!

10 Yep, installing your blog really was as easy as that you ve now got yourself a domain name & your blog is live on the web. The cool part is that you can officially call yourself a webmaster Okay, maybe that s not so cool, but hey you did it! So here s what you ll need to do next The important thing you ll need to do before anything else is save your blog admin credentials in a safe place they should have been provided to you on the page that were taken too after your blog finished installing. Once you ve got your credentials saved it s time for the fun to start, because now you re going to learn step-by-step how to login to your blog, how to configure it, how to customize it & how to publish your first post. Step 2. Configuring & Customizing Your Blog After installing your blog it ll be pretty much good-to-go, but there are a few minor settings I recommend you tweak before you go ahead & start customizing it or adding posts. So in order to tweak those settings the first thing you ll need to do is login to your blog s administration panel using the details you were provided with in the last step. Usually the admin panel will be located at yourdomain.com/wp-admin. Once you re logged in from the menu on the left, hover over the Settings tab and then click General from the menu the appears.

11 From this page you ll need to firstly make sure your site title & tagline are correct (example shown below). And then after that, from the same page you ll simply need to disable your blog s Coming Soon page so that people can actually access it. That s all the settings on this page configured, so now you can hit Save Changes. Next, from the same Settings menu you ll need to this time navigate to Reading. Here you ll notice that the Search Engine Visibility box is checked. This means that search engines will be discouraged from indexing your blog, which is bad news because it means that you ll be writing blog posts & nobody will be able to find them. Be sure to uncheck this box so that search engines can access and list your blog posts, then hit Save Changes.

12 Now from the same Settings menu, click Permalinks. Here you re going to change a setting that will adjust the structure of your URL s (links to your blog posts). By default you ll notice that they re set to Day and name, but as you can see in the example it creates quite a long & untidy URL, so set it to Post name instead & then hit Save Changes. This just makes it easier for people to remember the links to your blog posts and it s also preferred by search engines too. Finally, just one last setting & then your configuration is done & you can move onto learning how to customize your blog. So this time, again from the same Settings menu, click on Discussion. All you re going to do here is change a setting which simply means that when somebody leaves a comment on your blog, you ll be asked to approve it before it goes live. This is just a simple step that helps reduce spam or unwanted comments from appearing on your blog & being shown to the public. So from this page, next to where it says Before a comment appears simply check the box that states a Comment must be manually approved as shown in the image below: Hit Save Changes & Bob s your uncle your blog is now properly configured with the recommended settings & ready to go.

13 Step 2.2) Customizing Your Blog - Changing Your Theme You want your blog to stand out from the crowd so customizing it is really important, thankfully WordPress makes it super easy & with just a couple of clicks you can activate a swish new theme for your blog to get it looking the way you want it to look. So firstly to change the theme you ll need to navigate to Appearance and then Themes from the menu on the left. From this page you ll see a selection of themes which are currently installed on your blog. You can only have 1 theme activated at a time, but by clicking Activate on any of these themes you can freely switch between them and in doing so you won t lose any of your blog posts or data (so feel free to play around). As soon as you Activate a new theme the changes will immediately take place on your blog, so if you refresh it you should see your new theme live in action if you decide that you don t like it & you want to go back, just Activate your original theme & everything will go back to normal. Switching between different themes is fine at the moment since your blog won t have any visitors just yet but when it does begin getting visitors you can use the Live Preview button to get an idea of what a theme will look like before you go ahead and fully activate it on your blog. This way you can do everything behind the scenes without affecting your users experience.

14 One thing you ll notice though is that there probably isn t a great deal of different themes already installed on your blog, so chances are you d be interested in getting some more. This is also very easy to do, and best of all you can hundreds more themes completely free of charge. All you need to do is hit the big button at the end of your list of themes that says Add New Theme. From here you ll be shown hundreds (maybe even thousands) of different themes, and once you find one you like you simply need to hit the Install button to add it to your blog. Don t worry, it won t go live just yet it ll simply get added to your list of themes that you can Activate. Then, when you re ready you can Activate it from within the Themes section of your blog.

15 Even if you don t decide to activate it right away it will still stay listed within your Themes section because it s now installed on your blog ready for you to use whenever you like even if you don t decide to use it for weeks or months later. - Adding & Editing Widgets Chances are you re reading this wondering what the heck a widget even is well, widgets are simply a feature in WordPress that essentially allow you to easily add bits of content to different parts of your blog. So as an example, if you wanted to add a bit of text to the footer or sidebar of your blog you could do this using a Text Widget. Similarly, if you wanted to add an up to date list of your blog s recent posts somewhere on your blog, then you could do this using a Recent Posts Widget. The cool thing about widgets is that they re drag-and-drop, meaning you simply pick the widget you want to use & then all you need to do is drag it into the location where you want it to display. The widget locations that you have available to use are dependent on which theme you have activated. Certain themes offer more widget locations than on others - it depends on the complexity of the theme. To access your widgets, you simply need to select Widgets from the Themes menu on the left hand side of your administration panel, as shown in the image below: That will take you to a page which will look somewhat like the one below:

16 On the left hand side, you ll be shown your Available Widgets this is basically a list of all the different widgets that you have available ready to drag & drop into the different locations on your blog. On the right hand side, you ll see a list of the different locations that you have available to deploy your widgets. So as you can see in the image above, my blog sidebar current consists of the following widgets: Search Recent Posts Recent Comments Archives And if you were to visit my blog, this is what you d see: So hopefully you can see that what appears in my widget locations in my administration panel has a direct impact on what people will see live on my blog. I can easily re-arrange them by dragging them around, and I can easily add new widgets by dragging them across from my Available Widgets on the left hand side.

17 And if I wanted to edit a particular widget, for example a Text Widget, all I d need to do is simply click on it, edit the contents & hit Save. The changes I d made would then immediately appear live on my blog for my readers to see. Editing widgets & re-arranging the content on your blog really is as easy as that and if you re wondering how you get more widgets, well they come with something called Plugins. - Adding & Editing Menus Once you ve learned how to change your theme & add/edit widgets, you ve pretty much learned the fundamentals of customizing your blog. The only other vital part left for you to learn now is how to add & edit menus which is really easy to do.

18 The first thing you ll need to do is navigate to the Menus section from within the Appearance menu on the left hand side of your admin panel as shown below: On this page you ll need to give your menu a name (for your reference only), and then hit Create Menu. Once your menu is created you ll then have the ability to add links to it. You can select one of your pages, posts or categories from the lists on the left or alternatively you can create a totally custom link. For the purpose of this example we re going to add a page to our menu and to do that we d simply select the checkbox of the page we want to add & hit Add to Menu as shown below: After doing that you ll see the page will have been added to your menu.

19 Click Save Menu and then you ll need to choose a location for your menu to display so scroll up and click Manage Locations. The menu locations that you have available to use are dependent on which theme you have activated. Certain themes offer more menu locations than on others - it depends on the complexity of the theme. The next step is really easy, all you need to do is decide where you want the menu to display & then choose the menu you ve just created from the dropdown box. Once you ve done that hit Save Changes and your menu will now be live on your blog in the location that you ve selected. As you can see in the example above we chose to add our menu to the Top Menu position, and below you can see of what it looks like live on our blog:

20 Well done you ve now officially learned how to customize your blog! Step 2.3) Publishing Your First Post Your blog s all set up, and hopefully now it s customized & you have it looking the way you want it too. So at this point you re probably eager to find out how to publish your first post, which is exactly what I m going to run through right now in this step. - Difference Between Posts & Pages If you ve had a browse around your blog s administration panel then you ll notice that as well as Posts, you re also given the option to add Pages to your blog too, and I understand that this might leave you a little bit confused as to which one to use. Basically, the difference between a Post and a Page is that by default a post will be published on your blogroll for people to read, and if any of your readers are subscribed to your blog via RSS then they ll be notified when you add a new blog post. However, a page on the other hand will be hidden unless you either share the link to it with somebody or you add it to a menu. Basically, a Page is there for you to add information that you might not want to necessarily class as a blog post and you don t want to update people about such as an About Me page, or Contact Me page. - Publishing Your First Post Now that you hopefully understand the difference between posts and pages, let s go ahead & publish your first post. From the menu on the left hand side of your admin panel the first thing you ll need to do is select Posts and Add New.

21 From here you ll be taken to the Add New Post page where you can compose your post and then publish it, or schedule it to be published at a later date. As you can see in the image below we ve added a title and a little bit of brief content to our post: It s important to make sure that you re using the Visual editor, that way you ll get the toolbar at the top which will enable you to easily do things such as edit the font & add images. The Text alternative is really only for more advanced users who want to add HTML code to their posts. If you d like to add an image to your post, simply hit the Add Media button towards the top left.

22 Select a picture that you d like to upload from your PC, choose the size you d like to display it and then simply hit the button that says Insert into post. Your post should then look somewhat like the example you can see below, where we ve added a picture of Las Vegas to our blog post:

23 Once you ve finished with your blog post & you re happy with the way it looks you can hit the Publish button on the right hand side and your post will be immediately added to your blog ready for people to read. If you don t want the post to appear right away, for example if you plan on writing 7 posts in 1 day & want them to appear 1 by 1 each day, then you can set a Schedule.

24 Setting a schedule is really easy above the Publish button, next to where it says Publish Immediately simply hit the Edit Button. From here simply choose the time & date that you d like your post to go live on your blog, hit OK and then hit Schedule. - Adding Categories Adding categories is a good idea as it helps keep your posts organized. It might not seem like too much of a priority when starting out, but it s easier to keep everything in the right categories from day 1 than it is to move everything around at a later date when you might have a hundred or so posts. To add a category, all you need to do is scroll down on the Add New Post page and towards the right hand side you ll see a box titled Categories. From here simply hit Add New Category, name it something relevant & make sure the box is checked before publishing your post. Now, when you publish your post it will be added into your chosen category. If you don t select a category, then by default your posts will automatically be published in the Uncategorized category.

25 Well done - you've learned how to publish your first post, and you can now officially call yourself a blogger! Step 3. What an List Is, And Why You Need One If you ve made it this far through the guide then you re doing great you ve learned how to set up your blog, how to customize it & how to post on it but there s one big problem. When people visit your blog & then leave how are you going to make sure they come back? The truth is you can t, unless you have an list. An list is basically a list of people who have subscribed to your blog updates. It means that they want to be kept in the loop about your new posts, and it means that you have the ability to reach out to them all whenever you post something new. lists are very powerful and that s why you ll see them on nearly every single blog you visit. Each blog will no doubt use different methods of obtaining your address (such as a free ebook, or access to hidden content), but ultimately they re all doing the same thing they re all building their list. An engaged list is said to worth around $1 per subscriber per month - meaning if you have 1,000 subscribers, you should be able to achieve around $1,000 per month in income from your list alone. So an list is very important, in fact it s fair to say that it s absolutely essential.

26 Not only does it provide you with the ability to bring people back to your blog, but it provides you with the ability to land your latest offers directly in their inbox. It separates those who do OK from those who do very well. Step 3.1) How To Build An List Building an list is actually very simple, but there is one thing that you ll need and that s an marketing service provider, such as AWeber. You ll need this to keep yourself compliant with the CAN-SPAM act, but also to ensure high deliverability rates (meaning that your s actually land in your subscriber s inbox not their spam folder). After all it s pointless having an list if all your s are going to go to the junk folder and nobody is even going to see them, so a high quality marketing service provider is essential. I recommend AWeber, and here s why: Super high deliverability rates (meaning your s land in the inbox not the junk folder). Very easy to use interface (other providers are generally difficult to navigate & use). Great statistics you can track in real-time which subscribers are opening s & what they re clicking on. So in order to begin building your list, the first thing you re going to need to do is go ahead & sign up with AWeber, which you can do by clicking the big button below: After joining AWeber the first thing you ll need to do is create a list, which is where all your new subscribers will be stored. To do this, log into AWeber and click the Manage Lists button in the top right. Next, from this page click on the Create A List button.

27 On the following page you ll be asked some basic details about yourself or your company, such as your name (or company name), your website, your address & the sender name that you d like to appear alongside your s. Understandably a lot of people don t like their address being attached to their s but this is mandatory in line with the CAN-SPAM act, however to get around displaying your home address you can always use virtual office or PO box instead. Then after submitting those details you ll be asked for some basic details about the list itself, such as the list name & a short description. Be mindful that your subscribers will be able to see these details about your list and once you ve finished populating hit the Next Step button which will take you to a page asking for details about your confirmation message. The confirmation message is a message that gets sent out to somebody when they subscribe to your list it s basically just to confirm that they did actually subscribe, and that they want to receive from you.

28 It s possible to switch this off, but it s best that you leave it on because it helps protect you from being accused of sending spam (unsolicited mail) to somebody. Usually the details on this page are just fine as they are, but if you want to customize them then you can do so as you see fit but once you re done, be sure to hit the big Approve Message & Create List button located at the bottom of the page. Once you ve done that, bazinga your list is now created & you re ready to begin getting subscribers. - How To Get Subscribers To get subscribers all you need to do is simply add a subscription form(s) somewhere onto your blog. The more forms you have dotted around your blog, the more likely you will be to get subscribers but you don t want to over-do it and ruin their experience therefore keeping a happy medium is advised. The question you re probably asking though is how can you get a subscription form (known as an opt-in form) onto your blog? So let us show you, step-by-step Firstly you ll need to make sure the list that you ve just created is selected from the drop down menu at the top of the page (inside your AWeber control panel), and then you ll need to click on Sign Up Forms. On the next page simply hit the big button that says Create Your First Sign Up Form.

29 This will take you to a page from which you can design your form. You can make the changes yourself using the editor, or you can select from a variety of pre-styled forms. You ll also have the option to add & delete fields from your form obviously as a minimum you ll need the users , but you can add other fields such as name, phone etc It s worth noting though that the more form fields you add, the less likely people will be to subscribe to your list. We recommend just asking for the users address, or their name & at most. Generally people don t really want to give away much more information than that to somebody they ve just came across on the internet (as you can probably understand). Once you re done creating your form, hit Save Your Form and then Go To Step 2. On the next page you ll be asked for a few details about your form, such as what you d like to name it (for your reference only) and which thank-you page you d like to display when the user subscribes. You can use the AWeber default thank-you page for now, but it s recommended that you add a Page to your blog & use your own custom thank-you page to give the process a personal touch this way your subscribers will feel better engaged with you. After inputting the details on this page, hit Save Your Form once more and then click Go To Step 3.

30 You ll then be taken to a page where you ll be presented with a variety of different ways that you can deploy your newly created opt-in form, but the one you want to select is I Will Install My Form. Once you ve hit that button you ll be presented with some code it may look like complete gobbledygook to you, but don t worry, thankfully all you re going to need to do is copy & paste it into your blog.

31 Be sure to copy all of the code in the box, and then head over to the widgets section of your blog. Select a Text widget & drag it into the location of where you want your opt-in form to display (e.g. your sidebar). Finally, all you need to do is paste the code that you copied from AWeber into the text widget that you ve just dragged over, and then hit Save.

32 Boom! Your opt-in form should now be live on your blog, ready for your subscribers to do their thing and subscribe. You ll find an example below of what you should expect to see (though yours will differ depending on how you styled your form & where you decided to place it).

33 Step 3.2) How to Send an to Your List You could have the biggest list in the world, but it s not going to be worth a penny if you ve got no idea how to any of your subscribers, so that s what we ll discuss next. You ll be glad to know that sending a broadcast to your whole list is really easy & can be done in just a couple of clicks. The first thing you ll need to do is hit the Create a Message button from your AWeber dashboard & then select the Drag & Drop Builder from within the menu that appears. The editor will open up, and from here you ll be able to set your s subject line & add the message content.

34 You can use the editor to do all sorts of different things like add images, videos, social buttons & more. Whatever you decide to do, once you re happy with your masterpiece hit the Save & Exit button at the bottom right of the editor. Clicking that button will take you to your Drafts page, where you should see the you ve just composed & you should also see a button next to it titled Send Options. Click on Send Options, and from the drop down list that appears select Schedule a Broadcast. A popup will appear which will ask you to configure the settings for your broadcast. If you don t change anything, then by default the will be immediately sent to all of your subscribers. If however you don t wish for that to happen, you can alter these settings to adjust when the gets sent and who it should be sent to.

35 Once your happy with your broadcast s settings you can hit the Send Message Now (which will change to Schedule For if you ve selected a different date) and your will be sent to your subscribers accordingly. Forget blogger, you can pretty much call yourself a guru now! Let s just take a look at some of the awesome things you ve learned so far You ve learned how to get a domain name & web hosting. You ve learned how to install a blog, configure it and customize it. You ve learned how to publish your first blog post, and the difference between posts & pages. You ve learned why an list is so important & how you can build one. And you ve learned how you can reach out to all of your subscribers with the click of a button. Now it s time for the exciting part you re about to learn how you can make money from your blog. Step 4. How To Make Money By Blogging There are a whole bunch of different ways that you can make money from your blog, but generally these are the most common methods: Paid Advertising Affiliate Marketing

36 Creating & Selling Your Own Products Membership Fees / Premium Content Those methods are the most popular because they are easily scalable, and can be scaled to an infinite size since they are passive and don t require an input of your time. Once they re set up & in place it s a case of more visitors = more money, as opposed to more effort. Sure there are a bunch of other different methods you could make money from your blog too such as offering out services like coaching, graphic design & copywriting, but the problem with these is that since they directly require your time they re more difficult to scale because ultimately you only have 24 hours in a day. Yes it will still mean that more visitors = more money, but at the same time you ll have to either put in more effort or raise your prices & limit your amount of clients. Hopefully that makes sense! The bottom line is that as a newbie it s generally best to start out with something like paid advertising & affiliate marketing until you find your feet, and then as your blog builds a following you can begin introducing additional income streams as you see fit. A common route people generally tend to take throughout their making money online career seems to be starting out with paid advertising & affiliate marketing, then launching their own product & eventually landing up in coaching teaching others what they ve done & how to do it. That s the typical journey of the average internet marketer (aka make-moneyonliner ) heh. It usually looks somewhat like this (timescales are just averages and can vary massively): Year 1 to 2: Start your blog, add paid advertisements & affiliate links. Publish new posts consistently, build a following, build an list & begin generating a healthy income through your various affiliate/advertisement income streams. As time goes on things start to get more passive, meaning you can free up more of your time. Year 2 to 4: Create your own product (virtual or physical). By this point, providing you ve been keep consistent with your blog & publishing posts regularly then it s income will have probably became a little more passive meaning you ll most likely have more free time on your hands. This is when you ll probably end up looking into creating a product of their own (whether it be physical or digital), and then even going on to leverage affiliates for yourself to promote your own product. By this stage you ve pretty much cracked it. Year 4+: End up coaching others how to do what you ve did. The internet is FULL of people looking to learn how to build a business online, and so once you ve been through the journey yourself & gained the experience and knowledge then you ll probably get people coming to you asking for advice. As a result of this a lot of

37 people end up offering a high-ticket coaching service to supplement their now fairly passive blog income. I m not saying you will take the same journey, but it s a journey many take and ultimately that s because it s a proven & profitable model. So what you re probably wondering now is how you can get started, which is exactly what I m going to walk you through next Firstly, I ll run through paid advertising with you, then I ll run through affiliate marketing & after that I ll take you about the additional methods too. Step 4.1) Making Money With Paid Advertising It s probably safe to say that paid advertising is one of the easiest ways to start making money from your blog, since all you need to do is add the adverts to your blog & you re good to go. You ll either get paid a fixed amount for the advertising, or you ll get paid for each person that clicks on the advert or each time it s displayed to a user. The biggest choice you ll need to make is whether you want to manage the advertising yourself, or whether you want to use a 3rd party company to do it instead. It s generally best to use a 3rd party company until your blog grows to a substantial size where you might be able to get more competitive rates by working with advertisers directly. It s also much easier to use a 3rd party company too since they handle all the advertiser communication & bidding on your behalf. - Google Adsense One of the most popular & most trusted advertising networks out there for you to use on your blog is Google Adsense. This is a service which as you probably guessed is provided by Google themselves. They do have fairly strict policies as to who can & can t enter their program, but if you re accepted into it then you ll no doubt find it to be a fairly lucrative means of monetizing your traffic. It s also pretty easy to use too since all you need to do is ad a bit of code to your blog & the ads will start displaying automatically, then you can track your statistics & earnings from the Adsense dashboard. For people looking to make money from paid advertising, this would definitely be the top network that I recommend you join.

38 - Media.net If for some reason your website/blog doesn t happen to be approved by Google Adsense then don t worry, as there are some alternatives you can use instead. Whilst I would choose Google Adsense over other programs, I d recommend Media.net as the second best alternative. Media.net is part of the Yahoo! and Bing network, so it s safe to say that they re a reputable company. One of the advantages of Media.net over Adsense s other competitors is that Media.net offer a 100% fill rate on your advertising positions. This basically means that no matter how broad your website or niche is, they ll always find an advertiser for your content. - Chitika I d be worried if your blog didn t get accepted by Adsense or Media.net, and I probably suggest you look for a problem closer to home before applying to other networks. However, if you ve burned your bridges with both of the other companies then you could always try out Chitika which is another large player in the paid advertising niche. The good thing about Chitika is that there s no restrictions on the size of your website or the amount of visitors you have they ll be happy to consider adding you into their network even if your blog is literally brand new. - Managing The Adverts Yourself If you want to manage the adverts yourself, you could literally do this by arranging advertising costs & duration directly with advertisers, or alternatively you could use a platform like BuySellAds to manage them instead. Personally I d recommend using a platform like BuySellAds and there are 2 main reasons why. Firstly, using a platform like this makes it easier for the advertiser they can immediately see what positions you have available & what your rates are. Making your advertisers lives easy will most likely result in more requests for advertising. Secondly, it makes your life easier. If you were handling everything directly & switching the ads round yourself then this would take up quite a bit of time on your part. With a service like BuySellAds the system will automatically rotate the ads for you & run them for the purchased duration without you having to worry about it or set reminders to take them down & switch them up. - Placing The Adverts On Your Blog

39 The amount of money you make from paid advertising will depend on 4 things: How many visitors your blog gets How relevant the adverts are to the content The locations in which the advertisements have been positioned on your blog How well the adverts stand out (or blend in). The first one is obvious, the more visitors your blog gets the more money you re going to make from advertising. Advertisers want eyeballs on their offers & the more you give them the more they re going to pay you that s the whole premise of advertising. Secondly, making sure that the adverts are relevant to your content will help to dramatically increase your earnings. If somebody arrives at your blog looking to find out how to fix a problem with your car & an advert appears with an answer to the problem, then chances are they re going to click it. Relevant ads will increase your click-thru-rate which will in turn increase your earnings. Thirdly, it s important to think about the locations of your adverts because in order for them to be effective they ll need to be positioned in prominent locations where people can actually see them, and multiple locations often works best. A great tool to help you determine where the best locations could be on your website is the Crazy Egg heatmap this will help you see where your visitors are clicking, and will help you locate the hotspots for your ads. Lastly, for your adverts to be effective they need to grab the user s attention. Typically people think this means they must be bright coloured and stand out, but often ads that are blended in can have just as good, if not higher success rate too. This one is definitely a case of trial & error, and figuring out what works best for you. Try out a few different options & narrow down the best performing. Step 4.2) Making Money With Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing still involves promoting products & services, but the way in which you ll be rewarded for doing so differs to that of paid advertising. With affiliate marketing, as opposed to getting paid a fixed amount, or getting paid for clicks or impressions, you ll be getting paid a commission whenever you get a visitor to complete an action. The actions you can get paid for vary, but generally you ll be rewarded for things like getting people to sign up to something or getting people to make a purchase. Just like the actions vary, the commissions you ll get paid for getting people to complete them will vary too, as some companies pay fixed amounts for the actions & some pay percentages of the final sale value. Generally, percentages are the better option, but it depends what your promoting & the volume of traffic you re generating.

40 The great thing about affiliate marketing is that as opposed to being restricted to earning from your blog alone like with paid advertising, you have the opportunity to earn directly from other channels too such as social media & of course the big one your list. This is because the companies you ll promote will issue you with a special tracking link which will track all the sales to you, regardless of where the user happened to click the link from. So even if the user clicks the link in an you sent them, the sale will still be tracked to you which is why affiliate marketing & marketing is such a powerful combination. Sure, you can generate sales directly from your blog, but your blog should be primary seen as the vehicle for getting subscribers onto your list, because your follow up s will be where the real money is made. When it comes to making money online the fortune is in the follow up. Getting started with affiliate marketing is really easy, and there s a whole bunch of different networks that you can join to begin promoting things right away. Tip: Whilst the money can be tempting you should always focus on providing relevant & helpful offers to your visitors/subscribers as opposed to just promoting affiliates offers for the sake of making a quick buck. Money should be seen as a side-effect, and by only promoting relevant/helpful offers you ll gain your subscribers trust which will pay dividends in the long run. It s worth mentioning too that not every company runs their affiliate program through a 3rd party network some companies operate their own programs in-house. If you re looking for an affiliate program of a specific company and you can t find them listed within a network all you need to do is run a Google search for company name + affiliate program like so: Though I d recommend exercising caution when working with a company directly as it s been known for companies to shave off some of their affiliates commissions. This

41 can still happen via a 3rd party company, but since there s a middleman involved when you re working through a 3rd party you can be reassured that you have a bit of protection when you work directly it s just a case of your word against theirs. Here s a handful of some of the largest affiliate networks that are home to thousands of companies & brands - Commission Junction Commission Junction, or CJ as it s often referred to is one of my favourite affiliate networks. To be completely honest there s no particular reason why, it s just a company I ve been using for years & have never had any problems with. They have thousands of advertisers, they have a good tracking platform & most importantly for me they always pay in full & on time. - Amazon Associates Amazon is one of the (if not the) largest affiliate programs out there. Depending on your website, it can prove to be a pretty lucrative program & there s many thousands of people making a full-time income purely by promoting Amazon products alone. The awesome thing about promoting Amazon is that you have access to an amazing array of products you can promote however there is a downside, and that s the fact that their tracking cookie only stays active for 1 day. This means that if somebody clicks your link they ll need to make a purchase within 24 hours for it to be tracked to you unlike most other affiliate programs which run 30 day cookies. - ClickBank If it s digital products that you re looking to promote, then Clickbank is generally the go-to network for that. They offer thousands of digital products to promote across hundreds of different niches, with some of the products in their archives paying out crazy commissions. When it comes to Clickbank though I would definitely recommend checking out products first hand before promoting them as I ve come across a few dodgy offers on there. It s all about scouting out the great offers for your audience, as opposed to getting caught up looking for the ones that ll give you the the highest EPC s (earnings-per-click). - ShareASale ShareASale is a popular network with a solid background, plenty of offers & pays out on time I personally don t really promote a great deal through ShareASale but that s not because of the platform itself it s just because the majority of companies I work with all run their affiliate programs through other networks.

42 Step 4.3) Alternative Ways To Make Money Blogging Sure, paid advertising & affiliate marketing are 2 awesome ways to make money from your blog but they are by no means the only ways. One alternative way you could make money from your blog is by creating & selling a product yourself. This could be a digital product, such as an ebook, or it could be a physical product instead. Admittedly it will take up more of your time to create a product than it would if you were to market somebody else s, but by selling your own products you re able to achieve much higher profit margins & you could even go on to leverage affiliates to help you promote it. Another simple idea is to add a membership area to your blog or charge a fee for premium content. You d need to provide your paying members with huge value in return for their money, but if you have something unique to offer (such as some kind of helpful tool) then this could definitely be an easy way for you to monetize it. If you re running your blog on WordPress then there are many different plugins out there which will easily enable you to turn your blog into a membership site or charge a fee for access to certain bits of your content. One of the most popular WordPress membership site plugins is MemberPress and you can use that very same plugin to restrict access to content for non-paying members too. On top of that you have the option to leverage your blog as a traffic source & offer real world services to your visitors, such as graphic design, copywriting, or well, pretty much anything you can think of. As an example if you were a lawyer you could simply use your blog as a leveraging tool to attract people looking for a lawyer, and then offer your services to them. This way you re basically getting advertising for your business, but paying for it with your time (by blogging) as opposed to money. You re a money making machine!

43 Step 5) How To Get Visitors To Your Blog You can blog all day long, and you spend countless amounts of hours monetizing your blog but if nobody is visiting, then you re not going to be making any money. So let s take a look at how you can get some visitors to you blog (and thankfully it s really easy). - Share Your Posts On Social Media The first thing you should absolutely & undoubtedly be doing is sharing your posts on social media. Social media is a very powerful tool and it can help you get maximum exposure to your blog posts. Whenever you add a new post to your blog, share it on social media & let your followers know about it. Similarly, you can also use your social media channels to repurpose your old content that may have fallen away into the archives of your blog. Dig it out, dust of the cobwebs & get it shared. The other great advantage of sharing your content on social media is that it can help it rank higher within search engines, meaning you re pretty much killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Social media traffic plus search engine traffic equals happy days. You see search engines use social data to help determine the quality of a blog post. If a post has a lot of interaction on social media then the search engine can assume that it s a quality post & has created quite the talking point, so it ll be more inclined to rank it higher up in it s search listings. Social media signals are only 1 part of the search engine s vast ranking algorithms & it doesn t quite mean that a lot of social shares or likes will get you straight to the top, but it ll certainly help you out so after you post, remember to share. - Share Your Posts With Your List From the moment you get your first subscriber, make sure you are keeping him/her updated with your blog posts. You are building an list for a reason, and that reason is to engage them with your blog & ultimately make more money so be sure to do it. Each week you should be sending out a roundup of your most recent posts as an absolute minimum.