How To Make Money Blogging 2018 | Full Guide

Alright, so maybe you've heard of all these "internet people" who create blogs and make all sorts of money. You might be wondering how the heck do these people make this money? I'm going to explain exactly how to make money blogging.
First off, should you start a blog? Let's start by answering a couple questions...
Do you have any passions in life? Do you like to make money? If you answered yes to either of those questions than you should definitely start blog. Having your own blog can allow you to: connect with new people, travel the world, make an impact and even make some dang good money.
The cool part about blogging is you can write about whatever you want. As long as there is an audience in that niche, you can create a profitable blog that brings in passive income every month.

In the very good chance that you don't have the time to read this post in it's entirety, I will start by answering some of most common questions. If you want to learn more, feel free to continue reading.

How do people make money blogging?

People can make money with their blog many different ways. They can:
1. Run ads from google on there blog and make money when visitors click on those ads.
2. Affiliate Marketing - This is where someone can promote another person's product or service as an affiliate and make commissions when someone purchases through an affiliate link. If you're brand new, affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your blog.
3. Create and sell courses online - This is by far one of the most lucrative ways to make money with a blog. People like Melyssa Griffin have made over 6-figures in a single month selling courses from a blog.
4. Sell services - People will hire you based on specific services you provide.
5. Sell physical products - Make money when people buy products from your website.

How can I be sure I will make money blogging?

Most bloggers don't really make that much money. Does this mean you can't make a full-time living doing it? Absolutely not! There are thousands of bloggers who do make a healthy income from there blog.
Here are some things to consider that successful bloggers do:

• Commit to growing - I don't just mean growing the blog, but also your skillsets. If you truly want to create success in anything, not just blogging, you need to commit to growing and getting better. This is the mindset all successful bloggers have.
• Create multiple streams of income - If you take a look at list above, you might have seen one way to make money with blogging that stuck out to you, but successful bloggers choose multiple ways to earn from their blog. Now, in the beginning stages, it's fine to only choose one.
• Understand that blogging is process, not a get rich quick scheme - Most people who fail to make money with their blog do so because they thought they would get results overnight. This isn't the case. If you truly want to create a successful blog that makes money, you must understand it will take time.
• Choosing to blog about something that is of interest - If you take a look at bloggers who have created wealth from their blog, it's usually because they write about something they have a passion for. Most people who fail only start their blog to make money and disregard choosing a niche they actually care about. This causes them to quit because they don't enjoy the process.

Here's what you'll need to do to make money blogging

These are steps everyone can take to start making money blogging regardless of their experience level:
1. You must start you blog
2. Provide valuable (useful) content that helps people
3. Build an email list (an audience) of loyal subscribers
4. Sell to your audience

1. Starting Your Blog

Here's the obvious, if you want to make money with a blog you actually have to start one. If you're not already rocking and rolling with a blog, no big deal, you can learn how to start one today.

2. Provide Valuable Content On Your Blog

Once your blog has launched it's time to get to the core of how you're going to grow it... through content. What kind of content should you be writing on your blog? This is where some people make the the biggest mistake of all, and it costs them making money.
Choose something that you have interests in, ideally something you're passionate about. This will be your niche. Picking a niche for your blog is one of the most important steps when first starting out. Why? Because you're going to be writing a lot of content in your niche and if you pick something you have not interest in, chances are you will become a statistic and end up quitting.
Once you've discovered what your niche is, start writing content that will help solve the problems people have in that niche. This is a great way to build a loyal fanbase for your blog. It's also an excellent way to set yourself up for success in monetizing your blog.
Write content on a consistent basis that will serve your ideal customer. Get in head and figure out what their biggest fears are, what's their biggest pain and what makes them tick. The content you write should help them in these areas. If you only do this, you will see results in building an audience.

3. Build An E-mail List

What's an email list? Have you ever noticed that websites always have a form on them asking you for your email address? Usually in exchange for something free? This is the start of Email marketing and it's a crucial business model, especially for bloggers.
You may have noticed on this very blog and place where you were asked for your email to get something for free. Why do bloggers need to build an email list? Simple, because it works for business!
If you're going to get serious about creating a successful blog, you cannot simply think about collecting emails as a way to grow your business, you MUST collect emails.
I want to you think about leverage you will have, when all it takes is the push of a button to send an email to tens of thousands of people. This can be done to promote new valuable content you've posted, or to sell something. I use one word to describe email marketing. Leverage!

4. Sell To Your Audience (Monetizing)

Alright, let's get to the nuts and bolts of why you're here. You want to know how to make money blogging, but this can't happen by simply writing awesome content, you need a way to monetize your blog. Let's farther discuss ways to make money with your blog.
As I mentioned earlier, some of these ways may look more appealing for you to monetize your blog, but just remember that most successful bloggers use multiple income streams to make money with their blog. If you're just starting out, don't feel pressured to use every method mentioned here.

    1. Running ADS On Your Blog

This is where you allow ad networks to run ads on your blog and when someone clicks on an ad from your website, you make money. It's like renting out space on a billboard, except the billboard is your website.
Google Adsense is the most popular network for setting up ads on your website. However, there are several more to include: Sway, Media.net and Federated Media to name a few.

The TRUTH About Running ADS On Blogs

Now, I'm going to tell you the truth about running ads on your blog. Well, at least my opinion on the matter.
If you look at websites that do have ads running on their website, you'll notice something for sure... ADS! Huh? Here's what I mean. Some people have banner ads all over the place on their website. They have them showing in the header, on the sidebar and below the content.
This looks incredibly unattractive. Personally, I've left websites because they were just littered with too many ads. So, my point is, if you're going to run ads on your blog, be careful about how much real-estate you give them.

Is running ads on your website worth it?

In my opinion, absolutely NOT! Can you make money with ads? Sure, but it takes a LOT of traffic to your website to make a significant income, and, if you only rely on ads for profit, chances are, your dream of blogging full-time will remain just that a dream. You don't want that, I know you want to make it reality, so that's why I encourage you to explore different ways of monetizing your blog.
For instance, take a look at this blog. Do you see any nasty advertisements anywhere? At the time of writing this the answer is no, and chances are you will never find ads being displayed here on Freedom Influencer. Why? Because other monetization strategies are much more lucrative than running petty ads. At least that's my two cents.

    2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing, in my opinion, is one of the most leveraged ways to you monetize your blog. Affiliate marketing is simply the process of promoting other people's products and services and when people buy as a result of your referral, you make commissions.
Why I love affiliate marketing - When I first started marketing online I had no clue how to monetize my business and actually make money, so I started promoting other people's products and as a result, it was how I made my first $20,000 online, so I know first-hand how powerful it can be.

    3. Create & Sell Courses

This is by far one of the most lucrative ways to make money from your blog. We are in the information age, which means people are starving for valuable information and because of this, you can monetize your knowledge in a big way.
If you have a knowledge that can help solve someone's problem or help them in a specific aspect of their life, they're willing to pay you for it.
Don't underestimate the power of your knowledge and creating courses. College these days is getting more and more expensive, but creating courses and selling them online is a much cheaper alternative for people to learn real skills that will help them. If you can be that person who puts together the solution their looking for, you will earn a healthy living from your courses.
It's not uncommon to see top bloggers earning 6-figures per month from their online courses. Now, I know that may seem far-fetched for some, but let it be an inspiration of what's really possible if you take your blogging career serious.

    4. Sell Services

If you have a skillset you can have people hire you to help them. This freelance work is a great way to start making money from your blog fast.
There are many things you can do to sell services, such as: Web development, mobile app developer, Designer, Writer, Virtual assistant, Marketing consulting and Accounting.
Think about what you're good at. People are willing to pay you for your advice and help in these areas.

The Bad About Selling Services

The only thing I don't like about selling services or freelancing is it's not leveraged in any way. You are trading time for money, but if you're in a situation where you want to quit your job or need money quickly, selling services may be the best option for you to get started.

    5. Sell Physical Products

When most people hear about making money with a blog, usually they think of digital products. Maybe this is due to the the fact that a blog is entirely digital. But, selling physical products is still a great way to not only make money, but also build your brand.
If you have sell physical products from your website, especially if they are representing your brand, you build a new sense of being with your customers. You go from that person they found on a website, to the product owner, of which they have in their hands.
Selling physical products gives people a new sense of reality of who you are and your brand. It can also make them feel like they are part of a community because they have something tangible.

The Bad About Selling Physical Products

Although selling physical products does have it's benefits, there are some drawbacks to it.
First off, it's not as scalable as digital products are. You don't have an unlimited supply like you do in a digital world. You have inventory and orders to keep up with.
Second is cost. Creating and selling a digital product can cost you a lot more upfront to make. Manufacturing and shipping alone can cause quite a dent in your business budget.
Cost of storage. Don't forget that after creating your physical products, you're going to have to store them someone where, and depending on how much inventory you have, you might not be able to store in your garage, which is going to cost you.

How To Save On Selling Digital Products?

Instead of creating your own digital products, another method lots of entrepreneurs are using is called drop shipping. This is where you put products up for sale on your website and only pay for the products when they sell.
After you've purchased the products, they get shipped from a supplier to your customer.

I know this can be a lot of information if you're just getting started, but you've already gotten ahead by just taking a little bit of time to read this post.
So let's talk about some things to consider before you start to make money blogging.

WHAT'S YOUR PASSION?

 

Everyone's results vary when making money with a blog, but I can tell you for certain that you will hit road blocks. There may be times you want to quit. Don't worry, this happens to most people, but this is also why finding what you're passionate about is do important.
If you can find something you're passionate about and decide to start your blog in that niche, your changes of success are far more greater.
Once you find your passion, here's what to do next:

I don't want to go too in-depth about mindset here on this post, but I can't leave it out because it's that damn important.
Can you guess what the ONE thing that is most likely to hold you back from making money with your blog?
IT'S YOU!
It's not that most people don't have the knowledge to make money with a blog or don't have the technical know how. These things can be learned. It's because they didn't have the right mindset to create the success they want.
If you REALLY want to create a blog and start making money with, guess what... YOU CAN!
You simply have to do what's necessary to create it. Everything it takes to make money with a blog, you can learn.
If you look at most successful bloggers, you'll find that they made a decision early on that they were going to make it work.
So, If you're serious about growing a successful blog, I want you to make the decision right now that you're going to it. Take failure off the table.

MODEL SUCCESS

Some of the best advice you can get on creating success, not just for blogging, but in any venture, is to model success.
Why is this advice powerful? Because there are people just like you out there, who also had the same idea of starting a blog and making money from it. Then, they went on to making their dream a reality. The only difference between you and them is they started before you.
So, what do you do? Model their success. Find successful bloggers within your niche; people who share the same passions as you, and model exactly what they're doing. After all, it's working for them, why won't it work for you.
Don't copy them or steal their work, rather, use it as inspiration to create your own. If you do this, you will fast-track your success.

What's Next?

1. Start your blog if you don't have one already
2. Keep learning about blogging best practices and marketing
3. Start writing and stay consistent
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