Contributed post
If you want to make money from your blog, you will need to take it pretty seriously. In fact, there is a lot more that goes on behind the scene that many people would expect.
Don’t worry though, because in my post below I will take you through all of the basics. Read on to find out more.
Hosting & CMS
One of the more practical sides of blogging is picking a host that is reliable and best suits your purpose. What this means is that you need to choose a provider whose platform doesn’t go down regularly and that if a problem does occur; can be trusted to get right on it and sort things out.
Of course, you will also want to make your that your provider has a user-friendly CMS or content management systems, because as a blogger, that is the side of your site that you will be interacting with on a regular basis. To that end, clarity and ease of customization are both issues that you need to keep an eye on here.
Invoicing & monetising
When monetising your site, you need to think carefully about the different income options that are available to you. You may be better off offering affiliate marketing, and getting paid automatically when customers buy a product after following the backlink you place on your site?
Alternatively, you may want to host paid guest posts that combine product placement and offsite SEO to increase a brand’s rank in the search engine results.
Another option is to use your site to promote your own product such as crafts you have made, or even a more passive item like a downloadable book or worksheet.
Of course, if you have customers that will be buying things from you, whether it’s a physical item, a download, or even space on your blog you will want an effective method of quoting and invoicing them.
Luckily, you can use things like quoting software to help you streamline this job without wasting hours creating it all from scratch. Something that can make it super easier to impress your clients with a professional looking document.
Design
Obviously, the design is a crucial element when you want your blog to have as many followers as possible, something that will ensure you can request top dollar for guest posts, and affiliate links.
However, it is important to remember that it’s not just about the visual design of your site. In fact, it’s also about the user experience (UX) which is focused on how the customer interacts with the information and content on your site.
To that end, it’s crucial to research your target audience thoroughly and include content and a structure that appeals best to them. What this means, in essence, is that you want to guide the right people to the right places on your site and encourage them to interact in a meaningful way. This could be signing up for a newsletter, liking a post, commenting, or even sharing your content by clicking a specific link.
Writing
You can’t have a blog without writing, and you can’t have a profitable blog without good writing, but what does this mean exactly? Well, the basics need to be spot on including decent spelling and grammar, but in the blogger domain, Voice is absolutely vital.
Your voice is your unique perspective, the way you approach things and see things, and how this is expressed in the way you write. It is also the thing that will most endear you to your target audience if done correctly.
With that in mind, it can be helpful to work on developing your voice when you are writing. This is something that you can get some help with here.
Remember too that while people love informative articles, they also respond well to authenticity and a little humor, so try and include those in your written posts as well.
Networking
Lastly, if you want the money to come rolling in when you are blogging it is absolutely essential that you put effort into networking.
You need to have a good network of possible affiliate companies to work with, as well as content and SEO companies that are willing to buy space on your site.
Also, don’t forget that networking with other bloggers is something that can be hugely useful. Not only because you can get them to contribute to your blog and vice versa, but also because it helps you to stay on the pulse of what is relevant to the audience you are looking to appeal to – something that can make all the difference when you want your blog to be profitable.