The answer is really simple. Find out what other successful bloggers are doing to make money and duplicate what they are doing using your own, authentic style. Read on to find out what is the best way to make money blogging and how!
Firstly, let’s define what a blog, or blog post as it is also called, is. It consists of an article that you publish, usually on your website at regular intervals. Or it could be a video on your YouTube Channel. The topic can be on anything you want to write about. Perhaps you wish to entertain people. Or it could be based on a political discussion. Blogs can be used to educate your readers. The article you are reading now is in fact a Blog Post on my website. In this blog I will focus on written content, not videos.
Other Categories For Blog Posts
The title is, What Is The Best Way To Make Money Blogging? Since I use the word BEST, I am implying there are other money making blog categories that are not the best, from my point of view of course. Let me list some of them here:
- Online courses and workshops
- Consulting
- Freelance Services
- Write an eBook
- Arbitrage (Buy stuff low and sell high)
There is one thing they all have in common that adds a complication. Can you see what that is? You are responsible for providing those products and services and also responsible for billing. These methods work very well, but it does require additional time and effort on your part. If you wish to pursue any of these activities, go for it.
All the above do one other thing too. They solve a problem or meet a need of the buyer. Let’s turn this around a little.
Can you think of a business where you don’t need to carry the products, take care of the billing and still earn a commission? I deliberately didn’t list this business above as I wanted to see if you figured it out. Plus, this blog is going to give it special focus. If you haven’t figured it out already, this business is called:
AFFILIATE MARKETING
Your goal to make money as a blogger is to help unearth and solve problems other people have in your chosen niche. You will find that there are products and services that will solve most problems. In fact there are countless problems and product solutions out there.
Hence, the easy answer to the question, What is the best way to make money bogging? It is to become exceptionally good at solving problems using your chosen niche! .
Skills
There are two overriding skill’s that are necessary in Affiliate Marketing to make money through blogging.
- To find your niche that is connected with Affiliate products
- To help your reader meet their needs or solve their problems using the products in your niche
Of course, there are other skill’s involved in the monetization process that we will delve into later. But for now, I want to focus on the two I listed above. I am going to use the term, “product” to represent both products and services.
Picking The Right Niche For You
Your first challenge in the monetization game is to pick the right niche for you. I have seen many aspiring Affiliate Marketers labor for hours trying to figure out what niche to select. Let me help you with this task.
What would you enjoy doing the most if you had no shortage of money and time? And how would you be most fulfilled by that action? I’d like to give you my take on this and see if you agree with me.
Of course, if I had all the money and time in the world I would love to spend and keep spending on buying the things I like. Also, I would love to take trips all over the world. Once I get saturated with all thee benefits, I would start feeling hollow. What am I accomplishing in life? Apart from spending money on myself.
I have noticed that rich people who only spend money on themselves seem to be very unhappy, The only way they can continue to feel happy is to outdo themselves over and over again. Eventually they will come up against the Law of Diminishing Returns. Depression sets in. They are worried that others are after their wealth. Hence, their focus turns to protecting what they have accumulated.
That is not what I want to do with my life. Have you noticed that people who are more focused in meeting the needs or solving the problems of others tend to accumulate wealth as a by product? Look at some examples.
When Bill Gates developed Windows to become the world’s most popular operating system, was he thinking about how much money he was going to make? I don’t think so. He wanted to create a product that brought computing power to the masses in an affordable manner. He was able to solve a major problem .that impacted the world.
When Steve Jobs decided to create Apple innovative products,was he also thinking about how much money he was going to make? Again, I don’t think so. Steve’s main focus was to enhance the lives of others using brilliant technology. Not all products Apple released were successful. In fact, they had several spectacular failures. But that didn’t stop Steve from trying. Eventually Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007. The pundits predicted that nobody would buy a phone without a physical keyboard. Who in their right mind would want to text on a flat surface?They thought Apple had gone nuts and the company would fail.
Look what happened. The iPhone with the built in iOS operating system changed the world. Of course, it didn’t do it all by itself. Others copied it like Google with the Android Operating system. The rest is history.
I can ask the same question about Jeff Bezos who founded Amazon. And many more individuals who thought in the same way. Their secret was to first find pressing problems and then solve them with products and services. Even meet a need the public never never knew they had, like the iPhone. Making money was the natural outcome through enhancing the lives of a massive number of people.
When you pick your niche, you need to discover how you can change the lives of others for the better. By solving their problems. They have no idea yet that this can be done with your niche. Just like Apple. Until you identify the problem and then solving it with products you introduce using your Blogs.
How can you make money and simultaneously feel really happy and fulfilled about your life? The answer is is to find a way to use your passions to benefit the lives of others. In other words, help to solve their problems.
Once you give this a lot of serious thought, you will find your passion as well as how your passion can help others in valuable ways.
Any thoughts or comments on this philosophy? I’d love to hear what you think in the comments section below.
The Next Step
How can you write Blogs that will help solve problems? First, develop the vision in your mind and second, share it with the world on your website using quality content. Be a teacher. Use friendly persuasion. Open the eyes of others so that they can see the vision you have. Once it clicks with your reader, purchasing the products you are promoting will become automatic.
Here is how you do that?
Find other successful bloggers in your niche and study their articles like crazy. Your intention should not be to copy their style, but to incorporate what they are doing using your own unique style. Your reader must feel immediately when starting to read your article that you are authentic. If they get any hint that you’re fake, they will exit your blog, never to return again. You have to be genuine, Even if it means writing less than perfect articles in the beginning.
You got to write, write and write more and more articles again, again and again. Research, write and rank.
Quality content, and lots of it, will help transform your website into an Authority site. This is what Google is looking for to justify ranking you high and driving traffic to your blogs. Until you reach that level, typing your keywords into Google will not necessarily rank you on the first page. Look at the websites that comes up on the first page as a result of your search. ignore the ones with paid ads. Now check out the relevant posts on those websites. Study them.
How are they different to yours? Count the number of posts on these websites. How many do you have in comparison? When you reach and exceed 100 quality posts, Google will start to give you some respect. You must be passionate or really like your niche to write a lot about it.
Beyond the Skills I Listed Above
There are other skills involved such as building your website for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
The two biggest search engines are Google and Bing. Yahoo is closely associated with Bing. They both offer free tools to help track the status of your website using metrics like traffic, optimized for the desktop computer and mobile devices. The latter is gaining more important today because people use their mobile devices a lot to search for solutions. Smart Phones are readily at hand when they need to find an answer to something.
There are loads of training available online where you can develop these skills’s. Let’s ask you a question. How quickly do you want to create a search engine optimized website that will attract sufficient traffic?
How would you like to learn what to do to convert that traffic to sales?
You have three options.
- Find free courses online and try to make this work by yourself.
- Pay for quality courses that will teach you how to go on the fast track to success.
- Pay others to do this for you.
The first will make you go crazy. There is so much online. How can you decide what are the best free courses to take? You could end up spinning your wheels for much longer than you think. It an also lead you astray.
There are so many organizations and individuals who offer paid courses. But how much can you afford? Many of them will get you hooked for a low entry price or even for free. Then bombard you with up sells later to access the really good stuff! I am not saying the prices they charge are not warranted, even if they happen to be thousands of dollars.
Compare these with the cost of university courses. Learning to master the Internet to make money can have no limit to your earning power, unlike being trained for a job that is the case with most college courses. How do you fairly price acquiring this knowledge?
The last is the easy way out. It will cost you the most. You will always be dependent on others and subject to their billing charges. Think about it. If you can afford to pay big bucks why do you need to build a business anyway?
What If There Is A Better Way To Learn These Skills?
What if there is a company that does charge, but only a nominal fee to teach you everything you need to know to build an online business? And this fee will never go up. No up sells either.
What would you consider a fair price to pay to create a successful business online? What if you find out that thousands of individuals just like you learned these skills’s from this company and now have successful online businesses?
How much would you be willing to pay? $200 a month? $300 a month? Even $500 a month would be worth it to access a proven training system that has worked for over 14 years to generate successful online entrepreneurs.
How much are YOU willing to pay?
What if I told you it costs a paltry $49 a month! But wait! You do not even have to pay that to check it out. You can get access to this amazing system for free, no credit card required. Also, there is no time limit for the free access. You will be able to kick the tires. Sure. there are limits on how much access you will have for free. I assure you it will be enough to help you decide if this is right for you. Plus, as a free member you will have access to the first 10 lessons in two training modules. That is a total of 20 value packed lessons.
There is NO RISK TO YOU!
Are you ready to check this out? I am going to lift the curtains in a very special blog post that reveals exactly how Wealthy Affiliate empowers you. Click the article below for this sneak peak. This is something I should not be doing since it is free to join. However, I want you to make an informed decision even for the free starter membership. Click the article below:
The Best Training In Affiliate Marketing That Turns Beginners Into Pros!
To sign up for free all you have to do is click one of the banners within this article and enter a valid Email address. That is it. And if you like what you see and want to upgrade within the first week, I will offer you a special bonus.
I was initially encouraged by a friend to get started in blogging but unfortunately when the time has come that I will finally get started, I heard that blogging is becoming obsolete now and that vlogging or video blogging via Youtube is the “in thing” now. Also, some friends are bragging they’re making money uploading videos on Youtube. Now, I’m confused and maybe you can help me by clarifying things. Should I pursue blogging or just opt for uploading vidoes on Youtube?
Hi Gomer,
You ask a very good question. When you enter a Keyword into a search engine that doesn’t mention Blog or Vlog, the chances are the first results will be Blog based material. Google still gives high marks for Blogs. They have even replaced Google + with the Google Discussion and Google Community on their YouTube brand to foster the written word.
YouTube Vlogging has become a very popular means of doing what was once done solely in Blogs. But why not do two for the price of one? I suggest writing a Blog first. Then create a Vlog based in the same topic. One can even reference the other.
In this way you will be able to maximize your efforts. One of my plans is to do precisely that in the future as a transition to creating full scale videos.
I already have YouTube Channel with almost 14k subs and almost 9M views. This is small potatoes as far as YouTube is concerned. But it does give me a platform to leverage my Vlogs when I make that move.
In summary, do both. Never sacrifice Blogging for only Vlogging. At least not yet!
Edwin
Thanks for putting this post up. It was really helpful to me seeing that I just started with wealthy affiliate recently. I am searching for the right niche for and I want to combine something that I love doing with something that can make money for me. Now I know what to add to that and that is, “I need to find a niche that is profitable to my potential customers.”
Thanks for this advice.
Henderson, glad I was of help. You may wish to find out the 10 qualities of a successful entrepreneur an article I wrote that will help you to develop your niche effectively.
All the best to you.
Edwin
What a great article full of useful information. Myself I have been in the blogging world off and on for over a decade now. But until a year ago I had not been committed to it.
Last year I decided I wanted my own online business and I adapted the affiliate marketing business model to do so. I also joined wealthy affiliate in order to learn everything I could about affiliate marketing. I tell you it was the best decision ever!. The best way to make money blogging is affiliate marketing!
Hi Cathy,
I am happy that you were persistent about blogging. You made a wise decision to be trained by Wealthy Affiliate to develop your blogging and promotional skills. This Blog recommends Wealthy Affiliate wholeheartedly.
My Blog, “The Best Training In Affiliate Marketing That Turns Beginners Into Pros” was written for individuals who are sitting on the fence regarding getting involved in Affiliate Marketing.
I wish you much success with your Affiliate Marketing business.
Edwin
Great advice for anyone thinking of starting out in Affiliate Marketing as a means of making money online, I particularly like the idea of not thinking about making money but more about how you can solve someone’s problem, some of the examples that you gave are worth looking into, Steve Jobs created Apple one of the biggest companies in the world selling a premium product. Writing a blog on Apple products could be a lucrative way to make money. Blogging about a subject that is near and dear to your heart is a better idea because you will have a passion for that subject to sustain you as you write your blog every week. Learning the skills of successful blog writing is available through the Wealthy Affiliate platform a place where successful affiliates hang out. Which part of the training at WA did you find the most helpful?
Well done
Fintan
Hi Fiintan,
I am glad you found the basis of my Blog, namely, to create an online business to solve problems for others using ones niche, a good idea. You asked a good question about what part of the training at WA I find the most helpful.
Since I have lots more of the training to complete, I can only base my answer on the training modules I have completed. Since my article is about Blogging, I found Kyle’s month 2 Super Affiliate Challenge on how to write content efficiently very helpful.
Since the aim to become an authority site is based on the number of blogs on ones website, it is important to write efficiently and write often. This training helps one to do precisely that.
I wish you much success in your online business.
Edwin
I have been working on a couple of sites for a few months now but have felt as though I was lacking something but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I think, without wanting to ‘jump the gun’ as it were, that I may well have found it and more in you article. I have never really understood the phrase ‘solving other people’s problems’ in relationship to being able to sell something via a blog. I think my mindset has always been along the lines of ‘products’.
After reading your post I realized that I have actually had experience in this context though not in the form of a website. The ‘ethos’ was the same I just hadn’t realized it till now. I once turned my hand to selling second hand computers and laptops. I would buy broken or outdated systems and then either fix them or upgrade them.
My goal was not to sell and make a huge profit, moreover to make the consumer aware that they could buy a low cost unit that would still do everything they needed it to do. Why was this important ? Well, because I felt that ‘buyers’ were being sold products that far exceeded their needs at a higher price. They were exactly being ‘ripped off’ more they weren’t being told the whole story when it came to what they needed, or in this case, what they didn’t need. I had, in a physical sense, found my niche and their problem.
Not sure why that particular ‘Penny’ hadn’t dropped until now but I am thankful to you that it has. I now have clarity.
Hi Twack,
I love your analogy about refurbishing and selling low cost old computers about being good enough for specific customers. In some ways doing affiliate reviews can achieve that objective with any product.
It comes down to matching the features of a products to the benefits the consumer is seeking. They may not need the top of the line version at a higher cost if a similar product with less features that meet their needs will suffice.
Glad my article was able to make the other penny drop!
Edwin
This was a very in-depth article that explained clearly about how to make money blogging using the best and proven methods available today. I picked up a lot and will definitely incorporate the lessons into my own online business, as a large piece of it includes generating traffic, leads, and sales from our blogs.
Blogging itself is a way to successfully build a business using an affiliate marketing model, and the blog format can also be used with other forms of business models, from e-commerce to agency services for offline businesses. Blogging lends itself to all kinds of business and finding the right niche and audience are the keys I think no matter where you add a blog.
Blogging skills are an important piece of the overall puzzle for many online businesses because that is what your potential customers see and read about them first. As you say there are a lot of other moving parts that have to be mastered to make it all work together too, these are somewhat behind the face that readers of your blog see…
That is where having a strong and up-to-date training program that also has the tools that you need to get a proper start comes in handy. Wealthy Affiliate is one such platform. It is where I got my start and I can highly recommend it, it has worked well for me.
Hello Dave,
Thanks for your insightful comments. There is more to blogging than meets the eye. a lot of training to do it right as well as the need to master the behind the scenes “moving parts” as you so aptly termed it is so true.
Wealthy Affiliate is the best starting point to create a successful online business. Especially for Affiliate Marketing. The training given is in depth and complete in most areas. It is reassuring to see how many successful Affiliate Marketers graduated from Wealthy Affiliate.
I wish you much success in your online business.
Edwin