This is a guest post by Zac Johnson from ZacJohnson.com.
One of the biggest problems I see with people who are just starting their blog or have big plans to get rich from blogging, is that they don’t create a strategic plan before they get started. The biggest misconception about blogging is that it’s easy to make money and build an established site of your own.
Anyone can buy a domain, choose a web host and throw up a WordPress driven site. Anyone can also start writing great content and posting once or twice a week. Even after a few months and having written 20-30 original articles, you are still basically without a business model and plan. Blogging is one of the slowest forms of making money online and if you don’t have a plan in place, you may never end up making money at all.
This is where your planning comes into play. You have to think about what you are going to do with your blog before you even get started. That is what we are going to discuss in the article and hopefully set you on the right path.
Blogging for Passion… or Profit?
Yes yes… everyone says you need to be passionate about what you are blogging and writing about, but the truth is, most of the time the money will never follow. You can write all day about how much you love sports or television shows, but these are two extremely hard niches to convert traffic in. If you are a die hard coupon fanatic and love updating your blog with the latest coupons, then this is a niche that you can make good money in fast.
No matter your passion or niche, you need to be realistic and think about how you can monetize the traffic you are blogging for.
How to Convert Traffic Once You Get It
If you build it, they will come. In some cases this is true, but once they do come… what are you going to do with them. The days of throwing Google Adsense on your site and making a few pennies per click and losing visitors to your site are still here… but they shouldn’t be.
People are smarter now and they know how to monetize their traffic better. Focus on better monetization practices while also offering value to your blog readers. Link specific products on Amazon.com if discussed on your site, earn commissions through affiliate programs and even sell your own direct advertising… but don’t rely on pennies from Google Adsense to pay your bills.
Focus Your Content on the Reader’s End Goal
Writing for the search engines will only get you so far. Instead you should be focusing on writing for your readers and keeping them engaged once they get to your site. As mentioned earlier, if you were to run a coupon site, then you would want to tell your site visitors where to download and print the latest and greatest coupons. You could then redirect them through an affiliate link an earn a commission on each download.
It doesn’t matter what niche or focus your blog is in, as long as you are providing the users with what they are looking for. This doesn’t mean you need to have sales page content, but just enough useful and direct information about what they put in the search engines to get to your page in the first place.
There are three reasons why people use the internet; research, to buy something or to be entertained. If your blog is helping them with their research they are more likely to buy. Likewise, if someone stumbles across your site while they are in a buying mode, it’s even more likely that you can convert them into a provider reader or customer.
Putting Everything Together
The process of turning a fresh WordPress blog into a business is quite the task, but it’s much easier when you have an idea where you would like to be down the road. Don’t be afraid to try different ideas and even outsource your content writing to find new writing styles and increase your ability to get fresh content out there faster.
No blogs become an instant success over night, or even in their first few weeks!
Stick with it and you might just have one of those successful blogs that inspires others to start a blog of their own.
Nice Post
Planning is very important for new blogs, if you plan well your Blog Growth speed will increase, and its true Google adsense is not the favorite option to monetize blog because it kills the look and feel of the blog and also take away our visitors, and some people can use Adsense against you to steal your readers by targeting ads on your blog, and you can’t stop them if you are using Ad sense.
That’s an interesting and effective way to gain targeted advertising through the use of Google Adwords (Adsense) as an advertiser. Yet another reason why Adsense isn’t the best use of monetization for sites.
Nishant, although Adsense might not bring enough money it can be a great way to make your blog look bigger. Nowadays there are so many blogs and even if you write a lot of articles and post only quality stuff it is still not enough.
I think a blogger should start with no ads and once it gets enough traffic to put ads just so that the site looks more established. The real income can come from advertisers that come directly to you. You can find these on forums or on specific sites. If your site looks established you have a better chance of convincing someone to pay more money to advertise his product/service on your blog.
Really a good post and you explained it very nicely and clearly. Now a days Blogging has become a great earning source for many professionals out there and many newbie Bloggers are entering the industry.
But they don’t have any particular goal or strategy but they just follow the footsteps of other successful bloggers. This article will surely help them on how to go ahead with their Blogging adventure.
Thanks glad you liked it! It’s easy for anyone to throw up a blog, but actually having a focused topic that you can target and get profitable with is a whole new world.
Well put Zac. Today’s bloggers are lucky coz they have many people to tell them this. I have started a few failure projects just because I never decided on the purpose before I started. I just started a blog, went with the flow and did so many mistakes and finally lesson learned!
Thanks for the nice tips Zac.
Definitely. There is also so much crap out there being sold on web sites and marketing packages, yet everything you really need to know and do is out there for free. It’s just a matter of looking around and putting what you know into action.
Hi Zac,
Develop a strong, pulsating “Why”. Why do you want to blog?
Bottle that emotion. Wrap it up. The feeling is your driver, your inspirational force.
The feeling leads you through resistance: struggles, limiting beliefs, etc.
The feeling makes your life easier. Because you will persist and learn all you need to know to successfully blog with a strong “Why” in place.
You act because you have a strong reason to act. Find the reason. Dwell on the idea.
Fall in love with your “Why”. You will attract the ideas, people and circumstances to help you become a successful blogger if you make this emotion crystal clear in your mind.
Thanks!
RB
Definitely… “WHAT” and “WHY” and “HOW”…
WHAT can you do better than everyone else out there?
WHY will people want to use my site?
HOW can I make money with this idea?
I think nowadays, it is most important to have strategic plan for doing blogging successfully. One must have a plan for making blogging successful and growing it in the future. One must focus on the content and the end goal for your goal to make it perfect as it is not only for monetizing. You can earn from it if it has something worth to read for the visitors for what they have been looking for.
Hi Zac,
You have given a straight and simple message to all bloggers who want to bounce on the market and make their mark.Knowing the end before starting should always be kept in mind and everyone should blog keeping this the main concern.
I never have thought that one day I’ll take my blog from just a computing tips & tricks giving source site to a high competitive blogging area. Now, when I too want my blog to be one out of 100 others blog in the very first page of Google, I can feel feel the competition around.
I just have started my blog to give some computing tips & tricks that I know to my school friends later with interest of readers I took into a high level, that is, marketing. Without it I don’t think writing anything in my blog will ever go to the right audience.
You said it well, planning is must. But… as new/established blog comes with loads of expectation, planning too sometimes not get succeed. I have planned enough for my blog but I don’t remember if I’m working under any plan that I made previously for my blog.
All I know is, just going with my audience will keep me & my blog Alive for few more new happening years! And that’s all I want from my hard work.
Good post. I think people often underestimate how much work it takes to develop and the maintain a successful blog. Those who start a blog with a view to making money will find it a long hard slog. Even if you have a great idea and amazing content, it will still take a mammoth effort to promote it and connect users to your blog.
I think that you have outlined some of the resons that my own personal blog has not seen much improvement. My main priority is blogging for business I work for and the blogs involve highly technical content and consumes a lot of my time. I decided create my own blog and write for that as well. Except for this blog, I did not have a plan, target audience, or any idea of what I wanted to blog about. I guess this is an aha moment and I should sit down and do some planning for my own blog
well Zyac,i agree with you that planning is very essential in the blog to make your traffic busy .if your post is attractive means attention to people then you may increase the traffic rate of your website and one more thing update your site regularly and posts more and more blogs.
nice topic.