Demands for product or service creates job. Demand for food, garment, and houses creates farmer, tailor, carpenter, builder, and so on. As the years go by, the world becomes more advanced. People need more thing and demand for things that weren’t quite heard before has increased. People need smartphone, internet, delivery service, and such, creating even new job openings for position our parents may not even have the slightest idea about it. One of the demands, is demand for information.
Information is very valuable, and people are willing to pay if they can get quality information from expert. Information from consultant or research company, for example, determines a company’s strategy, and can cost millions of dollars.
It’s not only companies who wants valuable information, but individuals as well. People are willing to pay a hefty amount of money to send their kids to college – to gain knowledge and skill (in shorts, information). However, there are so many subjects that aren’t covered in college or other formal education, yet people need to get a better life.
When formal subject isn’t offered, people are looking for information in the media – TV, radio, newspaper, website, and blog.
Blog with topics range from health to lifestyle are scattered all over the internet, because people demand an information source. Blog do well, because as a source of information, it is highly personal and relatable. Unlike TV or radio or newspaper that give out information from third-person point of view, blogger gives out information to reader from first-person point of view, gaining reader’s trust and interest.
If you want to join hundreds of bloggers doing blog for a job, here is how you start.
1. Pick a niche and be clear about it
Niche picking is important. It’s the foundation of your blogging business. There are plenty of competition, and to make yourself stand out, make yourself as unique as possible. To pick a niche, first, understand yourself. What is it in yourself that other people don’t have? What is your expertise? What is your passion? For your information, expertise doesn’t always come from formal education. Life experience can give you more insight and knowledge, as well. For example, if you’ve battled with anxiety before, you can decide to write a blog about mental health. However, it’s still a fairly generic theme. Make it more specific, for example write a blog about mental health for single parents with children.
2. Set up the blog and write high quality content
Next, build the blog and start filling it with high quality content. Hire a web designer if necessary, just make sure your blog doesn’t look cheap. It’s hard to trust people (or blog) that looks cheap. Write clear information about who you are, what the blog is about, and how to contact you.
When you write the content for your blog, make sure it offers value for the reader. Don’t just write to fulfill word quota, but make it a motto in your head that when your readers finish reading, they will gain something from it. Write personal experience that many people can relate with.
3. Attract traffic
Next, reveal your content to the whole world. As long as you’ve written high quality articles, all that matters after that is spreading it to let people know. Always put share button in the end of the article, so readers can spread the good stuff of your blog to their friends and followers. Guest blogging helps in exposing you to new potential readers. Be active in social media and promote your blog through it.
4. Convert traffic to leads, nurture leads and gain customers’ trust
Once readers arrive at your blog and realize that your content helps them, they’ll be back. Retain the quality of your blog and interact with readers, making yourself easy to communicate with. Do this consistently for a long time to gain their trust.
5. Make money
In blogging, you can make money three ways:
1. By selling advertisement
Selling space in your blog for advertisement is the easiest way to make money from your blog, but remember a life rule: little effort, little result. The rate for space in your blog is usually not much. You can sell the space directly to a company, but unless you’ve been fairly big in the game, you don’t really have that much bargaining power. If you have pretty high traffic, then you can probably do better with pay-per-click advertisement like Google AdSense.
2. By engaging in affiliate marketing
In affiliate marketing, your aim is to redirect your reader to buy products offered by someone else. Niche is very important for affiliate marketing, because you know you are offering products or services to people who eitheractually needs it or at least care about it. Many successful bloggers make products review with link to buy at the end of the post, many others give practical and useful tips that can be done with the promoted products. There’s no limit on how to incorporate a product link in a blog post. Some companies may even willing to give you 50% of the profit as the commission, because unlike advertisement, affiliate marketing gives them sales.
3. By selling your own product.
This requires the hardest effort since you have to research on your own what your readers want develop the product that suits their need. However, the profit exceeds affiliate marketing by a landslide, provided that you already have strong base of customers. Again, choosing a niche in which you’re expert at is important, since this time, the credibility and quality of your product is the one you are selling.
Making a living by blogging is not only possible, but also promising. It is, however, have proportionate graphic of effort and result. If you really intend to make a living by blogging only, then realize that you have to commit on time and effort for the result you want. If you want to blog as a side job, you can put less effort, but you can still gain profit, although arguably smaller. The key point is, it’s entirely possible to blog for a living, and the only thing stopping you is doubt.