Your Blog CAN Make Money
Four Keys to Making Money with Your Blog
By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin
There are an estimated 600 million blogs worldwide. In fact, many blogs have been created and abandoned (not active). How can you turn your blog into a money maker? I'm going to point out four keys and then point to a 31 day resource to learn more.
I understand there is stiff competition for eyeballs on a blog and the earning potential for a freelance writer may seem remote. Since 2008, I've been blogging at The Writing Life with over 1500 searchable entries. Follow this link to see it. In this article, I want focus on three important aspects of successful blogging:
1. Target Audience. No blog (or any writing) is for everyone. Your blog needs be written to a particular group of people and have this target in focus with each of your articles. This focus will help you attract an audience and grow it.
2. Consistent Information. Some people decide to blog once a month which you can certainly do but it is not often enough in my view. Others decide to blog every day and after several weeks, they run out of steam and abandon their blog. I've been posting on my blog every week for years. It doesn't seem like much but there are over 1500 searchable entries which translates into a great deal of information. Every writer needs to figure out what pace will work for them, then deliver excellent information and quality writing over and over.
3. Regular Promotion. Are you giving people a way to pass along your blog posts? I'm talking about using tools like ClickToTweet or other such resources. I consistently use ClickToTweet at the bottom of my blog posts and every week, people use this tool to pass along my articles to their own followers. Are you providing a way on your blog for people to subscribe and receive the updates via email? Email is still one of the best ways to reach people. Every time I write a new entry, I post about it through my social media connections. This regular promotion of my current (and older entries) is an important aspect of blogging.
How do you make money from your blog? In my opening I promised four keys. You can use one or any combination of these ideas to help you make money from your blog.
1. Create A Blook. You can take your random blog entries (particularly if they are for a specific target audience) and organize them into a book. Within publishing, we call this product a Blook (or a book from a blog). Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams was created from my blog entries. To do it successfully, this process involves a lot of work but you have the raw writing in your blog. Originally I self-published this book and sold several thousand copies but the updated edition is available in bookstores everywhere. You can see a sample here. You can make money with your book or blook.
2. Build Your Audience. One of the ways to build your audience for your blog is to offer people to receive it via email. I use the Feedblitz for this service for a modest monthly fee. You want to make it easy for people to receive your new entries. As you have an audience (readers), you can gain people to purchase what you write about on your blog.
3. Use Affiliate Links. On your blog, you can write about different products, programs and services and use an affiliate link where if someone buys the product, you will get a percentage of that sale. It's diffeent in every case but this is another way for your blog to make money.
4. Exposure Can Lead to Assignments. Blogs are a public writing forum and as you use it, editors and agents and others looking for writers read your work. This process has led to writing work and assignments to write for magazines and other projects.
Many blogs start as a random series of thoughts. Strategic planning is key for your success—from the first article. Yes, you can make money with blogging.
I promised to include a resource for you to learn more about how to make money blogging. I have a 31 day course called The 31 Day Guide to Blogging for Bucks. I encourage you to check out this page and take advantage of my risk-free guarantee.
W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor, has made a living as a freelance writer for decades. He lives in Colorado. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. Get Terry’s newest book, 10 Publishing Myths for only $10, free shipping and bonuses worth over $200. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. The revised and updated edition will be out later this year. Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Connect with Terry on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.