Creating a Successful Blog

Starting a blog and the fact you can earn money can seem unrealistic. Now more and more people are starting to create blogs, hundreds every day. The best way to have a successful blog and earn money from it is to create content that your readers can relate to. The plus side with so many blogs being created daily is that you are only competing with the blogs within your niche. Once your readers get to know you, they’ll want to follow your journey. This is why having a niche is a powerful thing. A blog allows you to be heard, share your opinions, and create conversation.

Don’t think about your competition, work on finding your own voice. The blog you create is about your own ambitions and attitude so don’t underestimate yourself. Starting a blog is quite easy but making it a successful blog and profitable is the daily hustle.

Find “Your Thing”

A few things to ask yourself to help you out with this is, “What am I passionate about?”, “What do I enjoy talking about?”, “What do I find myself daydreaming of?”. These are all important things to find answers to. For some these answers are easy but others may have a more difficult time answering them. Writing down what you enjoy can be helpful in this situation. It’s definitely a good starting place.

Potentially your list can end up having multiple different things or topics. You’ll want to rank them from what you are most passionate about at the top to least passionate about. When doing this, you could find that a few things can be put into a larger category/group. That is completely fine and helpful to finding your niche.

You may be a fashion blogger with a passion for travel or a fitness blogger with a passion for creating budgets and helping people pay off debt. You’ll need to identify what “your thing” is in order to have your profitable, successful blog.

Blog About Your Passion

This correlates to the previous topic but this is where your creativity comes into play. Think of a minimum of 3-6 blog topic ideas you can write about. If you can easily expand on those then you’re on your way to figuring out your niche or may have definitely found it. Need a little push? Go look up some blog topics you’re passionate about and see if they spark more ideas for you.

The goal of your blog is to help others, your readers. So if you have a travel blog, you’ll want to find topics to help people figure out where to go on their next vacation or how to find great travel deals. There’s always people looking to better themselves, learn to cook or find new recipes, how to get fit, get into fashion, and so much more! Feel like you want to write on more than one topic? Lifestyle blogs are a great way to go. They mainly focus on one topic but also interlace other topics as well.

Create and Launch Your Blog

Launching your blog may seem intimidating with all the tools and posts about how to do it like a professional. You don’t need to be a professional to begin your blogging journey. What platform you use isn’t as important as what you have to say.

The main two platforms that bloggers seem to use are WordPress and Blogger. There are pros and cons to both as well as other platforms such as SquareSpace. There’s important things to consider when starting to blog such as hosting, domain name, branding, and your theme.

My favorite platform by far is WordPress. I feel it’s the most powerful and customizable and it is completely free, you only need to get hosting. For hosting I recommend SiteGround. It’s affordable, has fantastic customer support, and 1-click integration with WordPress or they can do the transfer for you.

Make a Content Plan

This is the key to blogging as you typically want to stay on a schedule for your posts. Of course without a plan or expected post date for your posts, you’ll fall behind or procrastinate. Been there, done that! If you’re serious about making your blog profitable and successful, you’ll need to stay committed. A blog calendar can be a big help for staying caught up with your posts and not falling behind. Being consistent with how often you want to blog is key, you can decide to post 2-3 days a week, twice a month, or once a week. That decision is entirely up to you.

If you’re just starting out, you’ll want to have content lined up to post. Your goal should be one per category you plan to talk about. This sets your foundation up as well as the tone of your blog. You want these to be things to get people hooked on your blog and keep them coming back for more.

Promoting and Growing You Blog

Of course you need to have readers and people visiting your blog in order for it to be a success. Without people coming to your blog, it won’t be profitable or sustainable as a business. You need to be creating valuable content and share it with your community so other know about it. You want to connect with your audience and help them be better or solve an issue depending on what your topic is. Make sure it is inspirational, motivational, educational, or all of the above.

Social media is extremely important in this adventure. If you don’t have any business social media accounts you can either create them or connect your blog to your personal accounts. You want to be on as many social media platforms as possible and be sharing to them as well. The more you share and interact with your readers and followers, the more your blog will grow.

Monetizing Your Blog

There’s literally dozens of ways you can earn money from your blog. Remember that what you put into your blog is what you will get out of your blog. Be patient as you grow your blog as for most this doesn’t just happen overnight.

Some ways to earn money from your blog are affiliate programs, ads, sponsorships, brand collaborations, selling services whether digital or physical, selling things you know how to do such as workshops, events, e-courses. These are just a few way to earn money with your blog. You may find certain affiliates pay out more than others or that you prefer only certain ads or maybe no ads on your blog. How you decide to monetize is again, your choice.

In order to work with some brands, you’ll need a media kit. This is simple and basic in most cases and shares how many followers you have, brands you have previously worked with, and maybe even the type of promotions you are interested in. You don’t need to mention your rates if you charge in your initial email.

Well you made it, and I hope you find these tips helpful in creating a profitable and successful blog in 2018.
What are your best tips for growing your blog? Do you have a favorite way to earn income for your blog?
Let me know in the comments below, it may be helpful to others.