Well, I’ve had a blog for more than 5 years here in the Romanian market and now a .com blog (this one actually!), and after countless hours of studying this topic, I think I’ve pretty much understood how people make money blogging! Thanks to all the great blogs out there such as ViperChill and Pat over at smartpassiveincome! Those are just 2 money blogs that I also read, and find valuable information on them constantly about making money from blogging. Both of those guys make tons of money from blogging!
Now, on to YOUR MONEY MAKING BLOGGING/READING JOURNEY!
There is a blueprint for making money with a blog, and I will share it here with you.
There are 3 things that you need in order to do this:
1 Your own blog – dooooh
2 A decent and constant amount of traffic and subcribers to your blog
3 A product (digital or not) to sell
I will now go into detail and try to talk about each of these 3 must haves.
1 Let’s take the blog creation part first!
Your blog should be unique. It should have a .com ending. I know there are free sites out there that let you make a blog without having to pay for hosting and a domain name, but trust me, in the long run you’ll be happy to have bought a .com site. Plus,it’s only $30 or something like that. We aren’t kids anymore remember, we are business men! 
Your blog must have a nice looking design in order for people to not be bothered. Don’t go over the fence with this, but please, do take some time to choose a right template and right color scheme for your blog. There are tons of freebies on this, free templates, free .css files.
I think your best choice would be to go with a programming company for the actual implementation of the site, but if that’s a to expensive where you live, just download WordPress (a free program which you can install and have your site up in minutes!)
The templates for your site can also be downloaded from WordPress directly. A template is just a skin for your site. Make sure to chose your template wisely. It should have features, as many as possible, while still being SEO friendly. A great paid theme that I use here on VictorStuff is Insignia. Just Google it, I strongly recommend it if you have the money to buy a paid theme.
A great Free Theme that is really SEO friendly is Thesis. Again, just Google it and you’ll find it.
The content is now the thing that should be on your mind the most. The content should be so great, so enticing and answer your readers needs. For example, if you came to this article right here from Google and were looking for a way to creat your blog or improve your blog’s money making, then my job is to answer your question with this post (altough frankly this is a subject for a book, not a post, but I’ll try my best to point about as much information as I can).
When you offer people great content, they are more inclined to revisit your site and like it!
2 How to generate traffic
Traffic is the most important thing in this. You will need to have that in mind as soon as you start out. You can drive traffic to your site via:
- social media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace -it is growing back-, StumbleUpon)
- google and other search engines
- offline advertising
- writing good stuff that people will recommend
Your main goal with your traffic should be to have people subscribe to your site or list. This way you make sure they are avid readers of your content. This is often done by giving them something valuable FOR FREE. Yap, it’s all about the value given. Actually give them something which they will love and be happy with. Teach them something.
Social Media traffic is done easily. Head on over to Facebook and create a Fan Page. This is really easy, just follow the steps from Facebook. Try to use the same name of your site. When you have a Facebook Fan Page, share it with your friends. Try to have contests on it, in which you’ll give something away for free in exchange for a like on one of your posts.
Most importantly update it daily! That goes for Twitter page and any other social page relating to your site!
Google and other search engines will give you the meat of your traffic. Google works by keywords (the phrases typed into it by people searching stuff) Use Google’s Keyword Tool to find about about the most searched terms. Go for terms with high search volume, but not to high competition. Find out about the competition by searching for that term yourself and seeing the results.
A high competition usually means that the first page is full of big sites like Amazon or Men’s Health or other big sites like that. Use your common sense. Fight with the small guys first.
Once you have a few keywords in mind, right using them, use them in your metadiscription and keywords section of your site and posts!
Great Tip for your traffic: Use CloudFlood. Great tool from ViperChill. (No affiliation,I don’t get a commission, I just appreciate what they did for me!)
3 What should I sell?
The product is the way you make money. You can affiliate yourself with somebody’s product, or you can go ahead and sell your own stuff, if you do have it. Now, this is the part in which the traffic comes in handy.
If you don’t want to do neither of those, you can always sell space on your site to other companies! I personal think that that is the least profitable things to do.
There are many great affiliation programs, you can use ClickBank, Amazon Affiliates, you can contact companies in your niche yourself! Now, the thing is you should sell what your audience wants. This will help you to not bother them and will increase the money you are making. Also, be frank about your promotions, tell people that you are getting a commission from what they are buying!
Most importantly use the product yourself first!
If you go with your own product selling approach, make sure it is something that your audience wants.
So, in either case, you should make a list of your usual reader. Answer these:
How old is he?
What are his interests?
What are his goals?
Are there any other blogs that he is reading? In my niche?
This will help you get a better idea of what type of product he may be interested in.
Only sell stuff that is good and that people want. This is the only way to make money.
