Can you really make money blogging? A resounding “Yes!” Here are 5 steps to earn passive income.
After blogging for almost 9 years, I can make money blogging. Money not only enough to pay the monthly internet bills but also extra money to bring food on the table and tools I have been yearning to buy for quite a time.
It all started as a hobby, because I knew nothing about website building and how to monetize a blog. All I heard and read about was just blogging can earn money.
I’ll sum up in 5 ways how I eventually earned enough to not only pay for snacks but enough money to buy other things. Otherwise, I would not have been able to do without that extra money earned through blogging.
5 Steps to Make Money Blogging
I list the five ways I did to make money blogging below and expound on them in the next sections.
- Start writing on an online writing site.
- Create a website.
- Monetize your website when you get enough website traffic.
- Note Google’s keyword-oriented algorithm.
- Speed up and maintain your website.
1. Start writing
I started writing way back in 2012 when the internet is just gaining ground as a major avenue for communication. The prime motivation for such writing was the possibility of earning money on the sides. And there was an opportunity to write for such sites as Triond, Hubpages, Wikinut, Ezinearticles, Factoidz, and similar sites that pay.
The highest I earned that time was $5 an article. I wrote a few hundred articles on anything I could think of. Anything under the sun is acceptable. I made money blogging on those sites.
However, I noticed that the longer I stayed to write for such blogging sites, the lesser I get paid. Perhaps the writing sites have become so flooded with people writing a lot to earn. There’s more competition, and the owners of such online writing sites have more authors to pay. Thus, fewer earnings for everyone.
Another thing is that those online writing sites did not last long. I mean, not all of them had persisted to this day. There are more opportunities for writers to make money blogging by themselves. The online writing sites I made money blogging gradually faded away: Triond was gone, and Factoidz changed into Knoji, then was taken over by another management, I believe. Only selected writers continued to write in Knoji on topics I don’t even know how to write or interested to write—product reviews.
Besides, website creation has become easier. Anyone can build their own website and make 100% of earnings from what they figured out as ways to earn money through their blogs. So that’s just what I did. I built my website.
2. Create a website
I tried out several website development tools I found online and built websites using them: webnode.com, freewebs (now web.com), Joomla, and finally, I settled on WordPress. From drag-and-drop technology to simple web development offered by WordPress, I gained skills in web development through almost a decade of using them.
Since I put up my website using WordPress about 5 years ago as I can no longer remember when it all started, I have not monetized it more effectively than in recent years. Putting up a website and make money blogging is not an effortless task. You need to learn about Search Engine Optimization or SEO, identify the right keywords to rank high in search engines, and write interesting content that will attract readers to bring in that much needed traffic.
Why be conscious of the web traffic on your website? Of course, more traffic means more opportunities to sell them whatever you can do—to monetize those traffic. That brings us to the next step—monetize your website and make money blogging.
3. Monetize your website
I love writing or blogging at that as it allows me to vent whatever I have in mind. It’s a cathartic hobby for me.
However, doing things online means spending money to keep the website up and running. I would admit, I can’t afford to just blog and spend a substantial amount of money to keep my website up. The goal is to attract an audience, so I will have an increased opportunity to monetize my website. I would like to enjoy writing or blogging and earn passive income.
A primary requirement to earn substantially is to gain at least tens of thousands of readers or views of your article posted online. Some ad companies require you to have at least 10,000 page views a month. That translates to about 300 plus page views per day.
Starting out on a website will bring you about 50 page views in 5 months if you intermittently write in your blog. Writing regularly will increase this number significantly. The aim is to reach that 10,000 page view per month to qualify for monetization, although less than that number would qualify for ad displays.
In those times that the web traffic on my website was less than the ideal number, I wrote several e-books that earned some amount to pay internet dues. But it’s not enough. It takes an excellent author to sell his own self-published book. It can be added strategy to make money. But it’s not enough—I have to attract more traffic.
That brings us to the next topic: understanding the role of keywords.
4. Keywords are key to make money blogging
You can write the best way you can. But you can never make money blogging if you know nothing about keywords. Google dominates this matter. The foundation of all traffic, I would say, is knowing the what and how of keyword use.
There are many keyword tools online to guide you on what keywords would work best with ads to monetize traffic. There are free ones and paid ones that prompt you to subscribe and get suggestions on the highest paid keywords that will guide you on what topics to write about.
I learned, however, that what works best is that you write about something you are very well familiar with. Have your own niche and write within and along that niche or things that you can discuss as an expert. You cannot write about something you are not quite competent enough to guide your audience.
And that’s just what I did. I write on things that I’m very much familiar. On things that people look for information. I connect with those people who search for a much needed content to help them with their specific concern.
How to articles are very much in demand. Teach people what you know and engage them to do it and see some results—using the keyword or long-tail keywords that people look for in Google Trends.
Despite this knowledge, if you own your website as a blogging platform to house your articles, you have to be all familiar with ways of how to speed up your website.
Why?
That’s because internet users jump to the next article if your article is slow loading. People are impatient. They would glance at your article in 4 seconds or less. If it doesn’t load as fast as they expect it to be, then they’re gone. You get a high bounce rate.
There are things you need to do to speed up your website when that happens. I have tips that considerably increase website speed in the next section.
5. Speed up your website and maintain that speed
You miss a lot on website traffic if your website is slow. Aim for a 90 plus performance in both mobile and desktop access to your website.
I use GTMetrix to measure the speed of my website. It suggests ways on how to improve your website’s speed. You just have to follow those suggestions.
One thing that I’m pretty sure that could help your website—make your home page as simple as you can. Simple means you don’t put in a lot of pictures and text on that page.
Why?
That’s because all those pictures, traffic, and even embedded video will slow down page loading—of your home page—which is a critical step to enable your audience to access the other pages of your website.
Embedded video means putting in that code you copied from YouTube or any other share link from other websites. Those will slow page loading. Hence, it’s best that you host your own video if you have a good hosting provider.
In writing the pages of your website, limit the use of pictures. Just have one or two that depict what your write up is all about. If you write about how to feed a cat, then you can include a cat picture where you are feeding it. Those pictures should be relevant. Anything you put on that specific page must contribute to its message.
You must realize that steps to make money blogging require patience, persistence, and consistence. I wrote over 300 online articles, varying in length from 600 to 3,000 words.
But looking at Big Data Analytics provided by Google Analytics, the sweet spot appears to be in the 1,500 to 2,500 word range. More people read articles in this word range—at least in my reference-oriented site.
The bottom line: study your audience. Learn their preference. It’s not the same for everyone—your website’s genre and the nature of your topics matter.
For me, whether the article is short or long, as long as they are informative, I don’t force my articles to be written in that “ideal” word range. The patience of everyone is not the same. Also, the motivation and desire to know more will cause your readers to stay more on your page.
Now, I make money blogging freely. I have written over 300 articles on my primary site. And I earn more than enough to stay financially afloat and survive the pandemic by the passive income I get from ad impressions that go with the content I post.
Most post means more income. As long as you research what people need, satisfy that need and add more information as you can, then you will surely make money blogging.
This is the ultimate path on how to make money blogging—write great content that helps someone else. Earn passive income while you sleep to get some rest.
And of course, enjoy writing. Keep the fire burning.
