There may be affiliate links in this article of questions for bloggers to answer, read the full disclaimer here.
Part one includes:
- Should I pay for hosting?
- Will people care what I write about?
- How do I get more traffic to my blog?
4. How do I make Money Blogging?
Ah so you want to make more money than Donald Trump saves on his tax return each year?
Enter mini rant!
So I know some bloggers who claim to not be interested in monetizing their blog.
And that’s great!
However, I know A LOT of bloggers who are interested in monetising it “some day”.
But they are not prepared to learn how to do this or figure out it’s possible
The way I see it is if you can monetise your blog to replace your income you can spend more time on it and really add value to more people.
So why wouldn’t you be interested in monetising your blog?
Unless you’re not interested in really adding value to others and it is just a hobby?!
End rant… sorry I’ll climb down from my pedestal now!
Anyhoo… there are 3 main ways to monetise a website/ blog/ YouTube account etc.
- Adverts/ Sponsors
- Affiliate Marketing
- Creating and selling your own products
Let’s dive in a bit more eh?…
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Adverts
Have you ever heard of Google Adsense?
This is the most common way of getting paid from having adverts on your website.
You know those ads at the start of a Youtube video? Yeah that’s Adsense.
The person who made the video will get around $0.04 per viewer (roughly!)
The same can be done on a website. You know those ads on at the side of a website?
Yep, you guessed it… same thing!
When you’re getting heaps of viewers every month this can be a great way to generate some cash.
If you’re like me then you probably get annoyed by these ads!
So if you are still pretty new, you may want to consider whether it’s worth putting them on your website to get a couple of dollars a month.
It’s personal preference and I know some people do it just to learn how it’s possible!
Affiliate marketing
Now, let me ask you this…
Are you interested in earning pennies or dollars?
Well, affiliate marketing is how you can start earning some dollars. This will be the main income for most people in the online world once they start to get established.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
It’s connecting people to a product they are looking for online.
A lot of people will want to get going with an online business and won’t really have their own products to sell.
So it’s possible to get a commission for recommending other people’s services or products (a commission of anything from 4-75%).
Here are some affiliate websites that many people will use to find a whole variety of products:
- Amazon Associates– anything!
- Shareasale– almost anything!
- Clickbank– mainly digital products
- CJ Affiliate program– almost everything
- Shopify– eCommerce
- Rakuten– Online store
And here are some popular individual affiliate links:
- Leadpages- Online marketing tool
- StudioPress- WordPress themes
- ConvertKit– Autoresponder
- Bluehost– Hosting service
- Tailwind– Pinterest scheduler
- Wealthy Affiliate– Affiliate marketing training, support and hosting service.
And last but certainly not least…
Create your own products
This is often where people make the big bucks online!
It’s typical for online marketers to make a bit of income from adverts and affiliate marketing.
Once this becomes regular the natural path is to create their own product, get others to be an affiliate of this and start gaining more of the profits from their product (100% if bought through their own website or however much is left over after paying an affiliate)
This is often when $10,000 a month becomes $100,000+ per month.
Read Michelle Schroeder-Gardner’s income report here.
However, there are cases where someone has a product they know the market would really want and dive straight into selling their own product
5. What Plugins Should I Use?
I wish I had the foresight to even be aware of what a plugin was when I started out!
Some of these are literally lifesavers, and I don’t know how I used to live without them!!
Here are the MUST HAVES:
Yoast SEO
This is the FIRST MUST HAVE!!
Literally, get this and learn the basics of writing for SEO.
Just remember to use this as a template NOT gospel!
SumoMe
This is how you can really drive your traffic and increase your sign-ups to your email list.
An absolute must-have if you have any interest in monetising your website.
Pretty Links
If you have affiliate links coming out of your ears then this is a great way to not let Google get suspicious about your website.
General rule:
If you are linking to related content then DO NOT use a pretty link. Google likes to see that you do link to relevant other real websites
If it’s an affiliate link, use a pretty link (it makes it look like it is an internal link to your website)
Some VERY close behind must haves:
W3 Cache
It makes your website faster.
Faster = better user experience = better SEO = good for you
Period.
EWWW
This is a great way to compress images to make your website load faster.
Fdsa I still compress my images using a free png compressor but this plugin compresses them EVEN more!!
This gives my website scores of 90+ out of 100 on desktops and even some 100’s!… (yes I need to improve my mobile speed!!)
Google Analytics
This is a great way to see your stats without having to log in to Google Analytics all the time.
It can also give you some VERY useful extras to see where traffic is coming from and help you to improve your traffic strategies.
IMPORTANT NOTE- Try not to have too many Plugins (5 or less is IDEAL) as this affects your website speed and therefore SEO.
You need to decide what is important for you at what time (you can always uninstall a plugin and bring it back in later)
6. Do I NEED to pay for a Training Course?
Let me ask you this question in another way.
Do you want to take your website as a serious online business?
The answer to that question will decide the answer to the first question.
You’re intelligent enough to know that the most successful people pay for courses or mentorships to fast track their learning.
If you want to be like them then you know what the answer is.
With all the scams and make money online courses you see out there it can be super hard to know whether to trust a course or not.
Related article:
There are literally thousands of people that create a course like this so it makes it really hard to know whom to trust.
So I’m going to throw out a few names of people that I personally trust.
Examples
I haven’t personally taken courses by them but I have their books, blogs, emails and read reviews. I’ve only ever heard good things (note-there are no affiliate links here I just want you to have options):
Michelle-Schroeder Gardner- Affiliate marketing ($197)
Pete McPherson- Blogging courses (courses range from $57-$299+)
I would eat my hat if you try one of their courses out and are not happy with the content.
The reason I haven’t tried their courses (yet!) is because I am going ALL IN with the course I am currently using.
Why?
And here are a few reasons I chose this over the others:
- The cost is reasonable
- It’s an ongoing platform with an extremely active community (over 100,000 members at all stages of their online marketing careers)
- There is soooo much quality training (in different formats and always being updated) with live webinars every week (mainly SEO and affiliate marketing training in case you were wondering)
- You get amazing hosting (worth over $200 a year)
- It chucks in a keyword research tool (worth $19 a month)
- I have a personal mentor (the person I joined using his affiliate link- Just like MasterCard… this is priceless)
- You get the most out of a course if you complete it. I’m 6 months in and I am nowhere near completing the training!
There are a lot more reasons too but this is why I went with this training over the names I put above.
If this sounds like something you may be interested in then click below to try it out for FREE (stay as a free member as long as you like & no credit card details are needed… you literally have nothing to lose!)
Click here to try Wealthy Affiliate for Free.
I can almost hear your mind screaming…
But how much did YOU pay Mikey boy!?
I paid $299 for an annual membership.
Is it worth it?
You tell me after you try it out for absolutely free!
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Questions for Bloggers to Answer Summary
These are some of the questions for bloggers to answer as soon as possible.
If you can answer these 6 questions it will help you be a lot more successful and passionate about what you are writing about.
- Should I pay for hosting?
- Will people care what I write about?
- How do I get more traffic to my blog?
- How do I make money blogging?
- What plugins should I use?
- Do I need to pay for a training course?
This will help you to have more clarity and ultimately provide more quality value and content for your readers.
Keep changing for the better
Mike
P.S. If you have any questions or thoughts please feel free to drop a comment below… or send me a message on WA here
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