57% of professional marketers say they've gained customers, specifically through blogging. Yup, it means that blogging is not just your grandma’s hobby anymore; it’s actually a huge missing chunk in your business’ revenue pie chart.
If you’re not convinced, then take it from this recent income report, which shows that food bloggers make a monthly average of $9,169 and personal finance bloggers make $9,100. Even non-business blogs like lifestyle and mommy niches earn $5,174 on average, and when you consider the US average salary it is certainly enticing.
Blogging is lucrative for sure, and if you want to get started, then keep reading.
What Is Blogging?
In short, blogging means writing and publishing content online for others to read. It can include anything from lifestyle tips and industry news to product reviews and promotional pieces. Your imagination is the limit as long as you drive organic traffic through high-quality content.
Because once those numbers start rolling in, you can earn from the free traffic through ads, sponsorships, and affiliate programs. You can also earn from your own sales through high-quality content by promoting your products/services in the blog, which is like a restless salesperson that sells to anyone, from anywhere, at any time. If they don't feel like buying yet, you can simply make them subscribe to your newsletter instead, where email marketing can do its magic.
That's why blogging is popular and effective: it's profitable, passive, versatile, and any other adjectives in the dictionary. But of course, blogging is not a one-size-fits-all solution; we’re all different, after all. So before you dive into it, you should figure out what type of content you’re writing.
What Are The Different Types of Blogs?
Personal Blogs
From the latest gossip in their lives to what they had for breakfast that morning—nothing is off-limits here. Some personal blogs even contain reviews on products or places, while others discuss life lessons or even share pictures and videos. Although these sound too personal to monetize, you can actually make a ton of money if you do it right!
At the heart of personal blogging lies affiliate marketing. You can write posts and reviews about products or places, add affiliate links, and then earn commissions when your readers click on them.
Another one is placing ads on your blog and earning money when someone clicks on them.
Finally, there’s the option of selling sponsored posts. With this method, companies or brands hire you to mention their product or services in exchange for a reasonable fee.
If you feel like touring everyone into your life is the dream, then this is for you.
Niche or Topic-Specific Blogs
These kinds of blogs focus on a very specific subject matter. Do you have all the answers to every question related to cooking vegan meals? Are you an expert on the ins and outs of interior design? Do you have a passion for cars that runs deep in your veins? If you’re screaming a resounding yes in your head right now, then this is your pick right here.
Just like personal blogs, you can earn from affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and ads. Depending on the industry and potential for profit, you can even get consulting gigs or run workshops that may help expand your income. You can also monetize your blog by creating and selling your own products, such as ebooks, courses, and even physical items.
It’s important to note that if you decide to go this route, it will take time to establish yourself in the niche of your choice before you can expect any kind of return on investment.
Corporate or Business Blogs
These are usually set up by large companies for the purpose of promoting their brand and products. These business blogs are often created as a way to engage customers and provide helpful information to gain trust, loyalty, brand awareness, authority, and more.
However, the high demand for professionalism can be a hefty price tag. But when done right, you can outshine your industry's competition, expand your market share, and skyrocket your sales.
If you’re in a saturated and crushing industry, then this is for you.
How To Incorporate Blogging Into Your Ecommerce Business
Alright, now that you know what type of blog you’re aiming for, let’s get into the actionable step-by-step guide.
Decide On The Purpose Of Your Blog And Choose A Blogging Platform
What’s your aim with your blog? Are you hoping to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or both? Once you’ve identified what exactly it is that you want out of your blog, then it’s time to select a blogging platform—how are people going to read what you write? Will they access it through WordPress or Tumblr? Make sure whichever platform it is that you choose that can best serve your needs. Reflect thoroughly and choose a realistic and profitable goal.
Choose A Blog And Domain Name
When choosing a domain and blog name, it's important to remember that shorter names are usually best—especially if you're targeting specific audiences. Your goal should be to create something catchy and memorable that stands out from the competition. Consider using words or phrases related to your field and try to keep it as concise as possible so people won't forget it too easily. It also helps to check what other companies in your industry are using to make sure your name isn't too similar.
If you're still having trouble coming up with something, why not take a look at what other successful blogs are doing? Researching the competition can be a great way to get some inspiration and come up with an idea that works for you. It can also help to brainstorm with friends or family to get fresh perspectives and different ideas on the table.
Once you've settled on an appropriate blog name, make sure it's available as a domain so you can register it. Once again, try to stick with something short and snappy that'll work well across multiple platforms—think Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and such. You should also check that the domain hasn’t been taken already; otherwise, all your hard work will have been in vain!
Once you’re done, it’s time to move on to the overall theme and layout.
Customize Your Blog's Theme And Layout
Don't just settle for the default look and feel. Take the time to find or create a design that matches your brand identity and makes your blog look professional. You can even customize certain features like fonts, colors, social media links, and more.
To make your blog visually appealing, consider including quality images in your posts. While creating your own images or clicking original photos is best, you can save time and money by getting licensed photos. However, customizing these pictures according to your theme is a good idea.
To make sure everything looks great on all devices (mobile, tablet, desktop), use a responsive theme or template—it'll adapt automatically based on the type of device used. That way, no matter where people access your blog from, they're seeing an optimized version.
Be sure to consider page speed as well! Nothing turns readers off faster than a slow-loading website. Keep the number of images and videos you include on each post limited so that your readers don't get frustrated waiting for the entire page to load.
If you want to improve your website's performance, you should focus on speeding it up. Ideally, your website should load within three seconds, but for ecommerce sites, it should load within two seconds. The average page speed for websites that appear on the first page of Google search results is 1.65 seconds. However, if your website takes longer than two to three seconds to load, the bounce rate will significantly increase. In fact, research shows that 40% of consumers will abandon a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. Therefore, it's crucial to take steps to speed up your website.
Finally, remember that simplicity is key when it comes to blog design. You want people to be able to navigate quickly and easily without getting lost or confused. Don't clutter up the page with too many widgets and banners, as this can make things look overwhelming. Keep everything organized in a neat manner so visitors can find what they're looking for fast and go back to reading.
Now that the foundations are set, it’s time to plan the content.
Plan Your Publishing Strategy And Create Templates For Future Blog Posts
To get the most out of your blogging efforts, you should come up with a plan of attack that outlines the type and frequency of content you’ll be producing. This way, you won’t find yourself scrambling to create content at the last minute—instead, you can focus on creating quality content more consistently.
Once you have a rough idea of how many blog posts you want to publish in a given timeframe, start planning what topics each post will cover. Try to identify themes and categories based on user needs or interests - this helps your audience stay engaged while also helping them find what they need quickly and easily. It can also be helpful to create templates for each type of content you produce to ensure that your blog posts are cohesive and consistent. This is especially important when producing different types of content, such as tutorials or interviews.
Find Topic Inspiration And Perform Keyword Research
If you're stuck for topics to write about, don't despair; the internet is full of inspiration! Take a look at your industry news, or browse through social media posts related to your products. You can also look for customer reviews online and think about how you could use these as blog post ideas.
After you've got some ideas, it's time to hit the keyword research tools. Keywords are what will bring readers to your blog post and help them find it on search engines - so this part is important! Look up terms related to each topic idea, and be sure to include ones that get a lot of traffic but are still relevant to the topic. Otherwise, no one will find your article.
Note: good free keyword research tools are Answer the Public and Keywordtool.io. Good paid options are SEMrush and Moz Pro.
Outline, Write, Optimize, And Publish Your Blog Posts
Outlining can help you organize your thoughts and ensure that all of the key points are covered in the blog post. This can also help you plan ahead and create an editorial calendar that maps out your topics for a few weeks or months at a time.
Writing is obviously the most important part of any blog post, so make sure to craft something that’s interesting and engaging. Consider introducing stories, analogies, or anecdotes to keep readers interested in what you have to say.
Optimizing your content means making it easy for search engines to find and rank your posts. This includes including relevant keywords and phrases throughout the copy, adding meta tags and descriptions, optimizing images for SEO, and more.
Finally, publishing the content is the final icing on the cake. Make sure to get your posts circulating by sharing them on social media, email newsletters, forums, and other external sites.
Promote Your Blog To Get People To Read It Consistently
First, use social media as much as possible to draw in your audience. Post links to posts from the blog on these platforms and make sure they are interesting enough for viewers to click through. If you have new content out each week or every other week, post updates regularly so that people know when something new is available to read.
You may also want to consider placing ads in various locations to draw people back to your blog. This can include Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and even ads on other websites that are likely to be seen by those who would be interested in your content. Just like with social media posts, make sure the ad is attractive enough for users to click through.
Finally, don't forget about email marketing! It's a great way to reach out directly to customers or potential customers and let them know when something new has been posted. Sending out regular emails can also encourage readership over time—if people know they will get an email from you each week, they may be more inclined to check out what you have written.
That’s it. Now I know none of these tips are as easy as they seem, so to help you out: here are some free tools!
The Top Five Free Tools For Blogging
WordPress For Blog Hosting
WordPress provides users with a robust set of features that make creating a blog fast and easy. With its drag-and-drop functionality, you can create beautiful blog posts in minutes. You also get access to thousands of free plugins and themes to customize your site further. Additionally, WordPress makes it simple to manage content, allowing users to publish posts quickly and easily. WordPress also allows for multisite hosting, so you can host multiple blogs on the same server. So if you’re looking for reliable blog hosting, you could never go wrong with WordPress.
Google Trends For Keyword Research
Google Trends has some great features that can help you find the perfect terms and phrases to use in your posts. For example, you can view how certain terms have performed over time, which can give you an idea of what people are currently interested in reading about. You can also see what other related topics are being searched for and refine your choice of words even further by isolating them geographically or by language. Plus, if you want to take a deep dive into any given trend, there's a handy "Explore" button that lets you access more detailed data.
Quora For Topic Inspiration
The real benefit of using Quora lies in its social component. You can ask questions and expect answers from people who are experts in their field and may even give you an answer straight away; however, you'll also be able to get feedback from people who are not necessarily experts. This can help you come up with new ideas and perspectives on your blog's topics—but don't rely solely on Quora for inspiration.
Trello For Organizing Blog Content
Trello helps bloggers organize blog content by allowing them to create boards and tasks, assign team members to those tasks, set deadlines and reminders, and track progress. Trello also provides a comment section so that everyone can communicate easily while working toward a shared goal. With Trello's drag-and-drop feature, it’s incredibly easy to rearrange tasks or add new ones. This makes it the perfect tool for organizing blog content!
Grammarly For Grammar And Spelling Checks
Grammarly is perhaps the most well-known tool for catching grammar and spelling errors; it’s like having a personal editor on your computer! This nifty tool can be used as an extension to your browser, as a desktop app, or even as an add-on to Microsoft Office products, giving you a comprehensive writing experience. With Grammarly, users get instant proofreading and grammar checks on their work, so they don’t have to worry about making mistakes. Plus, Grammarly offers more than just spelling and grammar corrections—it includes several features such as punctuation correction, context-specific vocabulary suggestions, and a plagiarism detector.
But don’t think that Grammarly is foolproof; it doesn’t have the ability to recognize all forms of writing errors or mistakes in punctuation. Plus, you should always double-check your work even if you use this tool since computers aren’t perfect and can make mistakes too! So while Grammarly may be useful for catching some grammar and spelling blunders, it shouldn’t be relied on as a replacement for proofreading your own work.
Related Questions
Have any questions? They’re most likely here, check them out.
Is Blogging Still Effective?
Even though there are many different ways to reach your target audience, including social media marketing, SEO, and advertising campaigns, blogging remains one of the best ways to effectively engage with potential customers, so yes.
What Are The Characteristics Of A Successful Blog?
It helps readers and makes you money: that’s the simplest answer. But to get into detail, a successful blog is one that has well-written content, engaging visuals and videos, a strong SEO strategy, frequent postings, reliable branding, an active commenting system, and a dedicated audience. It also helps to have someone with expertise in the field or industry topic you are blogging about to ensure your content is accurate and up to date, and a solid content marketing software. Last but not least, it's important to have a clear goal for your blog and measure success accordingly by tracking metrics such as views per post, engagement rates on social media platforms, number of followers, and more. All of these factors will benefit your business, especially in ecommerce.
How Do I Make Money With My Blog?
Well, it depends on the type of blog and your marketing strategy. However, one of the most popular ways to monetize your blog is through advertising revenue from traditional display ads or modern affiliate programs. You may also consider selling products, services, or digital goods directly related to your content. Finally, you can also consider sponsorships and accept donations. Ultimately, though, what matters most is creating worthwhile content and building an audience that thinks your blog is worth investing time and money into.
Conclusion
So there you have it— just set aside some time each week for creating content and make sure your posts are helpful, relevant, and engaging. It might not seem like much at first, but over time you’ll start to see the benefits of blogging for yourself and watch your revenue soar. Good luck!