Understand the Facts of Blogging Before Making Money with it

You may have heard it thousands of times “just follow your dreams, do what your heart desires and the money will follow”. Well, I disagree with it, chasing your dreams cannot bring riches because there are certain principles that should be followed at all costs hence only a handful rise to great heights. You might be thinking, well, what it has to do with me? I am just a blogger, interested in writing a blog post, that’s all.

If you are just blogging for fun then go ahead and skip this article because it might not interest you. But if you are serious about making money online via blogging (websites) then bear with me till the end. Let me think! As a blogger you are only interested in getting higher rankings in Search Engines which will result in high traffic and thus more chance to make money through Google AdSense. Am I right?

Although Google AdSense is really good when it comes to making money online but the approval procedure for an account is getting harder day by day which can be really frustrating especially for the newbies. As an alternative, they opt-in for other option like annoying pop-ups / pop-unders, full page ads, inline ads from crap services (personal experience) like Clicksor, adf.ly etc. Earning one US dollar from adf.ly would cost you more than ten thousand clicks. Do the math for yourself and you will find out that most of our youth is wasting time, energy and effort on getting 0.01 Rupee per click. Think about it, do you want to earn 0.01 Rupee per click for the rest of your life or do you want to earn a decent living from the internet?

The first step in earning money online is to get your own Top Level Domain (TLD), don’t rely on blogger if you are serious. Posting articles on your own [dot] com makes you an authoritative figure in the filed whereas posting on BlogSpot might give the impression of an immature blogger. Another thing that needs to be considered when posting on a blogger platform is that the content you create is not your property, Google can delete your all your data and blogger account at time without any reason. Therefore I suggest spending a thousand or two on buying a good domain name and hosting, relevant to the niche you want to work on and don’t just randomly pick any domain or any niche, do the research then carry on your work.

Creating a website is just like starting a new business, and all businesses need proper planning. Therefore, you should have sufficient knowledge about the niche you want to work in. Selecting a right niche in the beginning is so much important that your failure or success entirely depends on choosing the right niche. Picking a wrong niche is just like trying to sell lemonade in the middle of the desert, once in every three to five years you might get a customer, if you are lucky  So here are a few tips when picking a niche.

Fear

Fear has been undoubtedly the biggest motivator in the human history and you should use it to your own advantage. People are more likely to respond if they fear to lose anything important and will pay any amount not to lose it. Here is an example, a bit odd but it will do the trick. What if Government of Pakistan decides to give Rs. 10,000/- per month to all those who are unemployed, you would appreciate the government’s decision, aren’t you? But what if they decide to take your kidney away and then pay you Rs. 20,000/- for the rest of your life, now what will be your response to that? Select a niche where there is some sort of fear factor involved then you can easily penetrate into the masses and if you offer any product that can help others to overcome their fears, they will pay any price for it.

Health, Relationships and Money

If you are a beginner then your niche should fall into one of these three main categories (1) Health and Wellness (2) Relationships (3) Money and Business. These three categories are easy to reach but remember these are not niches. You have to select a niche within these broader categories which can be a bit difficult and requires a lot of research. For example targeting the general population in the weight loss niche is not a good idea you have to be more specific like weight loss for teenagers or weight loss for brides. Being specific gives you more credibility, authority and trust; therefore, don’t pick a broader category as your niche be specific about it.

Affinity

You should also be interested in the niche you are working in. You will quit very soon if you don’t have any passion for what you are writing. Don’t select a niche that requires too much technical knowledge because users will ask questions via comments / forms and if you are not learned enough, you can get in a lot of trouble.

Put AdSense Aside

A lot of the new bloggers begin their carrier keeping AdSense in the perspective but very soon get disappointed by the fact that Google rejected their application. Although AdSense is good but it is not the only way to make money online, there is a complete industry of affiliate marketing. Many of the affiliates on ClickBank make millions in a month just by selling other’s products. If you just starting out then think that there is no AdSense, pick a good niche where people are eager to spend money (I would stress it one more time don’t pick a niche where users want everything for free), select  relevant products from site like Amazon, ClickBank, CJ and start promoting it. My recommendation is to start with ClickBank; they only sell digital products so the commission rates are very high up to 75% per sale.

Recurring Customers

If you are planning to work as an affiliate marketer, choose a niche that brings the customers over and over again. For example if somebody had “bad breath” problem and you are promoting a product that helps them solve it can be a good nice to work in, but, once their problem is solved they will not come to your site again. Compare it with a market where your prospect wants to gain muscle, once they buy a product through your site they will become more comfortable purchasing more products from you related to fitness and health.

Research

Although this is the most important factor in selecting a quality niche but I’ve decided to keep it at the end. If you ignore the above mentioned facts during your research then your research is useless.  Play around with Google’s Keyword Tool, Browse through Click Bank’s market place, see Amazon bestselling products in your niche, and search e-zines Articles and you will find a wealth of information for the niche you want to work in. When researching a lot of new users tends to pick niches where there is no or less competition, don’t do it. Competition is good and is a sign of healthy market, a place where people are interested to spend money.

It all boils down to this don’t just randomly pick niches do the research, act as funnel, give “them” what they want, and money will follow. And after selecting a niche, don’t just “copy / paste” the content from other websites use your own mind and the content you write should resonate with your audience’s problems.

Of course these are just suggestions and you can surely reject it entirely or any part for that matter. But remember one thing, if you have started something don’t be a quitter, complete your goal no matter how many times you face defeat. Think about the failures as a learning curve and you will surely succeed in life. The famous inventor Thomas Edison failed more than ten thousand times when he was working on the bulb but he didn’t quit until he finally found the right element to light up the bulb. Today we remember him as an inventor for the Light Bulb not as a man who failed ten thousand times.