How to Earn a Lifestyle Income as a Blogger

Blogging means different things for different people but if you are building a blog with a commercial purpose then you need to start your journey the right way. Did you know that most of the people who start commercial blogging quit it the middle way saying that it is not worth the efforts? Not only they lose the chance to earn a good amount of steady income but also discourage many other people who are contemplating to substitute their income with blogging The reality in most of the cases his that they start the wrong way or make wrong decisions in the midway of their blogging career. Some of the blogging mistakes include

However, many others are earning a steady income with blogging. We would not discuss the top 10 richest bloggers of the world because it takes lots of effort, smartness, and also a bit of X factor (call it luck, innate talent, or churning the content that’s worth gold nugget each word (Sorry for exaggeration). We would rather stick to the general blogging professionals and entrepreneurs who are earning achievable yet decent income that allows them to pay all their bills, have 2-4 family outings every month, and be able to gather good savings every quarter. So, let’s start

Passion and expertise is the prime factor to consider before finding a suitable niche. You can start a food blog, travel blog, Stock photo selling website, digital marketing company, or hosting affiliates programs anything you love to write. However, you also have to keep in mind the commercial potential of the same. Homework is very important before you start your blogging journey. Have a well-defined strategy to research the niches with the best potential.

The first thing is to jot down your interest and expertise in different areas. Don’t load the list with all types of topics but keep it limited to a maximum of 5 things that interest you the most.

Now Google those topics one by one and write down the number of searches at the beginning.

It will give you a pretty good picture of the search volume of those topics. The next thing is to check whether their popularity is at the ebb or decline. For that, you can use the Google trends that will fetch you the search volume stats across different terms.

Pick the ones that are increasing.

Many bloggers start with a free blog address which goes something like this: wealthtips.blogspot.com. It sounds quite unprofessional, doesn’t it? You have to bear pinches at different levels. The design isn’t as impressive as you don’t get enough creative freedom. So it is advisable to start with a self-hosted blog that starts at a monthly cost that is less than your average daily breakfast. That’s right, buying a domain and hosting packages is not an expensive affair anymore. Many web hosting providers offer to host plans for $5 or less per month (plus many of them offer free domain name as well. You can have a proud premium name for your blog like premiumwealthtips.com and you can design your blog the way you want. There won’t be intrusive ads or diverting links that redirect to third party platforms. In simple words, you would be the sole proud owner of your blog.

Next thing is to create the content that conforms to the high standards of quality. Every day tens of thousands of new blogs are built and the established blogs already enjoy a certain monopoly on search engine results. The challenge is how to create blogs that can instantly attract the readers and convince them to read the complete post. The average attention span of net users is shrinking rapidly. So you have just a few seconds to impress your visitors and convert them into readers.

Many readers have adopted skim-reading which means they quickly skim over the important parts of your content to decide whether it’s worth their time and attention. So, the first few paragraphs are vitally important. Make them as awesome as you can. Treat them as a quick trailer for your post emphasizes the highlights of your content and how will it benefit the readers. It encourages readers to read the entire content.

Proper formatting and neat presentation quickly guide the readers throughout the skim reading

Use the most relevant and impressive graphics throughout the content as a picture is worth a thousand words. Even psychology says that our brain is more receptive to graphics than to words

Use in-depth content but divide it into small paragraphs (3-4 lines maximum)

Exclamation marks add a subtle yet powerful impression to your content

Interlink contextual parts of content with related URLs

Use power words at the start of your sentences

Maybe not now but after some time you would have to invest in the advertisements. If you have resources and intention, then you can start advertising within two months. It allows you to foray with an élan and tap in the maximum opportunities in the beginning.

For that, you can check Google Keyword planner to see how much the advertising will cost you.

You can also choose from a wide variety of tools to check the advertising budget of different blogs in your niche. It will help you to design a reasonable advertisement expense without inflating your budget. Don’t forget to consider how people are dividing overall advertisement expenses across different platforms. Generally, the amount of budget on each platform corresponds to its return potential. It will give you a fair idea about the platforms that work best for your niche.

Your blog can only succeed if it has a good readership. Most of the commercial proposals emphasize the stats of your blog ilk number of followers, social engagement statistics, monthly traffic, subscribers, etc. Be proactive on social media. Just creating a page won’t do you any good. You also need to engage with your audiences regularly. Every new blog post should be publicized with hashtags.

Add social share buttons on your blog to encourage the readers to share your post with their friends it is a popular way to get quickly organic traffic

Research on the specific parameters like time, day, etc. that directly influence the social media engagement rate. Some smart tools can give you insights on the same. Instead of randomly sharing your blogpost you use those insights to build a streamlined blog post sharing strategy

One of the easiest ways to impress your social media audiences is to create the right type of posts which means selecting the right image with eye-friendly dimensions and colors, creating a short yet impressive post that compels the readers to click the link and using right types of hashtags by finding the trendiest hashtags related to your blog post topic

You need constant efforts to get tangible benefits but following regular social media, a schedule could be challenging. The good thing is that you can now automate your social media routine by using some powerful tools. Right from posting about your latest blog post on your page to resizing the picture and content layout to meet the ideal guidelines of different platforms, these tools are capable of automating various routine social media tasks delegating such tasks to these tools to allow you to concentrate on innovative strategies instead of wasting your precious time just to manage routine tasks.

Choosing the right platforms is also important. For instance, if you run a fashion or travel blog then there are fairly good chances of getting potential traffic by publicizing them on Instagram or Pinterest. Likewise, the blogs related to corporate culture and professional spectrum will possibly attract a better response if publicized on Linkedin. For optimum benefits match the primary audiences and engagement preferences of any social media platforms wit your tagged audience persona while choosing the ideal social media to publicize your content. You might publicize the content through their platforms well but be more persistent on specific platforms where your targeted audiences spend most of their time

One of the best ways to manage your social media strategy is to bake social media tools right into your WordPress ecosystem. For that, you can install the WordPress plugins that automatically integrate with your visual editor screen. It enables you to design the social media strategy instantly after completing each post.

There are various ways to convert your blog into an income magnet provided that it has the potential. So, once you are satisfied with the quality of your blog you can then concentrate on finding the best ways to monetize your blogs. Some of the top monetization options include:

• Google Adsense
• Sponsored posts
• Native ads
• Affiliate marketing
• Selling your own services

In our next article, we will talk in detail about the best ways to explore these avenues to earn decent revenue.