How to Start a Money Making Blog and Be Sure of Blogging Success

How to Start a Money Making BlogAnyone can setup a blog and start writing content, but only a few of those blogs ever develop into money making enterprises that generate significant income streams. If you want to know how to start a money making blog then read on…
There are fundamental differences between starting a blog and starting a blog that will end up being seen by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of visitors every month.The key to running a successful blog is in how you set your blog up in the beginning. There are several key components to blogging success;
Choosing a Profitable Niche
Choosing the right Blogging Platform
Choosing the most suitable URL
Structuring your Content
Optimizing your Content for Search
Writing Quality Content
Publishing on a Regular Basis
Promoting your Blog Posts
Monetizing your Content
Choosing a Profitable NicheThis is a fundamental that many people get wrong from the beginning. If you are going to ever make money from your blog, then it needs to be about something that already has a following.You the Google Keyword Tool to look for existing traffic related to your Niche and study the numbers closely. When you use the keyword tool, opt for ‘exact match’ search terms as this gives precise figures of traffic for the exact phrase or keyword that you are typing in.You are looking for exact match numbers of over 12,000 per month if you want to ever see an income from your blog. If you log into a Google account when using the keyword tool you will be able to see 800 results rather than 100 not logged in, and this will give you a good basis for potential blog post topics in the future.Your goal is to rank first in Google for all of these terms and phrases. It is highly unlikely that you will ever achieve that ambition, I don’t think that anyone ever has, but that is your ultimate aim.Once you have potential viable niches in mind, you need to think about your passion.Without a passion for the subject that you are going to blog about, you will struggle to create high quality content on a long term basis. Blogging needs to be a passion if you are going to succeed. If you choose a niche without having a passion for it, you will eventually run out of steam and lose interest.Choosing the Right Blogging PlatformIt is vital that you choose the right blogging platform if you are going build a money making blog. Some platforms are better than others.We recommend WordPress as it has a proven structure that is search engine friendly, is easy to setup and install and offers a large variety of free and paid design and functionality options.Choosing a URLOnce you have chosen a blogging platform, and for the purposes of this article, we will assume you will be using WordPress, the next thing you need to do is to setup some hosting and install your WordPress files on your hosting. We have a Blogging Guide that walks you step by step through that process, making it as easy as possible.You also need to buy a URL (Domain Name) for your blog. You can buy a URL from many different sources, Namesco being one popular one.Your URL should be a.com preferably as they are the most powerful URL suffix on the internet and will instantly give your blog an advantage over other suffixed blogs.Your blog URL should be as short as possible, keyword rich and preferably have only one spelling permutation. Before you decide on which URL to buy, try saying it outload as if directing someone to your blog over the phone. If this is not straight forward then choose another URL.Content StructureYour Content is incredibly important. Content is the ‘product’ that you are ‘selling’ and so needs to be of the highest quality.Quality content can be defined as unique, valuable, well written, helpful and useful.Ask yourself this question;”Does my content add something useful to the Niche?”In addition, the structure of your posts is very important. In order for your posts to rank well in search, you need to make sure that each post is optimized.Your blog should also link your posts together. You want your readers to be able to find related content, so when you are writing about related subject matter, link to your related posts so that people can easily find their way around.Optimizing your ContentWe recommend WordPress SEO by Yoast for optimizing your blog posts. This is a free plugin that is easy to install, and which then checks each post advising you of additions that are needed in order for it to rank well.The basics of blog post SEO are these;
Use your main keyword at the beginning of your title
Use your main keyword in your post Permalink
Use your main keyword in an H2 Heading at the beginning of your post
Use your main keyword in the first paragraph
Use your main keyword between 1% – 4% keyword density across the post
Use your main keyword in image names
Use your main keyword in image alt text
Use variations of your main keyword or phrase throughout the content
Add one or more external links in each post
Writing Quality ContentThe one thing that will make you blog successful is quality content. You can drive a million visitors to a post, but if the post is not good then they will leave.You want your visitors to engage with your content, to stick around and read related posts, to watch videos, to sign up to your newsletter, to download white papers, to buy your affiliate offers. They will only do that if your content is of great quality and offers them something.If you want to know how to start a money making blog… the answer is quality content.Publishing on a Regular BasisTo be a successful blogger, you need discipline, you need determination, you need drive and focus.You need to develop a publishing schedule and to stick to it.The search engines will learn how frequently you post new content and assuming they like it, they will return on a regular basis in order to index new content.Similarly your regular readers will get used to when you publish new content and will return, expecting to see the next installment of you blog.Treat your blog like a traditional magazine. They have a publishing date each week or month and they stick to it because their readers expect them to.The top 100 most profitable blogs online all publish daily. Is that a coincidence or is that what the top blogs need to do in order to generate significant incomes? If you want to end up being a Niche authority, you ought to be publishing new quality content daily. If you can’t do that, then decide on a publishing frequency that you can achieve and stick to it.Promoting your ContentAfter quality content, promoting your blog content is the most important thing you can do.Each blog post that you write needs to have links from other blogs and websites pointing to it. This will drive direct traffic from those sites, but also will build a network of links which will push your blog higher up the search engine rankings.Google is getting smarter, and rather than just wanting to see a few links coming into your blog from other blogs, it now (2013) wants to see links coming into your blog posts from pages that themselves have links coming into them.You have two options here, you can either build links by guest blogging on some other related blogs and then sit back and wait hoping that someone will eventually link to those guest posts for you, or you can be proactive and link to your guest posts yourself.Places to build links to your main blog;
Guest Blogging
Blog Carnivals
Forums
Article Directories
Blog Comments
Social Media
Social Bookmarking
We have a routine for each post that we publish on our main blogs.We link to it from quality niche related guest blogs, then we link to those guest blogs from Social Media, Social Bookmarks, Web 2.0 sites, Blog Carnivals etcIn addition we ‘Ping’ every post that we publish so that the search engines are aware that there is new content for them to visit.This strategy is proven and works for any keyword. The more competitive it is, the more links you will need, but eventually, your main post will rise to the top of the rankings.Monetizing your ContentOnce you have built an audience, you can start to think about making some money.Monetizing your content is simply the process of adding related links to products and services that you earn a commission on.You might even have your own goods or services that you want to promote, but if not, there are many options to sell other peoples products just by adding a banner or link to your site content.SummaryThe answer to the question How to Start a Money Making Blog? is short and sweet… Produce high quality, unique content and promote it effectively to as many people as possible.