How to Start a Lucratively Successful Blog

There are two types of people in this world.

People who wait for opportunities to drop from the skies into their laps and those who go out there, to create their own opportunities.

In the same vein: there are two types of bloggers

Bloggers who wait for something to happen to make their blogs successful
Bloggers who work and face the storm to ensure that they create the opportunity for their blogs to be successful.

Now, I will be frank with you: Blogging is no walk in the park. In the past decade, blogging got so complex, technical and competitive that starting a blog these days is like enrolling into an university; there is just so much to learn.

So how do you start a blog you are absolutely sure will help you fire your 9-5 boss? How do you ensure you don’t fall into the unfortunate pool of bloggers who have never been able to make a cent from their blogs?

I compiled a list of articles that will help you build a profitable blog. Afterall, making some extra money from something you love is never a bad thing. Nor is it a bad thing if your blog can bring in 6-figures each month, so you can spend time with those that really matter in your life.

1. Planning:

Before you jump into building a blog, you must first know what your blog will be all about. You must also know how you can turn a profit with your blog. Fail at this step and your blogging will be a horrific experience to put it mildly.

Greg Narayan explains all you need to know in about planning your blog in his recent article: Guide Part 1: How to plan your new blog perfectly

I love how Don Purdum showed how planning can triple your sales in weeks in this post: Why my Business trippled in 6 weeks.

Don reveals that clarity + focus =execution. And I agree completely with him because lucrative blogging requires intentional efforts. Profits don’t just automatically spring from blogging.

2. Content:

We all know Content is king. But many bloggers do not know how to package their really useful blog posts in a way that will attract, entice and seduce their target audience. If you want to be a popular blogger, then I do urge you to learn how to speak to your readers in a personal manner, like you are having a conversation with them. No matter how knowledgeable you are, your content must never sound like you are speaking down to your reader.

Sue Anne is good at building an engaged audience with her unique content. In this post on her blog, you will find out why. Proven Ways to write Killer Blog Content and get more readers.

3. Build a platform:

When Neil Patel started his food blog, he first started by building a Facebook page for the blog even before he had written a single post. Its very frustrating when you watch your wonderful content gather dust because nobody is reading it. I recently started work on a blog project (will write about my experiences one day) and the first thing I did was to build a Facebook following for this blog. Micheal Hyatt shows just how important a platform is in this video

For the blog project, I knew that building a platform is extremely important. I first created a facebook page, acquired followers and shared other people’s content with them. I shared other bloggers content so that I can tell what my facebook followers loved. I then built a blog and only created content similiar to those that had many likes and shares. The result? Constant traffic and a daily growth of the email list. And the blog is just three weeks old. I do intend to intensify on my platform building efforts on that blog and will share how I did it all when I have attained my targets.
You should focus on building your platform even before you start creating constant quality content. These articles below will help you know how to go about that:

Why you need a platform to succeed

The best first steps to develop your online platform

Dennis Wakeman goes more in-depth in her article: How do i start building my platform? #AskDennis ( a must read for anybody serious about how to develop a platform)

4. Relationships.

Ever been to Adrienne’s blog? Have you noticed how many comments and social shares every single one of her posts have? This is because she is a master at building relationships. If you want a blog that won’t die out, then you need an engaged audience who hang on your every word.

Adrienne shows how you can do this in this post: How to build relationships through blogging

5. Promotion

Building relationships and a platform is only part of the equation. If you really want a successul blog, you must be ready to promote your blog content 80% of the time. That’s Derek Halpern’s theory and this strategy is adopted by most successful bloggers. Nobody will know you have great content sitting on your blog if you don’t share that content with your email list, social media followers and other connections. There is an on-going debate about whether you should blog daily, weekly or monthly. My take is: it all comes done to the revenue. If you run Google ads on your blog, then it makes sense to blog regularly. If you don’t have google ads on your blog, but want to sell your services and products, I say spend less time writing articles (20%) and spend more time promoting it (80%) so that people who will pay for these services and products can hear about you and visit your blog.

6. Revenue

Now we can talk about one of the reasons you started blogging in the first place. Now making money with a blog is pretty easy when you have an engaged platform who trust and hang on your every word. There are various ways of making money from a blog and they can be broadly categorised as follow blogger enstine muki s:

Ads: This is the easiest way to monetize your website. From Google Adsense to Product reviews, anything you do on your blog that involves praising/showcasing another person’s product for monetary gains falls into this category. Enstine Muki does a terrific job of explaining 15 ways you can use this method to make money as a blogger: 15 ways bloggers can make money blogging

Courses: Brian Harris made more than $200,000 from the launch of just one course. Want to create a course? Then you absolutely must read this post on Danny Iny’s blog. Think you are cut out for creating a course? Better read this first.

Consulting: According to Jon Morrow of BoostBlogTraffic, selling ebooks on your blog is a waste of precious time if you have not undergone this step first. Leading internet marketers like Neil Patel, Brian Moran, Jon Morrow all underwent this step. They offered consulting. Some still do till date. Consulting is really interesting and is only a right fit if you know your onions. In this post, Jon Morrow lets you know that a surefire way to make money from your blog is to start with services, then expand to products. Make Money Blogging: 20 lessons going from 0 to $100,000 per month.

Freelance Gigs: This is the way I currently make money from this blog. By getting writing gigs for high-profile clients. All I have to do is show them what I am capable of writing and they are interested. To do this with your blog, you will need to join a number of job boards so that you can be aware of writing gigs for bloggers. Some job boards I recommend are:

Problogger
BlogExpose
Upwork
Not a writer? Maybe you are a designer or developer? Check out these sites for good-paying freelance jobs

Notice I did not talk about SEO, traffic generation, email list building. Why? Because these are tactics in a strategy. Some bloggers chase after the latest SEO fad or traffic generation trick without knowing the underlying strategy. Build a platform first, create really helpful content for this platform and work on developing a strong relationships with this platform and things like SEO, traffic generation and email list growth will happen as a result of this. People will become repeat visitors of your blog and happy customers of your services/products not because Google told them to but because you gave them what they wanted and built their trust in you.

Notice how I put revenue last. Trying to sell to people who don’t know and trust you is trying to put the cart before the horse. There is no way you will be able to sell a consulting service of $1000/hr or an online course of $10,000/yr if no one knows if you will be able to deliver what you promised.

So over to you? How have you been able to build a lucrative blog? What plans do you intend to use and build a successful blog?

Author
Recent Posts

Follow her

Chioma Anozie

Chioma Anozie is a positive thinker and a serial entrepreneur. She loves to inspire and lift up entrepreneurs by helping them succeed online. She works one on one with her clients to give them the tools to achieve their goals.