How to Make 1 Million USD from Blogging?

Can you make a million Dollars from blogging? Well, the answer is YES YOU CAN! But what you must understand is the difference between just a blogger and A Good Blogger. Remember there is a careful thought process involved. One needs to choose the niche’ they are comfortable with and have the knowledge to contribute back. You must conduct a proper audience analysis, and be truthful to the content. But most importantly, remember Content is King. With that statement, let me show you ways to make 1 Million USD through Blogging.

Things You Should Already Know

So if you are reading this article, I assume you are a newbie or an existing blogger who isn’t making enough money through blogs. Well, let’s recap certain rules that you must take into account:

Rule 1: Choose the Niche that Inspires You

What inspires you? What gets you exited enough to start writing a blog? Nature, Food, Technology, or if you are skilled enough to write about world hunger, poverty, depression, medical health etc. then I would encourage you to write down the topics on a piece of paper and choose one Niche’ that you know best. Remember, contrary to what people say, you will enjoy writing about things you are interested in than choosing a niche’ that is Hot Selling. Listen to your heart and choose wisely. However, do keep in mind that you need to find your niche that is popular enough to attract a significant number of visitors.

Lastly, remember the golden principle here is to Isolate your core strengths and then build on them.

Rule 2: Do Your Homework

Do your homework and research on blog hosting sites to find similar blogs that are relevant to your niche. Read a few popular blog posts that show up higher in search engine ranking and have comments and an audience of 20,000 or more. This will prepare you to have an idea of how much people are interested in this and your competition.

Rule 3: Test Yourself

Test if you are comfortable with the niche’ you choose. Construct your first blog post using Word; and see if the flow of information comes naturally to you. If not, I suggest go back to Rule 1.

Rule 4: Choose Your Platform

People often create free blogs using popular services such as Word Press or Google Blogger. This is good for people who are not tech savvy and of course the services offered are seamless. However, free services usually have limitation on how you can utilize your blog to make money; so be sure that your content does not violate their terms. If you can afford to and know the basics of creating your website, then purchase your own domain name and hosting plan and create your blog from scratch.

Rule 5: Content Is King: The Writing Process & Updates

This is the core of blogging! The Content – is the king! Remember to write original content that is crisp and to the point. From personal experience, I always build a story around the topic. For example, if I am writing about Mobile Payments, I would ask them to imagine what it would be like NOT to have a back pocket in on favorite jeans – and built around the concept of not carrying wallets at all.

Once written, always remember to never let it stay stagnant; post constant updates around the article/blog.

Rule 6: Market Your Blog

Brainstorm keywords that you MUST include within your article to increase your blog’s visibility, attract more readers, and show them advertisements they are likely to click. Keywords are the important words that relate to the topic of your blog. You can use the Google Keyword Research tool to get an estimate on how much Google is being paid for keywords by advertisers.

Rule 7: Go Social & Cross Link

Once your blog post is published, remember to share it on social media. Ideally, your blog should have links for sharing your content on Social Media. This brings me to an important part of Blogging called – Back-linking.

Create backlinks within your blog. Contact bloggers on social media and relevant sites and built a relationship with them that works in mutual benefit – help advertise each other’s articles when the subject overlaps with both your audiences. You will be surprised to know most of the bloggers are quite happy to post links on twitter even if they aren’t interested in advertising your blog on their own.

Rule 8: Go Viral: Market through Paid Advertisements (Optional)

For bloggers who are serious about minting money, you would have to invest some of your earnings back. Help yourself gain audience. You can simply create your own advertisement on Facebook, Google or become an advertiser on Google AdSense or another ad service.

Remember, it is not easy but it can also be fun to try even if you fail. Promote your blog through a video or image that is exciting enough for people to share. Remember, you will have huge readership, if you get your content high lightened and stand above the crowd.

Now your all set; and know the basic rules – so let’s go a bit advance.

Monetizing Your Blog

This is where things get interesting. Really very interesting! How? Well, now let’s talk about some real money. And ironically when I say this, I want you to also remember that blogging is not about Money instead it is about Building Trust. You don’t want to just sell ads on your blog, you don’t get the big book deal, but what you really need to do is build trust and this will eventually lead to opportunities.

Building Audience through Trust

So how exactly do you do that? Well start off by giving your audience quality posts that is authentic and properly researched. Never LIE! Your lies would be caught one way or the other. Remember, these techniques for making money are not useful for a blog that doesn’t yet have an audience. At minimum, you should be posting links to your blog on social media website to attract readership.

So, when you promote your article on Social Media using paid advertisement service, remember to market the right content at the right audience in the right manner (Ethical) – and the point I am trying to make: be Genuine. You will attract more people than you can possibly imagine.

Use Contextual Ad Service

Once you have some reasonable content and audience on your blog, begin with using Google services like Adsence, Adwords or any other third party service that seems fitting. The more the readers click on the ads, the more the advertisers will pay you.

Certain things you need to be conscious of here include:

· While choosing Ad services, be sure the Ad do not violate your hosting website’s policies otherwise your blog may be removed. If you are hosting your own blog, you should research and choose the service that shows the most appropriate ads. Remember you do not want pornography or ads that are immoral to appear on your blog.

· Be sure your keywords are in check; and exactly the way you want them. Remember, inaccurate or insufficient keywords will result in ads that don’t match your readers’ interests.

Expand: Creating Online Service

If you are a running a small business, simply promote your business through your blog. If you are a writer or illustrator, search for business that will sell their t-shirt with your slogans or drawings. Similarly, if you are an arts and crafts blogger, create a shop a third-party service for selling your artwork. Remember, don’t sell anything for the sake of selling, but do so it the product or service fits your blog.

Promote Your Services Indirectly

Remember, to brand your services and enable users to reach back to your store through backlinks on your blog. Remember to integrate an online buying mechanism such as PayPal. An additional tip here is to make sure you also provide provision for mobile payments. This is a trending payment model that many readers may avail on the go as they’re reading your content. The key here is to facilitate them anyway possible.

Affiliate Marketing

Find an affiliate program that is suitable for your blog and provide links to the company’s product using your affiliate link. In return you are paid each time the reader makes a purchase after following through your link.

If you are running a free blog, remember not to put too many affiliate links within your blog post. This may violate your hosting company’s policy and you may be asked to shut down. Also be vary that the links you provide within your blog are acceptable with the company hosting. If you have your own domain, you need not worry!

Also remember to choose affiliate products that you think are genuine and your audience would want to buy. Remember, you need to put your audience first before your own preferences. So, choose wisely what to promote and DO NOT promote programs/ products that you too think are a scam but pay you higher incentives. Like I said before, it’s not about the Money – it’s about TRUST! So, be honest with your viewers, and let them know you are an affiliate. Write recommendations to the product and why you choose it; and ask for their review and feedback.

Don’t be hesitant to Change

This is probably the biggest reason most people will never make a million dollars – they are too afraid to change. Give your blog some time to sync in with your readers. However if you feel it is not working for you, adopt a coherent strategy. CHANGE! Change before it collapses you. Choose a new topic, a different niche’ – do not invest more time and effort into it; just simply change.

And if blogging is not for you, then there are alternatives. Invest in property, or start a business on the side. If you are employed, find a partner and start fresh with something that does not require all your time. Remember, if you can’t see how it will happen then how on earth will it ever happen?

About the Author:

Umar Jamshed is an IT expert and a former consultant with The World Bank. He is a graduate of Curtin University, Australia. He writes for Inbound.Zone and manages his IT firm.