Becoming a prolific blogger who’s able to earn a living online and to be their own boss, is something that can take years of work, a lot of skill and smarts and a just a small dash of luck.

Understand how to make money blogging for begginers is not something you can do in five minutes. But while that’s true, the actual process is relatively simple and especially when you know all the tricks and shortcuts to get to the top more quickly.

This is something we can go over in five minutes. See the e-book for more detail but if you want a quick primer that will take you from a complete noob to a leading authority, this guide should do the trick

Planning

Stage one of becoming a successful blogger is to choose your niche. Niche means subject and this is essentially the area that you’re going to be focusing your content on.

Popular niches include fitness, martial arts, music, film, making money, business, finance, relationships, gardening and going green.

You can get a little more inventive too though by picking broader niches that span multiple areas, by combining two or more niches into a single site or by focusing in on something highly specific.

Choose a niche you love writing about and that is easy to monetize (more on this later). Next you’ll need a name for your company and a logo.

This is going to serve as the starting point for your marketing and branding so think carefully.

 

 

Setting Up

Now you have that crucial information in place, you can begin the actual process of building your blog.
The best way to do this is with a content management system or a blogging platform.

These are tools that you can use to quickly create your web design and to upload and edit content. The best choice here is to download WordPress and install it on a server.

Head to WordPress.com to get the necessary files and then Greengeeks to get hosting space.

From there the process is then to upload the necessary files, then to navigate to them to complete the installation. It’s a five minute job and will result in an empty and generic website ready for you to redesign and populate with content.

 

Customization

Now you need to customize your WordPress site.

The easiest way to do this is by installing a new theme, which is basically a predetermined set of design rules that will change the way your site is laid out, the colors etc.

You can find free themes, or you can also find paid ones which tend to look more professional.

Alternatively, you can have a theme designed for you from scratch using a web development company.

This is the best way to get a site that is completely tailored to your goals and requirements but of
course it also costs more money.

You can also make more changes yourself. For instance, you should upload your logo to work as the banner, you can change the color palette (adhering to color theory) and you can add widgets and other elements. You should also think about some of the smaller details.

One important example is your font, which will have a big impact on the overall look and feel of your website. Pick one that is readable but that also expresses the tone and the subject matter of your site well.


WordPress also allows the easy installation of plugins. Plugins are portions of code that other users have written and which you can install on your site.

These can do all sorts of things from making your site more efficient at loading, to adding whole new features and tools. Look into adding a few of these to optimize your site, to integrate social media and more.

If all this set-up and customization sounds a little complicated, consider outsourcing the process to a freelancer or a company.

You can do this through sites like Fiverr.

 

 

Monetization

You can make your site as beautiful and as well designed as you like but it’s not really going to be much good if it isn’t bringing in any money.

If you want to make this your career, then monetization is crucial.


If you look around the web, one of the most common forms of monetization is to add PPC (pay per click) adverts such as Google AdSense.

This pays out every time someone clicks on an ad but unfortunately it doesn’t pay very much. Adding PPC ads to your site is actually the worst way to monetize a website because it means that someone is buying your traffic off you.

They are then obviously making more money from those same visitors, which should tell you there’s more money to be made. Another option then is to sell affiliate products.


Selling affiliate products is a simple way to make money and is possible using JVZoo (www.jvzoo.com) or ClickBank (www.clickbank.com). When you do this, you will be given an affiliate link which you can use to promote and sell the products with.

Every time someone then buys one of the products, you’ll be paid commission and this way you can earn money from a tried and tested product that you know sells.

What’s more, these sites will often give as much as 60% commission.

That’s right, you’ll earn more than the creator of the product! Alternatively, Amazon also has an affiliate system which lets you get profit from selling any of their products.

This pays out a much smaller amount of cash but it lets you choose from a much broader selection of products, so the best choice will depend on your niche and your business model.

Of course you can always use both.

Try lacing reviews and mentions of certain products into your content to naturally get more purchases. Easier still is to just sell your own products. Selling a product can mean selling a physical product you’ve purchased in order to sell on, or it can mean selling a product that you have created such as a digital product.

Digital products include the likes of e-books, software and online courses and they have many advantages due to the fact that they’re free to produce and don’t have any overheads, shipping costs or storage requirements.

If you have lots of products then you can consider using an ecommerce solution such as Shopify or Magento. 

 

 

 

 

Adding Content

Once all this is in place, you will have a fully functioning website that can take orders and that can bring in money. But there is something big missing — and that’s your content.

Your content will largely be written and this is what actually makes people want to come to a blog in the first place. It’s also what allows Google to find your blog by matching searches that people put in with what’s written on your pages.


Blog content is something you should be adding regularly then and which you should keep focused on the niche you chose at the start. If you’re struggling for ideas then you can use a keyword research tool to find topics and terms to write around that will be a hit on Google.

You can also look at forums in your niche to see what people are talking about, or you can look at the sites of your competitors. News sites are also helpful, especially as they have sections for “health”, “science”, “money” etc.

Most important though is that you ensure your content is interesting, eye grabbing and engaging. Don’t be generic or derivative and certainly don’t write the same “Ten Ways to Lose Weight” articles that we’ve all read a thousand times.

Bring something new to the table and provide value.

Think about who your article is for as you write it and have a place in mind where you can promote it before you publish it. What’s also important is that your content comes thick and fast.

Quality is key but quantity will help you top quickly build momentum and grow your audience. If you want this to be a full-time job then you should treat it like one and put in the necessary time.

If you don’t have time to write new content, think of getting a guest blogger to write something on your behalf (they get promotion out of the deal) or try curating content by finding and gathering things from around the web. 

 

Multimedia

They say that a picture can say a thousand words. Imagine then what a video can do! Both forms of media help to break up large passages of text, to create new marketing opportunities (YouTube, Vine, Instagram,
Pinterest) and to help your posts stand out and get attention.

Video marketing in particular is a very persuasive tool and one that can allow your visitors to get to know you ñ great for personal brands.

 

 

Socializing

The key to getting word out about your blog is to get it on social media. The simplest way to do this is just to share your posts to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn each time you post.

At the same time, you can promote them on other networks like Pinterest by uploading images and mentioning new posts. Find groups and social bookmarking sites to share to and let your visitors share your content too by adding social sharing buttons using a tool like Shareaholic (www.shareaholic.com).

The golden rule of social media is ‘be everywhere’.

So make sure that your brand is on all the major and smaller social networks and use the same consistent identity across all of them. The more in-roads to your site you create, the better.


You can also consider using influencer marketing. This means that you reach out to someone who is already highly influential in your niche and try and get them to give you a shoutout to their audience. Real world networking makes this a lot easier.

You should also look at encouraging community on your own site. You can do this by using Disqus for your comments and encouraging active discussion.

Be sure to respond to comments from visitors and even ask questions in your posts to prompt debate.

 

 

 

E-Mail Marketing

Almost every blogger will tell you that e-mail marketing is one of your most powerful assets.

If you think of your website as a sieve, e-mail marketing is what will give you the idea to capture the details of your visitors and make sure they don’t fall through the cracks (bit of a mixed metaphor there).

Now you can remarket to them, remind them you exist and keep them coming back time and again. To use e-mail marketing, youíll need an autoresponder such as  GetResponse, or ActiveCampaign.

These will give you code for an opt-in which is the form where people add their details. You can then place this in your sidebar.

Another tool which can help is to use a pop-over window which will appear over the rest of your site. A good one is available from Leadpages.

Scaling

Once your blog is starting to gain momentum, how do you scale up?

Over time your blog will only get bigger and bigger as long as you keep up the hard work but you can speed this process along too by adding new blogs to your brand.

Choose a subject that complements your main blog and use your existing clout to help promote that new resource.

This way you will build resiliency for your business model meaning that a sudden change in the fortunes of one blog won’t leave you with no source of income. And there you have it!

That’s everything you need to know to start working towards a successful blog.

This is the blueprint and as long as your content is engaging and interesting and as long as you keep working towards your goal, you will find that you eventually get to where you can be. Don’t give up!

 

The First Steps to Authority Blog Profits

There are many steps you must take as a beginner to start seeing profits with your authority blog.
You will surely face challenges on your way to generating considerable passive income with a blog.

But the good news is that all of these challenges can be overcome.

Most of the challenges arise from the way you view blogging and authority blogs generally – your mindset.

Most of the challenges will arise from opinions you have formed about blogging from information which was initially available to you.

They are opinions you have taken to heart due to what several supposed ‘experts’ have told you. Their stories of how you can easily make six figures within days of starting a blog.

This article is intended to show you that even though it is not too hard to make money with an authority blog, there are certain steps you must take and certain ideologies you must straighten out.

Read on…

 

 

Your Mindset

Your mindset is the most important factor when it comes to succeeding as an authority blogger.

Many people hold the misconception that once you can get the right tools like the WordPress blogging software and its many plugins, a good seo platform and so on, then you are set for success.

Well, this is quite untrue.

Blogging success begins with knowing what you are an authority in.

Something you never get tired of talking about.
This love will help you through the time spent before you begin to see actual results. Authority Blog Advantage…

 

A Niche Is the Beginning

The right niche is really the beginning of authority blog fortunes. You must ensure that you research to find out the best in relation to what you are an authority in.

Some people think a niche’s popularity is the only ingredient which will make them successful. Even though this is one of the requirements, there are many others.

 Ensure Niche Profitability: In addition to being popular, the niche you are going to create your blog in must be profitable. A keyword research is the best way of testing a niche for profitability.
It helps you in discovering the general demand for a specific idea. It gives you an estimate of the number of people looking for information on that particular topic within a given period of time.

 Test Your Niche For Longevity: You should also test whether your chosen niche will stand the test of time. You should know whether the topic you want to start blogging about will still be relevant in years to come. There are many techniques for performing this test on your idea. An example is hanging around in forums to determine the kind of future which awaits your niche.

 

 Test Your Niche For Whether You Are An Authority: You should test whether you are actually an authority in your chosen topic. It will be quite embarrassing to think you know a topic more than anyone else only to later discover that, your knowledge is obsolete.
There are many ways for doing this. Hanging around relevant forums is again useful here. You can determine how much people know about your topic from discussions.

 

 Test Your Niche For Competition: A niche with no competition means it is not relevant. While a competitive niche means people are, making money from it. Competition means many people are interested in your topic. Competition serves you in several ways as a blogger. One of those ways is studying what competitors are doing to succeed and copying them thereby saving time and other resources.


 Test Your Niche For Products: You also need to test whether valuable products can be created for your niche. If you create a following in a niche where people neither need information nor physical products, you hardly make money. A look at existing products is one of the ways for determining whether you niche needs products.


These subtopics should have shown you how important establishing a niche is, as a first step to making authority blog profits.

 

Other Vital First Steps

Other vital first steps to your authority blog success include:

Topic Generation

You must generate relevant topics from your niche research. You will want your blog articles to end up going viral.

This can only be possible by generating relevant topics.

When you write on such topics, the articles surely give value to your readers by solving one problem or the other for them.

Generating relevant blog topics is all about knowing who your target audiences are and the kind of information which will be valuable to them.

Relevant topics are the only route to valuable content.

Valuable content on the other hand is what major search engines now consider when ranking websites in organic search results. So you can see how vital topic generation is to authority blog profits.

Creating Blogposts

Blogpost creation is vital in getting your blog to become popular.

Blogposts form a greater part of the content on all authority blogs.And valuable content is the heart of any blog which must succeed.

You will hardly succeed as an authority blogger if you are unable to create great blogposts.

They are the reason people come to your blog, they are the reason such visitors stay for long, they are the reason visitors sign up to your list, they are the part of your blog people share most on social media.

If we are to keep listing what blogposts are, we might not write any other thing right up to the end of this article.

Considering Blogging Platforms

You can now see how long we have travelled through several steps and stages before, we arrived at what most people initially think is the only prerequisite for blogging success.

After all the considerations above have been fully ironed out, it is then time to choose s blogging platform and begin actual blogging.

There are many blogging software and platforms out there you can choose from. Each has its own unique features, advantages and benefits.

A good research in relation to your blogging needs and goals will reveal which platform will be best for you.
In concluding, blogging and succeeding at it is not as hard as some people want you to believe.
It is not as easy as others want you to believe either. It is just a matter of doing the right things at the right time.

If you can find valuable tools and resources to help you follow these steps, then you are surely on your way to huge authority blogging profits.