This post was guest blogged by Jim from TheNetFool.com.
Do you have a passion for writing? Do you have lots of spare time on your hands? Whether you are a student, stay-at-home mom, fully employed, part-time or completely unemployed, you will certainly be able to put your personality, ideas and free time to good use… all thanks to the wonderful world of blogging!
While a lot of people have made use of this online phenomenon to rant about their lives or talk about the little things that happened in their day, there are actually people – lots of them – who have been making use of blogging as more of a marketing tool rather than just a way to express themselves. Do you want to find out how you can get in on this cash-earning trend? Here are tips to get you started:
Tip #1: Know Your Passion and Use It!
If you are an avid follower of fashion trends, then the best kind of blog that you can come up with is of course, a fashion blog. When you are going to start a blog, one that you will also be using for work, make sure that you will be able to churn out witty write-ups that will give people the impression that you are highly knowledgeable about the subject (even if this isn’t entirely true). Of course, there would be similar blogs up your alley… but if people will see that you really know your stuff through your creative use of words, then you surely would not have a hard time convincing them that your blog is the one which they should keep coming back to.
Tip #2: Keep Things Fresh
Once you are able to establish a niche market for your blog, the next thing that you should definitely do is to make sure that you will be able to keep your audience’s interest. While you may be good at writing and you are very knowledgeable about the topics that you are discussing in your blog, you should still find a way to keep things fun, exciting, and new. Be mindful that there are a lot of different blogs out there fighting for attention; make sure that you always stay ahead of the pack. I write as the “Net Fool†to keep things a bit off the wall… while John Chow here writes more from a professional and authoritative position. At any rate, once you have a steady flow of traffic coming in to your blog, that is when the money will start rolling in.
Tip#3: Know The Two Kinds of Blogs
There are actually two kinds of professional blogs out there. Early on in your blogging career, you need to establish which one your blog going to be. First up are the bloggers who are being paid to blog. This is probably best suited for people who are just good at writing, those who have the skill but do not really have any intention of making a career out of it. Bloggers who are being paid to write usually have a set of topics that their clients will pay them to write about. One need not be passionate about it, the important thing is to just do it. The second kind of professional blogger are those who start a blog hoping to attract clients to advertise on their blog – for a fee of course. This kind of blog is fueled more on how passionate the writer is about the topics she is writing about. Of course, when one is passionate about something, it just follows that he or she will also be working hard to maintain it and be good at it.
Tip#4: Think of Innovative Money Making Extras
Aside from being paid to blog, another great way to make your blog earn more money is by putting advertisements or affiliate offers on your site. While there are clients who will pay good money just to have their advertisements on a popular site, there are also those commission-based web advertisements where you will get paid depending on how many people click on the ads from your blog.
Tip#5: Offer Special Services
Direct this to clients, be confident about your work and surely more people will get enticed into hiring you for possible blogging jobs. Put your e-mail on your blog just in case there are people who will be interested to ask you to write for them in your blog, it depends on you on how much you want to charge them of course. Keep your network strong and your viewers will stay with you. You can use your network as leverage farther down the road to tap into even more profits as a blogger!