15 Tips On How To Become A Successful Blogger And Make Money

The last century saw a tremendous shift in the reading habits of people. In the past, reading was one of the most coveted hobbies. People would invest a lot of their time, effort and money in this hobby and as a result, libraries would become places of public gatherings. However, a paradigm shift in this was noted in the last couple of decades. With computers becoming all the way more popular and the cost of Internet access dropping by the minute, it is obvious that reading has also joined the Internet bandwagon.

The digitalisation has not just changed the way we perceive the world of reading but has also opened the doors for newer forms of literature. The most popular amongst them is the content of a blog. These days you will find blogs about anything and everything that you want to read about.

With platforms like Medium paying bloggers well, there is enough incentive for people to join this profession. As a result, there are millions of people out there taking to blogging. It is important for us to realise that not all of them are able to make big bucks out of it.

If you want to stand out from the crowd and ensure that people read your blogs and you make good money out of them, you should be ready to toil hard. This article tells you how you can channelise your energy and make it big in the world of blogging.

1. Think Different

Understand that no matter which subject you are planning to write on, there will be hundreds of other writings on the same topic. As this is the Internet, there is absolutely no challenge whatsoever in accessing something that is written by someone halfway across the globe.

In such a scenario, if you want your work to be read by people, you will have to think out of the box and offer your readers something that they haven't even heard of.

2. Optimise Your Content

In today's world, if you want your blog to have a decent readership, the first thing that you have to do is identify the search engine whose user's you are targeting. Once that is done, try to work your way to mastering the best SEO practises of that engine.

Identify the SEO optimised keywords and use the same in an optimal manner. Make sure that they are mentioned once or twice in your introductory as well as concluding paragraphs.

3. Invest In The Blog

We understand that when you start off as a blogger you are a little tight on the budget and do not have much to invest. However, any business will give you results only if it has been invested upon. Your blog is no different.

If you want your blog to have a good readership (and have advertisers invest in the same) it is important for you to invest in graphic designers, SEO auditors, audio and video auditors and other people who will actually bring in the revenue for your firm.

4. Choose Your Audience

Do not try to please everyone. Depending on what you are writing, identify your target audience. The audience may be segregated based on age, gender, choice of hobbies or educational and intellectual abilities.

Once you have identified your target audience, you can customise your advertisements, graphics and other details to cater to the same. This will ensure that you are able to do justice to your readership base.

5. Read A Lot

One of the easiest ways for you to improve your writing skills will be by reading a lot. This will not just improve your vocabulary but will improve your flair for the language. As a result, you will be able to express what you want to in a much more effective fashion, and your readers will connect to you much better.

6. Avoid Too Many Paid Promotions

It is understood that for any blog to make money you have to go for a certain number of paid promotions. You will be writing articles that are sponsored by other organisations. As for an example, if you are writing a travel blog you may write blogs sponsored by different tourism departments.

While this is definitely not a bad thing to do, indulging in too many of these will result in people losing faith in the credibility of your articles. Understand that the people reading your blog are not dumb and they will be able to see through such tactics on your part.

7. Understand Your Competition

It is a good idea to browse through a lot of blogs. Try to opt for as many different genres of blogs as possible. Make a note of what you like in each of them and what you don't. Try to inculcate the positives and make conscious efforts to avoid making the mistakes committed by others.

8. The First Impression Is The Last

While writing a blog, it is important for you to have quality content. However, realise that the most important part of your blog is the first paragraph. If you can grab your reader's attention here, they will read the entire article (and chances are that they will be coming back to your blog for more articles).

Thus, take special care to ensure that the title of your articles are catchy and the introductory paragraph of your piece does justice to the same.

9. Offer Consultancy Services

When you are writing a blog, it may so happen that your blog specialises in a particular area of expertise. In such a situation, one possible way of making money would be by offering consultancy services in that domain. As for example, if you write a blog about make-up, you can offer personalised consultancy services to your users.

These services can well be chargeable. It is up to you to choose the medium of communication for the consultancy (you may choose amongst Skype, telephonic conversation, chat or any other form of personalised counselling).

10. Organise Events

The events that you organise may range from panel discussions and online debates to polls and fan posts sessions. While these do not directly bring in the money, they keep your blog engaged, prompting users to visit your blog again and again, thereby, increasing your popularity.

When your blog is sufficiently famous, the events itself will become the talk of the town and firms would want to invest in the same in the form of advertisements. This will ensure that you make good money.

11. Be Specific About What You Want To Talk About

When you write a blog, it is important that you chalk out what you want to portray in front of your readers. Make sure that you know what you are writing about and your statements are not just random bluffs in the air.

By writing on a specific topic, your blogs will be more credible and your readers will keep coming back to you again and again to check out your latest posts. If you write on a generic scale you will not be able to win your readers' trust to this extent.

12. Create A Business Directory

Once you start writing a blog and interact with your readers on a regular basis, you will find that often their queries are repetitive in nature. Try to come up with a directory of frequently asked questions. This will allow new users to have their questions answered even before they pose the same to you.

This will have them impressed by the efficiency of your blog, which in turn will result in an increasing number of dedicated readership for your blog.

13. Accept Only Relevant Advertisements

As your blog starts gaining popularity you will find a number of organisations approaching you for promotions on your blog. Make sure that you promote only those products whose ideologies are in line with that of your organisation.

As for an example, if you are writing a health blog and your blog has advertisements for cigarettes, it does not really make sense. Doing things like this will make you lose respect in the eyes of your readers, which will have an adverse impact on your readership numbers and consequently on the amount of money you make out of the blog

14. Create Products

Understand that today's audience is one who has a very volatile memory. In such a situation, if you want your blog to be remembered, you will have to see products relevant to that. If you look at the popular blogging portals in FB, you will realise that almost all of them sell merchandise of their own.

With a number of organisations that allow personalisation of goods, it should not be too difficult for you to come up with a range of products that are dedicated to your blog and those your followers can purchase from you.

15. Avoid Plagiarism

Whatever you do, be honest with your profession. Make sure that you do not paste content in your blog that has been copied from other places. In case you have to do that, make it a point to take permission from the original writer or quote the original source.