17 Quick And Easy Steps To Get Ready To Earn Money From Your Blog

Do you have a website? Do you have a blog? If you do, are you planning to earn money from your endeavours? If you are here are some easy steps to get ready to earn money from your blog.

I am often asked how I make my living and how something like a blog or website can actually be part of that. So I thought it might be helpful to firstly run through a list of ways you can get your blog ready to earn money, and then to list the (absolutely amazing) ways you can use your platform to earn an income, which I’ll publish very soon. Many of the ways have taken me years to perfect, so by doing this I will hopefully be able to save you time and energy so you can hit the ground running with your own ventures.

However, I feel I must point out a few things to consider first. This does take time so you must be patient. It is definitely a marathon, not a sprint. But it is very definitely possible to do it alongside a regular day job so it becomes possible for you to get your earning potential increased before you go completely freelance.

The other factor to consider is that your blog design must be better than mediocre. That is the only way to stand out from the crowd (and believe me there is a crowd, with thousands of new blogs being produced each year) so having a good design and a unique selling position (USP) is essential. But more on that in another post right here soon too.

So in a nutshell, here are my quick and easy steps to get your blog ready to earn money…

Get Social

Getting involved in social media not only generates a loyal audience, but it also generates backlinks to your site which in turn can increase its ranking in search engines. Google particularly pays attention to users of their platform G+, so if you’re not already using it and linking it to your site then you simply have to. Also, Pinterest is becoming one of the biggest generators of traffic, and this is set to increase further as image led Internet use expands, which in my opinion is inevitable. So if you’re not already including images in your site then you should seriously think about it.

Think About SEO

This is another post I’m working on as there are simple things you can do to improve the visibility of your site on the Internet, so its found more often for the right reasons. Many of these tips are very easy to do, such as adding keywords to the ‘alt-tags’ on your images and throughout your text. But how do you identify the best keywords? I’ll be sharing my secrets to identifying the right keywords here next week. 

Self Hosted WordPress Blogs

For the benefit of those who don’t know, there are two types of blogs. Those that are hosted by the originating template company (e.g. Blogger, WordPress.com, etc.) and those which are not (e.g. wordpress.org, etc.). I always use wordpress as Google just seems to love their clean and functional template designs and background structure, and having it self hosted allows me to earn money through advertising options not available through the non self hosted alternative. So if you intend to make a business from your blog I would thoroughly recommend using a self hosted wordpress.org platform.

Design A Media Kit

I am regularly asked what my statistics and advertising terms are for my original site, so to save me time I have a very thorough Media Kit to hand that I send out. This saves me heaps of time and secures many earning opportunities as it is a very professional response to this type of enquiry. I will be sharing the layout and structure of the Media Kit I use in a future post soon.

Collect Emails

If you want to be found by fans of your work, you need to be able to stay in touch with them. The best way to do this is via email, and this can be done quite simply using a number of free and inexpensive tools. To find out what I use and how I set it up all you need to do is make sure you sign up to future Inspired Freelance updates in the box that’s just popped in on the right.

Network

One of the best ways of generating interest and influence is to link to and support other bloggers in a similar subject area to your own. This approach has been known to influence Governments and entire populations, so it definitely works.

Back Up Your Blog

When you set up your self hosted site, make sure you have some way of getting a daily or weekly copy generated. Tiny things, such as changing your design template, can completely mess up your site and having a copy is the peace of mind you need for those unforeseen situations. My moment came when my main site was hacked and totally deleted. I watched in tears as years of sweat and toil, of hours crafting its content, got wiped permanently from the Internet in front of my eyes. Having a backup service helped make a terrible experience slightly less terrible than it could have been. More on that and what I’ve learnt about website and WordPress security in a future post.

Share Your Story

People like to know they are listening to ‘humans’ when they read content from the Internet. If you don’t share your story then you will be unable to make that ‘connection’ with your audience, which means it will be difficult to grow and generate any sense of loyalty with them. This is how I’ve shared my story here.

Give Proper Value

In my experience, giving either products or information of value is the best way to generate an audience that wants to keep visiting you. If you are giving away something for free that you yourself found of value, (whether that’s a product or information that has taken you time to put together) then your audience will value it too… and they’ll definitely want to thank you for it.

Inspire And Be Entertaining

People have so much to do in the modern world, and there are endless pressures on their precious time, so why will they give you some of it? Well if you inspire and entertain people, while also giving them value, then that’s three reasons why they might.

Turn The Telly Off!

This is a strange one for the list, but from experience I have found it to be invaluable. In my opinion watching TV will make you less successful. Why? Well, there are so many things you can do, plans you can make and successes to have, if you give yourself the time to work on them. If you watch TV then it will eat away at your time and you’ll find yourself saying things like, “I’d love to do that and make that happen… but I just don’t have the time.” So turn it off and make the time! You’ll feel better for it and you’ll give yourself the chance to succeed.

Think Carefully About A Name

Take your time about choosing a name for your blog. The general rule is to keep it friendly, keep it under 25 characters, include a keyword in it, and make sure its easy to remember. Then of course you have to see if its available. That’s the most challenging bit.

Keep The Bigger Picture In Mind

Your blog might be a platform you intend to use for other things. If this is the case then you must have this in mind with everything you do, making sure all your actions will complement this ultimate goal. I started a blog as I needed to write because of my illness, however, I also had a desire to one day earn money from my writing and to help people. That was my ultimate goal and the bigger picture I had to work with, and I have never lost sight of it during my journey.

Write Epic Shit!

I have borrowed this title from someone who I consider to be a friend. Corbett Barr was the individual that helped me onto this new path in my life after my illness and he absolutely hits the nail on the head in this piece he wrote about the need to make content on your website absolutely epic. In it he explains…

Building a raving audience online all starts with writing epic shit. Period. Hands down. End of story.

I couldn’t agree more!

3…. 2…. 1…. Landing Pages

You really do need to pay attention to the ‘bounce’ rate of your landing pages. This is the number of people that visit a page on your site and simply bounce straight off it again as they haven’t found what they are looking for (see below how you find out what yours is). Visitors to your site will make up their minds about your content (images and words) in a ‘blink’. As a result you need to get the right message across to them in the same about of time. This is definitely a big ask, and developing the right templates for landing pages is something I am currently working on and will definitely share with you at a later date.

Sign Up For Google Analytics

If you haven’t already done this then do this TODAY. It is an amazing way to monitor the visitors to your site, what they like, what they don’t , your overall bounce rate and then gives you precious hints about what you should do in the future. My own analytics shapes everything on my sites, and monitors my investments and campaigns… and did I mention that Google gives it away for free, making it both free and priceless all at the same time!

Stay In Touch

This is one area I myself need to improve on. There should be no excuses here as not staying in touch will lose you credibility with your audience, and force you to work even harder to make it up to them. That’s why I’m working so hard for you now and have set myself a massive list of things to share with you over the next few weeks, that I truly hope you find of value.

So what do you think?

Have I missed anything out and what are you going to concentrate on first?

Inspired Freelance