You create a blog for a reason — to make money online.
Here’s a tiny little problem. You either have no idea how to create your blog, or you have absolutely zero idea what went wrong. You read dozens of blogs talking about “how to make money with a blog” and you practised the steps to the “T” but you are still not making any decent sales.
Down but not out, you are still searching for the ultimate guide on “How to make money with a blog for beginners” or “Earning money from blogging” and you stumbled upon this article.
Here are four important things that you will learn today.
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This will be another long article and therefore, I recommend you to bookmark this. If you don’t have 20 minutes to spare reading this post, see the video below instead!
1. How To Make Money Through Affiliate Marketing?
I love affiliate marketing and I even created a course for it (check it out here). I know there are probably thousands of articles out there claiming that those are the greatest affiliate marketing guide. So, allow me to share some shots of my affiliate marketing income.
Take a look at the images above. On 7th February 2018, I was able to make $237.50 a day simply by promoting affiliate products!
How much money can you make blogging?
The answer is “it depends.” Your blogging strategies will determine the level of success (more on this later).
And no, I’m not trying to boost to you but if you ever have doubts with affiliate marketing, I’m your living proof to tell you that you are wrong. You can make money with affiliate marketing when you have the right strategy.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to help you make money with a blog because it is extremely easily to implement.
In order for you to start making money with affiliate marketing, there are several key points you need to understand.
The psychology behind closing a sale
The psychology behind closing a sale is 20% logic and 80% emotions. Focusing and leveraging on the emotion often yields better conversion results.
The 20-80 rule is always important when it comes to closing a sale. I use this rule in every affiliate marketing product I promote.
I wanted to express the importance of this rule and my research had lead me to an awesome infographic from SalesForce entitled, “The Pscyhology of Sales Marketing and the Human Mind.”
Logic is only 20%
Do you know that logic plays such a small role when it comes to decision making?
Logic can interpreted such as:
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In easier context, a sample scenario would be when you want to buy a meal for your love ones.
You might want to have fine dining but because you are not in the best financial status for the month, you decided to go for alternative (and cheaper) option.
When it comes to affiliate marketing, always remember that logic plays a small part in it only. Keep that in mind!
Emotion is 80%
This is where the juice of affiliate marketing comes into play. You need to be a master of emotion — words that you choose to use will impact the chance of you closing the sale.
There isn’t really a guideline for how to choose the right words to impact your potential customers. However, there are several things you can consider adding into your site to encourage your site visitor to make a purchase.
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Here are some real life examples for you to resonate with.
Billions of dollars are spend on Cyber Monday and Black Friday.
Billions are spend on Single’s Day (China).
You are more tempted to buy a product you don’t need during promotion season.
You think it is okay to use your credit card to buy a product in advance (and do the repayment later).
Become a better affiliate marketer by mastering psychology
By now, you will have quite an idea why you are not making money from affiliate marketing. Chances are you are doing what everyone else is doing and not focusing on the real deal.
This is the real deal and it is entirely up to you if you want to practise this.
I dare to guarantee you that if you uses at least one of the tips above to control the emotion of your site visitors, you are going to make way a lot money than you are doing now. Period.
2. How To Make Money From Your Blog Using Google Adsense?
You should have a Google Adsense account by now. If not, you can sign up for a free account here.
When it comes to Google Adsense, you can either make thousands a month or none at all and here’s why: Not all niches are profitable using Google Adsense.
If you are a blogger who want to monetize your blog using Google Adsense, then here’s what you need to do: Only use Google Adsense for profitable niche.
For example, if you are writing about blogging, the earnings you will get from Google Adsense is pretty bad — approximately $0.01 per click. However, if you are on a business or financial niche, you can easily earn up to $10 per click.
Wait! How do you find blog niches that make money? Which blog topics that make the most money?
Glad you asked. Continue reading the below to discover the exact steps to find valuable keywords and niches.
How to find the right niche to make money with Google Adsense?
I recommend you to take a look at Google Keyword Planner. Here’s how you can use it.
Step 1: Head over to Google Keyword Planner
Step 2: Click on the ‘Spanner’ and select ‘Keyword Planner’
Step 3: Search for general phrase or keywords
Step 4: Key in the keyword of your choice (I recommend general and short keywords for some ideas)
Step 5: Determine the expected value of the keywords using the suggested bid column
The values shown in the column give you an estimated earning if you are able to get a single click out of it.
On average, the keywords of your choice need to be around $3 to $5 if you want to make money from blogging.
Note: I’m living in Malaysia, thus the value is automatically shown in Ringgit Malaysia which is the country’s default currency.
The best placement for ads banner
Making money using Google Adsense is all about the clicks and impressions. Therefore, you should place the banners at the right locations.
The best locations (through my experience) are as below:
3. Selling Ad Space On Your WordPress Site
Selling ad spaces is one of the most lucrative ways to make money from a blog as a beginner.
Instead of just using Google Adsense, you should focus on ading in affiliate banners and even sell the ad space to make money.
Bonus: You want also want to use tools such as OIO Publisher to rotate the banners if you are trying to promote more than one banner at one time.
How to sell ad space?
The first requirement is that you need to have a lot of content published and having decent traffic. Once that is done, check on your Google Analytics and determine the top 5 performing posts.
The next step is to find a common company or product that is associated to the posts and reach out to the companies directly. If this is your first time doing such, I would recommend you to start at a very low cost (say $10 per month for a single slot).
When you hit the 10,000 visitors in a month mark, you can increase the value of the ad space.
Why does selling ad space works?
Logically, it costs more than $10 for the company to run advertisement on social media or Google.
You have your stats to back your content up (say, under 100 visitors a day for that specific post) and this means that these are highly targeted audience.
Instead of using paid advertising that can costs thousands of dollars, they will be happy to reduce the cost while being able to get more sales as well.
An absolute win-win situation for both parties.
Bonus: You can also use services such as OIO Publisher and AdClerks.com to promote and look for potential advertisers.
4. Launch Online Courses To Make Money From Your Blog
How to make money from a blog for beginners?
Online courses, of course!
Online course is a bomb for 2017 and it will be even bigger in 2018. It is easy to create one and doesn’t take a lot of work, to be honest. However, launching a success online course isn’t a walk in the park because it takes some effort and planning.
Here are some things you need to know:
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What are the tools needed to start an online course?
First off, a lead generation plugin that convert your customers to email subscribers and leads. For this, I recommend only Thrive Leads as it is powerful and easy to use.
Second off, you need an online course plugin. You can go for third party platforms (where you get lesser money) or hosting it yourself (and making more money). I recommend Thrive Apprentice.
Now, before we proceed with the third tool, you can easily get Thrive Leads and Thrive Apprentice at $19 per month. Check out Thrive Membership here.
The third tool is an email marketing service that offers two important services; building an email list and upsell your customers through automation. For this matter, I recommend only these three — AWeber, ConvertKit or Drip.
Question: How do you launch an online course and make money? More importantly, how much money can you make blogging and online courses?
How much to charge for online courses?
As beginners, you should start with free online courses. Use the online course to build reputation and more importantly, fan base. Once that is done, you can create a more advanced online courses with price tags such as $29, $47 or $197.
Note: Online courses aren’t a get-rich-quick-scheme. It takes time and effort to grow it from a free course to a massive, high-ticket online course.
Recap: How do you make money from a blog as a beginner?
I hope you find this article useful and I’m curious of what you have in mind. Leave a comment below and tell me what you think on earning money from blogging!
What is your favorite way to make money from a blog as a beginner?