Blogging for profit is a very real career choice that you can be successful doing if you have a plan of action, follow through, and include these ten key ingredients of an effective and profitable blog.
1. Great Design Â? Depending on your niche, your design should fulfill the needs of your audience to notice what is important about your blog. For instance, if you have a blog about art, then your design should be focused on the genre you’re dedicated to. If your blog is more business focused, you’ll want to tone done the design to be more content focused.
2. Strategically Monetized – Making money from your blog is the goal, but it shouldn’t distract blog visitors to the point that they are turned off and click away. You have seconds to keep someone new on your blog consuming your content. Monetization should appear beside the point to the audience. If you’ve chosen smart solutions for your audience, and you promote only things you truly believe in, your blog visitors won’t even notice.
3. Frequent and Focused Content Â? One of the most important aspects of your blog, hands down, is the content that you include on your blog. You can include many different forms of content, but it should all be laser focused on your niche with your audience in mind and it should be updated frequently.
4. User-Friendly Navigation Â? While your blog will be focused first and foremost on your content, don’t make getting around on your blog to look at various categories, items for sell, resources, and contact information confusing. Make it simple. Remember, less is more.
5. Audience Centered Â? The hardest thing to do with a blog is to keep it centered on what’s important. And that’s your audience, not you. But, since it’s a blog it can be tempting to make it all about you. There are ways, though, to write about yourself while focusing on your audience’s needs.
6. Practice Appropriate SEO Â? Search engine optimization is a method comprised of many different tactics that include content, proper site navigation, keywords, proper post layout, and more – both on and off your blog. All this ensures that your blog is found by those searching for your topic organically.
7. Incorporate Social Media Marketing Â? Not only should you promote all the content you put on your blog on social media, you should also include share buttons on your blog posts so that your visitors can promote for you. If you include a call to action asking your visitors to share, you’ll get more action.
8. Promote Yourself Â? It’s important to be proud of every bit of content that you put on your blog so that you will also be proud to promote it. Promote on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and any other place you feel that your audience resides. Plus, find complementary blogs to guest blog on, mastermind groups to join and participate in and more. The better you get at self-promotion, the more traffic you’ll get and the more money you’ll earn.
9. Build an Email List Â? They say the money is in the list, and that’s true for any type of online real estate. Whether you have a website selling a particular product or a blog in which you want to monetize it, you need to collect visitor information and build an email list. Once you obtain someone’s email information you can send updates, special sales, and promotions easier. Plus, people are more likely to buy from your suggestion if they are a member of your list rather than if they simply visit your website.
10. Have a Clear Call to Action Â? Every blog post or piece of content that appears on your blog should have a purpose. If you cannot think of a call to action (CTA) for that particular content, then maybe it shouldn’t appear on your blog. Give every bit of content that you place on your blog a lot of thought and consideration for the best results.
Profitable blogging is real. People are finding success every single day. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Instead, do what other profitable bloggers have done and create an audience-centered blog that can stand the test of time.
