If you are trying to become a professional blogger and want to earn from your blog, let me tell you it is not only possible but you can also turn blogging into your major income source. Many bloggers earn enough from their blogs that they do not need to have any 9 to 5 jobs, but to reach that point you need to do some serious work. Don’t be overwhelmed, we can do it one step at a time. Also, it will take time.
You cannot have a night success (unless your last name is Kardashian) it will take months or maybe even a year, but if you are persistent and follow all that I am sharing here you will get there. I saw my first dollar after five months and it didn’t exactly start raining money right after that.
In this post, I will share tips and tricks with you for getting traffic to your lifestyle blog and monetizing it. Fair warning in this post I will not teach you how to pick up your domain name or set up a blog, for that you can check out this awesome article. This is an advanced-level course where I will tell you how to grow a blog you have already set up. I have also interviewed a fellow blogger and Youtuber Gemma, who was kind enough to take time out of her busy life and share her knowledge and experience about lifestyle blogging. Please read till the end as she has shared an amazing tip specifically for lifestyle bloggers.
Note: These tips are directed towards Lifestyle Bloggers but can be equally helpful for Bloggers from all other Niches.
Here is a great guide for you to learn how to set up your blog from scratch. First, you should choose a niche and since monetization is the goal, I will recommend lifestyle and traveling blogs since they have the highest earning potential. Also, lifestyle blogging is a pretty vast domain and it offers you a variety of topics that you can blog about.
Once you have your blog up and running, you can benefit from my Blogging Tips for Beginners. In this post, you will find 8 amazing tips that can help you a great deal in getting your head around professional blogging.
Once you have set up a blog and have figured your way around the blogging, the only natural next step on the journey of monetization of your blog is to learn how to grow it. Growth of a blog refers to gaining domain authority, getting ranked on Search Engines, and getting more traffic.
While I did say in my previous post; ‘How to blog?’, that “you should not treat your blog as your online journal if you wish to monetize it”, but LifeStyle Blogging is different. You can actually earn money by just sharing your everyday life and babbling about your passions. The best part about it is you can even make loads of money from it. So without any further due, let’s dig into it.
Set a Posting Schedule
Taking into account your other commitments set up a realistic goal that how frequently you will be posting a week (if not daily) maybe twice or thrice a week. Pick the days you will be posting fresh content on and stick to those. Publicize the days you will be posting fresh content so your audience knows when to expect anything new from you and you also have a sense of accountability. Now stick to the posting schedule and be prepared to churn up great content on time.
BrainStorm Blog Post Ideas
Even before you launch your website, you need to have 10 to 15 blog posts ready to go live with the launch of your website, so you are going to need a lot of fresh blog post ideas. It is recommended that you get yourself an annual planner or a journal for jotting down your blog post ideas. Some bloggers find it helpful to carry around a notepad or journal so that whenever the inspiration strikes they can write it down while on the go.
You need to plan everything in advance, including and especially your content. Some experts recommend planning your blog posts a year in advance by taking into account the annual holidays and special events and filling in the slots with great ideas. Depending upon the frequency you are posting on you may run out of fresh ideas. Here is a list of hundreds of great blog post ideas that are designed along with the holidays and events that commence on different days of the year that can be used across all the possible blogging niches.
- Blog Post Ideas for February
- Blog Post Ideas for March
- Blog Post Ideas for April
- Blog Post Ideas for May
Get your mailing list straight
Simply visit these links to see which of the ideas can work for you and note them down in your journal. I will recommend that you post your content related to an upcoming event a month or at least two weeks before the actual event so your post has the time to get attention from the audience and getting ranked in search engines. Say it’s Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas you are planning to post, it must go live in January and not in February because people will be searching for those as soon as February sets in. I hope you get the picture.
Once you have everything planned out you need to let people know what to expect and when to expect it. It is best that you start generating your mailing list as early as possible and once you have it you can mail people about the upcoming post develop a sense of anticipation. You can also inform your subscribers whenever you post some new content. It will also help you a lot if you have joined an affiliate marketing program. Add a subscription button to your blog so your audiences have the chance to sign up for your updates and newsletters.
Build Up Your Social Media Presence
Start working on it as soon as possible, from day one or even before day one. Use your social media presence to create hype even before your website is launched. When your website is live some social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook can be a great help in driving traffic to your website, other platforms like Pinterest will not only drive traffic but also give you backlinks and Instagram can help you create brand awareness. In fact, Instagram is the major hub for influencer marketing.
You should really check out this post on How to Grow your Twitter Account Organically
Here is a helpful post about Pinterest that I found very informative.
Get yourself a YouTube Channel
Reviewing products and sharing day to experiences is way more fun in videos, your audience also finds it more compelling. Your blog is likely to get more attention if you can insert small helpful/entertaining videos from your own YouTube channel. It is a known fact that pages with videos get more views and visitors spend more time on them. Pssst! you can also monetize your YouTube channel but you will have to learn how to optimize your YouTube Channel.
Get professional help
Do you know for getting the best results most experts agree that you should be posting fresh content daily? Some high ranking websites are churning out new posts twice or even thrice a day. You will drive yourself crazy if you attempt to create content and high-quality images, optimize your posts, and share them on different platforms at your own. Throw in the mix recording videos, editing them, optimizing them, uploading them, and responding to comments on your channel. Realistically, it is going to be really really hard to do it all by yourself.
Guess what, you don’t have to. There is nothing stopping you from hiring a professional digital marketing team for your blog. You just sit back and create your content and let the others do the rest for you. Of course, you may feel hesitant to put in money upfront before you start making any money, but remember you are in it for the long run and money begets money. If you really want to make serious money from it, you will be growing your blog to a point where you will eventually have to pay someone to do your bits, why not kick start your journey by throwing in some cash.
Now that was all from me Now Let’s see what Gemma has to share.
Dear Gemma please introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Gemma – I run the blog Hemingwaysisters about my daughter’s journeys through life, travel, and adventure. They have both recently signed to talent agencies and they do a lot of unboxing toys and games and reviewing events, toys, and holiday places. At our blog, we discuss all sorts on there from education to Holidays, home decoration to anything lifestyle that comes up. Our blog grows just by talking about ourselves and what we have been up to, all the content is just because I enjoy writing about that specific thing.
Q: 1: How long have you been blogging and how is the journey so far?
I have been blogging since last August and I have found the journey quite interesting, I didn’t even know blogging was a thing until 2018 so It really opened my eyes up a lot to the influencer world and to more marketing and PR using social media.
Q: 2: What are your blogging goals for 2019 and how far you are in your blogging goals?
Blogging goals for 2019 are 12,000 views on the blog – This is a realistic target, my overall goal I would like to see is 20,000 but I feel I need to invest more in Pinterest to achieve this goal. Other goals are to reach 100 subscribers on the girl’s YouTube channel and currently we have 80 and I would like to hit 200 on Facebook and we are around 107 at the moment. I don’t like to get too hung up on the numbers though as I know I engage well on Twitter and Instagram and I think engagement is totally important as well.
Q: 3: What are the mistakes you have committed in blogging and what you learned from them?
Focusing too much on the numbers and putting pressure on them, I think you have to realize that you can take on too many opportunities, spread yourself too thin and also care too much about the followers or numbers. I find it much easier to say no to opportunities unless we are really interested in them. Although goals are good and it is great to publish regular content I don’t put pressure on myself to do this as then I don’t find it enjoyable.
Q: 4: Do you ever lose hope that you might not make it as a blogger? And how do you keep yourself motivated towards your goal?
It depends on what you define as making it – For me, I write and post because I enjoy the creative outlet. I want to use it as a document for our experience for the girls to look back on when they grow up as I think it contains some nice memories, especially the Youtube videos they have created. I keep motivated by the lovely supportive communities on Facebook and Twitter, there are some great friendly bloggers out there, and it’s great to network with those and all work together as a community to help and guide each other.
Q: 5: What are the three things a blogger should never do?
I am not sure – For me, I don’t accept gifted products if I am genuinely not interested in them – If I wouldn’t buy it then I don’t want to review it.
Q: 6: What are the three things one should keep in mind while writing a blog post?
Write it for yourself, enjoy what you are writing and the words will just flow. Check your grammar and punctuation using a checker, my spelling and grammar are dreadful and I sometimes forget to go over my posts so I am guilty of this one. Maths was my favorite subject at school and I really didn’t like English especially the grammar side.
Q: 7: Can you please share the three most important ways for blog optimization?
- Find some keywords you want to rank in google for
- add meta tags and keywords in your blog posts that are relevant.
- I would also say build backlinks from others in the blogging scene.
Q: 8: How do you recommend growing bloggers monetize their blog?
There are a variety of ways – Sponsored posts you can find on websites like Getblogged, then there are advert type websites like Amazon affiliates and AdSense and then depending on your niche some companies will pay for you to review their products or their holiday companies or anything.
Q: 9: Do you believe everyone can become a successful blogger if they want to?
I think everyone has the potential to become a blogger, again it depends on what you see as success. Some people want to make lots of money and if they work hard and smart then I guess that can happen.
Q: 10: What message do you want to give to those who want to become successful blogger?
I would say always be on the lookout for opportunities, and network with other bloggers and PR people on Facebook, Twitter, and also LinkedIn. Attend blogger networking events, and get on all the PR lists, If you are a lifestyle blogger then BlogOn is a pretty good event to attend, and then focus on your social media followings and your engagement scores.
Thank you so much Gemma for taking out time for us and sharing such helpful information. Please follow her on her Twitter account.
