Make a living, quit your job or make six figures are the most common catchy words around the internet with regard to blogging. All are great, but how do you make your first $100?
In order to make money from your website, you need traffic – visitors interested in your content and the topic.
To get traffic, you need authority through great content and the right backlink strategy.
Let’s start from very beginning. Assuming that you have your blog/shop/website up and running. If not, check my “How to Start a Successful Blog with Only $99 Budget”
If you don’t have a site up but you don’t have any traffic/visitors on your website, check; “The Ultimative SEO Guide for Beginners”
Now, you do have some traffic but you’re not sure how to sell them anything and make revenue on your website, right?
First things first, the banner ads are dead. Surprised? Well, unless the banners include some sort of promotional code or coupon, only a very few percent of the visitors will click on it.
AdSense is about the same. Only very little money can be made from the Google’s Advertising Program.
So, where is the money?
Affiliate, services, education and your own products!
Promoting your own products is pretty straight forward. You can create a blog on an e-commerce website and share reviews about your product via a solid backlink strategy.
Affiliate business is becoming more and more difficult with so many players on the market, the competition is strong and tough.
Education and services
Education and services are one of the categories where the most money can be made. The catch is that you have to be good at something and be able to teach or tutor others in a simple and easy to understand manner. By the way, this is what this blog is doing J Let me know if you have suggestions for any improvements 😉
The top niches in educational categories are: “How to Make Money”, “How to Save Money” (DIY blogs), “Self Improvements” (Fitness, Weight Loss, Beauty blogs), “Playing a Video Games” (Reviews and Videos, How to’s on certain game), “Hobby, Sports and Relax” (Including but not limited to Food, Drinks and Socializing Blogs)
If you have a skill in at least one of these categories and are willing to share your knowledge, you should consider writing your own blog.
Last but not least are the Services to help people with their needs and daily struggles.
For example, if you love pizza; put together a blog featuring the top 10 pizza places in your neighborhood and their product reviews. You will be surprised how much attention and possible rewards you can get from the local vendors.
This type of affiliate hybrid with local businesses is starting to be more profitable because you know your area and can focus and target the customers faster, easier and cheaper.
If you run a national scale blog, the maintenance is more expensive, the competition is stronger and you have to deliver thousands of leads and visitors to your blog. Where only a very small percentage will actually make a purchase.
The secret of making money in today’s world of technology is to “Think globally, act locally.” The giants like Google, Bing or Yahoo (Verizon) and the new generation of Millennials changing the habits of shopping to a more local and cozy environment. Here is an interesting article about this new trend.
I created my first website when I found a hole in the market. After setting up my website, I did some SEO and backlink strategy and in a couple of months, I made my first $100. It was a bit of everything. Affiliate from cj.com was $50, Google’s AdSense was $20, selling my own product (Set of English Tests) was $30.
What this shows is that you and your website must be very flexible and not focused on any one particular source of income. You have to diversify your portfolio of income. A great source of income is guest blogging.
Your website will receive an informative article and you will get paid for the backlink to this article.
You can find more information about this topic in my next article; “Make Money from Guest Blogging”
