How to make money through blogging

There is a growing population of bloggers all over the wide world web.

Some blog for the love and fulfilment they get by writing and sharing ideas.

Others blog to inform readers about a service, or act as a megaphone for thoughts and opinions.

Because free blogging platforms provide anyone with a computer and internet access the ability to set up a blog and begin writing within minutes, new blogs are constantly popping up on a variety of subjects and for a number of reasons.

Increasingly, people are also realising that blogging can bring in cash. It can be a part time job to raise extra cash and for some, a full time occupation.

But how do people make money out of blogging? Simple. You have to know how to make your blog and once it is up and running, make it a notch better than the competition.

Next, create good content. Content that will make readers flock to your site in droves. Write what will interest people.

Some people use humour and others are simply able to write in a way that grabs interest.

If your writing does not do this, then you will lose readers. So take time to work on your writing style and develop one that will be consistent throughout your blog.

You need a schedule of posting articles and you have to stick to it. Your readers expect regular updates and that means you must give it to them.

If you are interested in making money online, you must have heard of Google Adsense.

This is a simple way for website publishers of all sizes to earn money by displaying targeted Google ads on their websites.

The premise is simple, you sign up for an account, you create advert blocks and you paste them on your website – each time a person click an advert, you earn a little money.

You can also advertise a product or service online from another company and each time someone clicks a link on your site and goes to purchase the product or service, you get a referral fee, in what is called affiliate marketing.

You could also try your hand in direct advertising. This is definitely the best way to make money and involves you having a direct relationship with the company that wants to advertise.

You will approach a company and show them what you can do for them by way of advertising their products or services to increase their business.

You will need to have business acumen. You contact people, prove to them that you have traffic, show that it will be worth their while to advertise on your site and so forth.

Don’t be scared to email companies that operate in your niche, pop them an email, tell them about your website and the traffic you have and see if they would like to advertise.

A great way of telling who might be interested is looking into whether they advertise anywhere online.

If they do, chances are they will have someone at their company who understands banner adverts and so forth, making life a lot easier for you to make a deal.

Promotion is the most important factor to financial success. Without your promotion there are no readers. No readers means no income potential.

So get out there and sell your blog. Use social media, other blogs, friends, your email and any other thing you can do to gain a following.

Build them up quickly and then you will see the potential income you can have. One last thing. Some people think that you need to be a techie to be a blogger.

You don’t need to have programming skills. Most bloggers don’t know any programming languages and are not “techies.”

Sam Wambugu is a monitoring and evaluation specialist. [email protected]