I highly recommend blogging as a side hustle. It’s a great way to start building an audience. When you build your audience, you will be able to sell different products and services. You’ll also be able to get revenue from advertising.
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Why You Should Consider Blogging as a Side Hustle
Blogging can generate huge amounts of revenue. The biggest blogging websites can earn multiple millions of dollars per year. These groups have multiple writers on a team. They get revenue from advertising and sponsors.
You can also hire writers for your blog to make your blog even bigger. There is a place to scale up in this business. This is exciting because there is real potential growth.
One of the main reasons you should look into blogging is because of the opportunities to build up different income streams. Because you are generating traffic from your blog, you are able to later monetize it. You can recommend other products and services as an affiliate, sell your own product, or sell advertising on your site.
This is not to scare you. You can start in the beginning with yourself. You can write the articles and build your way up. As long as you give value to people, people will appreciate it and read your content.
At 100,000 views per month, you can earn upwards of $10,000 per month. There are advertisers that will pay. If you can get a recurring audience this business can earn you a lot of money.
Read about 200 Different Niches You Can Blog About and build a business around.
Who Blogging is Not For
Blogging is not for people that want a quick buck. It’s important to have realistic expectations. It takes some time for your blog to be indexed. This means that Google, Bing, and Yahoo need to be able to find your website and the articles.
You want to be searchable on Google. This means you will need to have an understanding of keywords and overall SEO. This means you will need to learn somethings about the business.
Read: How Bloggers Earn Money
What are the Main Ways to Make Money with Blogging
There are three different ways to make money: Advertisements, Products, and Services.
Essentially it’s anything and everything. Because blogs end up leading to a source of traffic, it can be used to make money. You can sell your own products and services. You can also sell other people’s products and services. This time of marketing is called affiliate marketing.
Read: 10 Ways to Make Money by Blogging
How to Start Blogging
I would recommend two choices: WordPress and Medium. WordPress because you own all the rights and you can design it as needed. Medium is great because there is an already built in audience.
My recommendation is to do both. Focus on your WordPress site. You can then post the articles written and imported into Medium. You can increase your audience this way and point people to your blog.
WordPress
The best way to start blogging is on WordPress. You will need to get website hosting. The website hosting that is best for startups is Bluehost.
I’ve found the best way to go about it is to buy the domain on Google Domains. You’ll need to have the DNS pointed towards Bluehost. This way you can create a Google Email if you want and get the hosting for your site.
The benefit with WordPress is that you are able to own your website. You will want to use WordPress.org and not WordPress.com.
Medium
Medium has an already built audience. This means that you don’t have to focus so much on keywords. You are able to just focus on creating good content.
Medium has a built-in revenue stream. In order for you to do well with Medium, you will need to get published. As you write more content Medium will sometimes curate your content. When this happens, thousands of people can find your article.
Medium makes money from the membership. People pay medium a monthly subscription to read as many articles that they want. This money is distributed to the writers.
What are Two Top Programs for Blogging?
Authority Hacker and Income School are the two programs for blogging that I recommend.
Authority Hacker is great for those that want an analytic approach. They want you to look at the numbers in order to figure out the next article.
Income School is more fluid and has built a great community of bloggers. They require a little bit more intuition with the keywords.
Both are programs that require WordPress. They will ask you to get hosting and give you step by step instructions on how to build your blog.
Do You Need a Course?
Not really. It just helps if want a system that walks through the steps.
Check out how other bloggers are writing their articles. This is a great way to understand how to write. You will want headings and subheadings. Write content and try to skip the fluff.
For pictures, a lot of bloggers create their own and use stock pictures. There are websites that offer free stock pictures. You will probably need to get a subscription after awhile.
Read: How to Develop an Online Course.
Why You Should Consider Outsourcing
As you build your blog, you will need to look at outsourcing different parts of your business. One of the main things that you will want to outsource is your writing.
You can have different people research and find new topics to write about. You can also have people do editing, putting in affiliate links, and put in pictures.
This is just a better use of your time. You’ll want this to become a passive income stream.
How to Outsource Your Blogging
There are a couple places to outsource your blog.
Income School has created a community of bloggers. One of the students has built a business around this model by offering writing services. Check out: Text Goods for writers that follow the Income School method.
You can also find people from Upwork and Freelancer. This is a great way to find writers. These are a little bit more expensive.
Another benefit is that you can hire people from the Philippines to write for you for a lot cheaper. You can check OnlineJobs.Ph.
Another source is right from your blog. You can put a job posting for people that are interested in your topic. You can create a page in the heading and they can be writers for you.
Why You Shouldn’t Consider Outsourcing
The thing to be careful about is quality control. You can hire a person to check out the grammar. You will want to make sure that there isn’t plagiarism. There are programs to check on plagiarism.
Grammarly
Grammarly can allow you to check your grammar, but also make sure that there isn’t any plagiarism.
This can be a helpful way to get your grammar checked and your work free from plagiarism. The advanced features will require you to pay.
The benefit of Grammarly is that some of the grammar will be fixed automatically as you write.
Chegg Writing
Chegg has a blog about studying and has different services related to school. One of the services is on plagiarism.
It’s a more affordable option for checking on plagiarism. You will need to spend time uploading your documents to check if it was copied and pasted.
It can be tiring to check on the quality of your content.
Deciding on a Niche
You will need to choose a niche for your blog. There are different niches that you can choose from.
Look at your most recent purchases. This will give you an idea of your interests. If you bought similar items, there is a market of people willing to buy those types of services.
You will want a blend of your interests and something profitable.
Looking at the Different Products and Services
Go on Amazon and looking at the different categories. These are niches where people are buying a lot of product. Each of these products can also come with an online course, services, and consulting.
You can check out affiliate networks like ClickBank and CJ Affiliate. They have products and services that are available for affiliate commissions. I’ve found them to be just okay. There are courses here though that sell a lot. Frankly, it will be better to find affiliates directly.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How much money can I make in blogging?
You can make around $3,000-$10,000 per month for about 100,000 viewers per month just on ad revenue. This doesn’t include selling other products and services.
How much time will I need to spend on my blog?
You can get going with your blog just 1 hour a day. As you get more time, you can invest it in your blog. You can also outsource parts of your blog.
What do I need to do first to start a blog?
Choose a niche. Get a domain, web hosting, and sign up for WordPress. Start writing blog articles. You can learn as you go or sign up for a course.
