The idea of making money from WordPress blogging is attractive to many people. WordPress offers a low-cost, safe and powerful system for pushing your content out to the world. But generating income from your blog is no easy matter. Strategy is required.
In this article, we’ll explain how to make money from online blogging with WordPress. The opportunities to create wealth are many. Following these tips could help you become one of the success stories.
About Commercial WordPress Blogging
WordPress is the largest publishing platform globally, powering over 30% of all websites. Many people have proven that you can make money with it.
WordPress and blogging can help you earn money online while doing what you want – assuming you enjoy the content creation process. Further benefits are that you are able to work from home, at any time of day or night, and there is no limit to the amount of income you can earn.
The advantages of WordPress software specifically include ease-of-use, continual improvements, excellent themes, flexibility and low cost. You can get started with a modest financial investment.
WordPress is the most popular way to blog using your own domain / website name. You’ll need to pick up some technical skills along the way. But anyone with a basic understanding of computer technology should be able to create a WordPress site.
However, because WordPress makes starting a blog easy, publishers can get in the habit of neglecting the commercial side of blogging. Generating income should not be seen as just some kind of fortuitous bonus. Making significant money can be a goal that you target from the beginning.
This is not to say that making money is easy. You do need a combination of talent, strategy and determination to succeed.
1. Choose a Niche with Commercial Potential
The first element of most commercial WordPress blogs is content that is interesting, preferably unique, and valuable to readers. You could opt to just blog about the topic you personally find most interesting. But will your content deliver something of value to the world? As explained in this commercial blogging guide, “there probably is not a ready-made market for your personal musings.”
One way to discover if your idea for a blog has commercial potential to just to do an online search for the topic. When you do that, do you see ads showing on the top and bottom of the search results page? That’s a good sign because it at least shows that advertisers value traffic in that space.
On a more fundamental level, it can be helpful to target a subject where readers are close to making a purchase decision. For example, “pet insurance” is a better topic for a blog in commercial terms than “pet grooming tips”. People buy pet insurance whereas as grooming is something they can do essentially do for free.
A key factor to bear in mind is the extra value you have to offer. If your blog looks much the same as many others, your prospects for making money could be limited. You need to find a niche where you can offer something special.
2. Create Interesting, Valuable Content
A professional blogger is always versatile in what they can write about. But keep in mind that the blog topic should be related to your profession or personal interests. It will help you feel more at ease with what you write.
You may always gain knowledge in the area you’re writing about over time, which gives you a lot of flexibility in what you write about. Remember that you don’t have to begin as an expert, but you must have the potential and desire to do so in the future. And, when you create content, make user experience the priority since this is a key to business success.
Blogging on particular themes, instead of ad hoc topics, is important for building expertise and credibility. Thematic blogging also helps with SEO, a subject that will be discussed shortly. WordPress software is designed for just this purpose. You can easily organize posts using categories (for broader themes) and tags (for finer grouping).
As the content creator or coordinator, you must take initiative. Form a clear vision of what you want to accomplish or, at the very least, a sense of where you want to go. To set oneself apart from the competition, you must always provide something worthwhile and unique.
3. Market Your Content
After creating original and fascinating content that is better or different than what users can discover elsewhere, you should next focus on marketing. Whether you believe this or not, you should probably devote more resources to this activity than you do to creating amazing content.
To start generating visitors on a new blog, considerable effort in multiple areas is normally required. Getting readers can take a long time without paid promotion. Thankfully, as your blog matures, expands and earns more links from other sites, it will progressively do better in organic search results.
The number of people who visit your website each day, week or month is referred to as traffic. A WordPress-powered website can be marketed in a variety of ways. We’ll share a few of them with you here.
Write “non-commercial” posts that are helpful for many people: The quickest way to start generating organic (search driven) traffic is to publish articles on specific topics where people are looking for help. Better still, create a useful tool such as an online calculator or a table that consolidates information from different sources. The topic should somehow be related to the commercial side of your blog. By helping people accomplish something online, you can earn traffic and start to build a powerful site.
Search engine optimization: Achieving the first-page ranking on search engines is the most coveted way to obtain consistently large volumes of traffic. SEO is a huge industry. You should start learning some core skills, such as finding keywords that people search for and choosing powerful titles for blog posts. You can also pay professionals to help optimize your site and gain links from other websites.
Paid traffic from Facebook: Facebook is a useful platform for gaining an audience because you can quickly reach a large audience. But you need to produce ads that work, both in terms of finding potential customers and attracting them to interact with your site. You can create landing pages on your site as a destination for Facebook users.
4. Monetize Your WordPress Site
There are numerous ways to monetize and profit from your WordPress blog. Popular methods are AdSense ads and Amazon affiliate programs. These are straightforward options for individuals who are just getting started but have enough site traffic to make advertising worthwhile. Plugin software allows you to, in a technical sense, easily join these kinds of programs.
A step beyond affiliate programs and platform advertising is to establish a commercial partnership. For example, you could promote a product or service from a local business in your niche. Once you have a partnership agreement, you can work for your partner(s) in a targeted way. The payoff is often much greater compared to the first options mentioned.
You can also sell products or services directly from your site, such as e-books or online courses. If you have a good idea, WordPress largely takes care of the billing side of things for you. For example, you can install a WooCommerce plugin, or one of the alternatives to WooCommerce, and quickly have professional-looking payment software attached to your site. Always remember that making money from a WordPress site is entirely possible. It does, however, take a lot of time and work to get the hang of it. There is practically no finer feeling than earning your first payment from a site you own.