Tag Archives: How to Cash in as a Blogger

5 Ways to Make Money Online

September 16, 2016 By in Freelancing/Self-employed Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 83 Comments

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I’ve been into freelancing for some time now. I must say that it is quite a lucrative business. However, it does have its ups and downs.
I know that there are a lot of people who want to launch their online businesses. It makes me really happy to know that more and more people want to take control of their finances and embrace the laptop lifestyle – working from the comfort of their homes, or anywhere they decide to work from.
To open your eyes to the endless possibilities of making money online, I’ve put together a list of money-making avenues you can try your hands on. The good news is that you can combine a number of them to help increase your streams of income. I do all on this list except one, and I am considering venturing into that by 2017. Here they are:
Blogging
A blog is one of the most popular platforms on which you can make money online. The truth is that a blog on its own cannot generate money. It is what you set up on your blog or how you use your blog that will make money for you. And that is the reason many bloggers make lots of money from blogging, and many make nothing.

There are many ways you can make money from your blog. Some of the most popular are:
•    Selling advert spaces on your blog. You can give out certain portions on your blog to advertisers to advertise their products, services or events. You can also sign up to an ad network like Google Adsense or WordAds; they connect you to businesses whose ads you can run on your blog. This method usually requires to you have high traffic for it to give a considerable amount of income. I make a few dollars from my WordAds every month
•    Be an affiliate to products where you can share a link of the products on your blog and get a commission for every person who buys the product through your link. This is also another popular way of making money from your blog. There are many affiliate networks available and many bloggers make quite a huge amount from this but I am yet to make any significant amount from affiliate links. It is just a few dollars I make from this method.
•    Have a membership platform where your readers can pay a monthly or yearly fee to gain access to premium content that you don’t share on your blog.  This works for certain blogs.
•    Sell eBooks, courses or tools that your readers will find useful. You all know about my eBook – How to Cash In as a Blogger available on Amazon for £3.44 but free to read on Kindle Unlimited. I am yet to get rich on this book but it does bring some income.
•    Write sponsored posts for businesses that want you to write a piece about their product or service. I make majority of my blog income from sponsored posts.
Freelance Digital Public Relations (PR)
Freelance Digital PR professionals play the unique role of promoting businesses or creating publicity for their client’s brand or event. Freelance PRs are paid to write press releases, pitch letters and help network with the right people to help promote their clients through online media. If you have a marketing or PR background, good online networking circle or are good at making connections with people, and you are good at pitching and managing your time, then this is a great way of making money online and building a portfolio. Majority of my online income comes from here.
Freelance Writing
If you’re great at writing then freelancing writing may be the right way to go. Freelance writers are always in high demand as more and more people outsource content writing. I am on and off with my freelance writing, I have neglected that part of my online business for months. I am hoping to step up my game soon.
Sell items on eBay
If you’re interested in selling physical products, then this option may interest you. eBay is an “online shop” where you can sell almost anything – jewelry, bags, shoes, clothes, and many more. I have neglected my eBay shop for months now. I just don’t have the time to run it the way I should. I am hoping to sell some more before the end of the year. I just need to find the time to actually list the items.
Vlogging
If you have a considerable number of viewers or subscribers to your YouTube channel, you can make money through vlogging by allowing ads to run during your video. And you can make money through sponsored reviews and mentions as well. I am yet to venture into the world of YouTube, it sounds really complicated (I know it’s not) and is way out of my comfort zone. I like to write and I am good at it (how cocky), not sure about vlogging but we will have to wait and see.

 

How do you make money online? Are there other tried and tested ways to make money online? Do share.

 

 

How to Blog on a Tight Budget

September 5, 2016 By in Blogging Tips Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 76 Comments

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A lot of time, energy and resources go into blogging. You have to run, nurture and grow your blog like you would do a baby. Depending on the vision and the goals you set for your blog, you have to make sure you invest in it.
You can run a blog with no financial investment at all but your progress will be slow and the results will likely be few and far between. If you are thinking of blogging professionally, you will need to take things further to up your game. I’m aware that some bloggers run on a tight budget and do not have enough money to spend on expensive equipment, ads, or software. Don’t get discouraged. You can still make great progress and record awesome results even on a shoe-string budget. Here are some tips for you –
What is your long-term plan?
Surely, you will not run your blog on a budget forever. But if you want to make sure that every penny you spend on your blog gives you a nice return on investment, you need to have a plan laid out. Consider exactly how much you can spend on your blog. Write down the figure on a piece of paper. Next write a list of what you would like to achieve with your blog on a monthly basis, the reason you want to achieve it and an estimate of how much you would need to make each of those items come true.
Here comes the tough part: go through your list and tick only the essentials. When you’re running on a tight budget, you need to make smart use of the money you have to spend. So you need to stick to the essentials as much as possible. For example, if you run a food blog and on your list you have “buy a new camera to take crisp photos of the food I make” or “buy audio equipment for a food podcast,” then the most important item would be a new camera. This is because your readers will need to see the food you are making.

A camera is an essential for any type of blogger. A decent point and shoot camera may be a good place to start if you are running on a very tight budget. Most iPhones also take excellent photos so you may just start with that if you have one, and see how it goes. I shared some photography tips in my book – How to Cash In as a Blogger, so go have a read.

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Improvise as much as you can
There’s always an alternative for everything. Check your list again and ask yourself: Is there a cheaper, yet efficient alternative to the items on this list? For example, you could use your phone to record the videos you’ll use for your blog. You could download video editing software with a 30-day trial period then save up to buy that software next month.
Be creative. Necessity is the mother of inventions. The beauty blogger, Anna Gardner, started by balancing her camera on top of cereal boxes to record her videos instead of getting a tripod to do the job. Think outside the box, and make sure of what you do have.
Learn a new skill
Professional bloggers with a high budget usually have a team behind their blog. They have their own photographer, graphic designer, copywriter, publicist and virtual assistant. If you’re running on a tight budget, you may not be able to afford hiring people to make up your team. Why not learn a skill? For example, you can teach yourself how to create your own graphics, or you can simply use sites like Canva or PicMonkey to get the work done for you. Or get a friend or family member to do the job for you.

Do you have any tips for blogging on a budget?

10 SEO Tips for Bloggers

August 11, 2016 By in Blogging Tips Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 142 Comments

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I have had a few people ask me what my SEO tips were so I decided to write a post outlining my SEO tips.

Blogging is not just about writing articles that your readers will enjoy. You also have to think about how to make your content visible to the online world. There are millions of people searching for information on search engines – Google, Bing and Yahoo. Search engines are a great
source of traffic to your blog. So understanding how SEO works and what you can do to rank your blog high on the search results will
help give your blog the needed boost.

When I first started blogging, I didn’t have a clue about search engine optimization, I didn’t even know what that was. All I wanted to do was to write, and write I did. I wrote without thinking of search engines, or stressing over how the online audience would find my blog. However, as Fashion and Style Police grew, I started to think of SEO. I studied what successful bloggers did, how they wrote their blog posts, and I also did my own research here and there. I always have these SEO tips in mind when writing a blog post:

1. Stay ahead of the search

Anticipate what the internet world will be searching for. Whenever you want to write an article, think about the possible words your ideal reader would be searching for. Write a list of these words and fit them into your blog posts. Those are the keywords you should add to your headlines, first paragraph, and other parts of your blog post.

2. Use long-tail keywords in your blog posts

Short keywords are heavily used and this makes it difficult for your article to compete with other similar articles on the internet. To get optimum benefit from keywords, you need to use long-tail keywords. These are a longer set of words that your readers may be searching for.

For example, “acne remedies” is a saturated set of keywords. Long-tail keywords like “acne remedies that clear acne fast” will have lower competition from other blog posts, but are highly searched for by your ideal readers, if that makes sense.

Keywords are important for SEO but you should also ensure you do not overboard using them.

3. Write attractive headlines

To capture your reader’s attention, write catchy headlines that inform them about what your blog post is about and make them curious enough to click your blog post. Attractive headlines give a tip of what the blog post is about, and they also help readers find your blog post.

4. Create quality content

Millions of people search for information on search engines daily. If you give quality information, this will encourage people to share and make reference to your blog post in their own blogs. References to your blog from other sources help to increase your search ranking. So create quality content so you get link backs an social media shares.

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5. Link to your own posts where relevant

Try as much as possible to make reference and link to some of your own blog posts on your site. This will help you rank higher on the search results. It makes it easier for the search engine to find your other posts. Plus, visitors to your blog will stay longer on your blog and go through your previous posts.

6. Optimize your URL structure

Just like your headline, the URL (that is, the link) of your blog post gives a little information about the post. Search engines favour URLs that make it easier for readers to understand the content of your blog. For example, you can guess what the content of my blog post is if I write my URL like this:

“http://www.fashionandstylepolice.com/2016/08/08/how-to- attract-new- clients-keep- existing-

clientele”. But you’ll have no idea what the blog post is all about if my URL were written like this:

“http://www.fashionandstylepolice.com/45860382624”.

Also, aim to have your url as short as possible. The shorter the url, the better.

7. Optimise your images

If you want your blog images to appear of Google, you need to rename your images with relevant search-friendly names and include a ‘image’, or ‘Picture’ at the end. For example, if you are saving a picture of a boy kicking a ball, you should name it ‘boy kicking a ball image’. Images saved properly will appear on search engines. You also include an alternative text image name.

8. Use relevant anchor text

When linking back to an old post or to another site, ensure the anchor text is SEO-friendly, and relevant to the page you are linking to.

9. Post regularly

Updating your blog on a regular basis will boost your blog’s SEO by adding relevancy to it in the eyes of the search engines.

10. Responsive blog

Having a mobile friendly blog helps your SEO. An easy to use blog will keep people visiting and clicking, which will eventually boost your search engine ranking.

These tips have helped me boost my SEO, so they are definitely worth paying attention to. You can read more SEO tips in my book – How to Cash In as a Blogger.

Do you have any search engine optimisation tips to add?

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