Blogging Home Business: Successful Blog & Passive Income NEW

Congratulations! You are almost completely set to go and start blogging. Before you begin writing like crazy, there are just a few more things to take care of first. One of them is the topic of your blog. Even if it is not a bad idea to blog about several topics on your brand new blog, you will definitely be more successful if you narrow it down to a more specific subject. So, how do you choose what to blog about? You should know that people usually search the web to solve a problem or to find an answer to their question. 

A very important thing to do before writing the first word on your blog is to know who you are writing for, that is, what is your audience? If have your audience defined you will be able to cater to it and produce content that people can relate to. This is very much related to selecting your goals for your blog because when you know exactly what you want to achieve with your blog and when you want to achieve it, then you can define things like: who would you like your readers to be; how many visits would you like to have on a daily basis; how will you inform your intended audience about your blog; and many more questions you would need to start asking yourself in order to be successful. 

So now it’s time to brand your blog. By this I mean create a unique name and image of your blog to differentiate yourself from others that are out there in the Internet. The first thing I will suggest for you to do is select a name. And while you are thinking of that name also think about what the URL for your blog could be. I recommend you take some time to think about what your blog’s name should be, and for that you should consider a few things like: what the blog is about; what your target audience is; what is the tone or voice you will be using when writing; and if you would like to build the brand around the blog name or not. 

Before the Internet existed, and more specifically, before blogs and social media were invented, only book writers or journalists had the power to communicate experiences, news, do interviews and write their opinion for everyone else in the world to read. Today we have the Web Two Point O that allows pretty much anyone that wants to, publish a blog and write about anything they want to write about. 

Keywords are also very important for your blog posts. Like I explained before, the Internet is comprehended of text that contains these keywords, and when anyone does a search on a search engine, like Google, Yahoo or Bing, for instance, they type words related to what they are looking for. 

One thing is to write great content on your blog and another is to get people to read what you post and get ranked on search engines. This is where titles can help because they are what sell your content since it is most likely that they are the first thing people will read before clicking to see the entire post.  You may have questions like: how long should my title be?; or what words should I use? Don’t panic, I have great tips for you. The first one is to start with a working title, it is something like a draft of your title, that will also help you develop the entire post without having decided the final version of the title yet.

One of the things you should keep in mind when working on your posts is the Search Engine Optimization. When I explained the use of keywords in your blog it was for exactly this purpose. Working with your keywords on your post is doing SEO. But it does not end here, because there is still much more you can do for the Search Engine Optimization of your blog. When I suggested you get your own domain and hosting for your blog it was also because it actually helps your SEO. Google prefers to rank websites that seem serious and trustworthy, and if you do not have your own domain name and hosting space, it might not seem that you are very serious about your blog, according to Google.

There are many tools out there available to make your blogging experience a much better one. For instance, you have Quora, the crowdsourced answer website that will allow you to know the questions people are asking themselves and that you can actually answer in depth on your blog! All you need to do is search for your keyword and follow topics related to your blog’s focus. Take a look too at Quick Sprout. You will need to enter a URL to receive an analysis of your site’s performance and content. You can see on the Social Media tab which posts have worked best in that particular blog and take inspiration from there. 

Coming up with post titles for your blog does not have to be a painful process. In order for it to always go smoothly when thinking about what you can write on your blog you have to know very well who your target audience is. 

The first thing you should know about creating content for your blog is that people on the web do not read, instead they scan the texts. Also, it is not the same thing writing for something that will be printed than something that will be posted online. 

Something that differences a hobby blogger from a professional blogger is that the pros work with a publishing schedule and the others usually don’t. Since we decided that your goal is to do it like a professional then I recommend you work with a publishing calendar. 

When you begin writing on your blog you might think that all you can post are articles that answer a question or give information about a topic. The truth is that there are many different types of post you can create. You can do an interview post where you write the questions you made to the interviewed person and their answers right away and so on. To do this kind of post you will need to find someone interesting worth interviewing and that your audience will find amusing. It can be a guru from your niche or a professional of a certain topic that can give an interesting view of things from their point of view or that can explain something in detail. 

After embracing your new blog writer status you will see that every now and then you will need to get inspired for your ideas to begin to flow. Whether it is for writing, for improving your blog, or for gathering new ideas, inspiration is always needed every now and then. Inspiration is also part of the writing process, believe it or not! So, what can you do to allow the inspiration to kick in? One way to do it is through other blogs. Surf the web and see what other bloggers are doing. This will give you ideas for your own blog and its content. By reading about what has worked for others will surely inspire you into action! 

One way to promote your blog without spending a lot of money is by participating on social media communities that relate to your blog’s topic. You might be asking yourself “what for?”, but I have several reasons of why you should set apart some time for this activity. 

When you are just starting out, and you don’t have a large budget for advertising, posting on social media might be of great help for promoting your blog and its posts. It can help you get more traffic and shares of everything you are writing on your site. First of all, you need to decide which social media accounts you want to create. If your blog is about photography or something very visual, Instagram has to be on your list. 

Email marketing is an excellent way to promote your business, and of course, your blog. It is considered to be low-cost and not so hard to manage. The first thing you need to do to use this method for your blog’s promotion is to set up a sign-up sheet. This is the page where people will be able to subscribe to receive information from you. You can ask for as many details as you think you need, but usually just the email account should be enough.  

Guest blogging is a strategy that consists on writing posts to be published on other bloggers’ blogs. Either you can write a post for someone else’s blog or someone can write a post for your blog. This method can be very beneficial for you since you can get more visitors to your blog and promote your content. 

Whenever a blog is brand new it can get a bit hard to gain links from high authority sites right from the start, so this is when you need to implement a link building strategy to help you get as much traffic as you can. Link building consists on getting other websites to link to your blog, and it is not a very hard task to do, though it might need for you to set some time apart to do it correctly. 

You do not have to be a designer to have a beautiful looking blog. There are many ways you can enhance your blog to make it visually appealing. In an earlier lesson I talked about the importance of you to brand your blog and also choose a logo. Well, this is a perfect starting point for a good looking blog. 

If your blog is receiving comments it is a sign that it is being read, so kudos for that! Nevertheless, the comments might not always be exactly what you expected them to be and perhaps you need to take a deep breath before deciding to reply or not. 

Launching your blog is only the first step of your blogging journey. After this great moment takes place it is time for you to think about marketing it. The good news is that if you have made it to this point you already have determined very important things you will need for marketing your blog: creating your brand, determining who your target audience is, checking out your competition, making your blog visually appealing, creating great content and images, and sharing on social media. So, what comes next? 

I know the reason you are here is to learn how to be a professional blogger, but most importantly, how to make a business with your blog. In other words, how to make money by blogging. You have come a long way by setting everything up and doing your very best to promote your website and yourself as a blogger, but now it is time to talk about how to monetize all of your effort and begin to get something back out of it in cash. 

Once you start blogging it will be crucial for you to measure closely things like traffic, what posts people are reading more, what your bounce rate is and many more important statistics. Do you remember I recomended you to install a Google Analytics plugin? Well, this is when it becomes very useful to have.  If you do not want to use Google Analytics in particular you can also choose Stat Counter, for instance. It is mostly free for a basic usage but it only measures up to one hundred visits at a time before resetting and counting again.