Janette Novak

Joining blogger forums and Facebook groups is a terrific way to build your knowledge, expand your network, and learn from others’ successes and failures. There are so many online communities, it’s hard to know where to start. That’s why we’ve compiled our list of 11 best blogger forums and Facebook groups that stand out among the rest. People often join blogging groups and forums to get answers to their most pressing questions about the tools and strategies required to build and monetize a blog. You can get a jump-start on getting those questions answered by downloading our free guide, The Blogger’s Toolbox, right now. Top Online Forums for Bloggers Blog forums are online portals where bloggers can ask questions about any blogging topic, and then fellow forum members answer those questions. You can often quickly find what you’re looking for with a mere search of the existing forum content. Here are the top three online forums that you’ll want to check out: 1. BloggerHub Established in 2004,  is an example of a blogger forum with an extensive content base featuring blogging-related questions, answers, and discussions. You can join the forum for free; you simply must abide by the forum’s rules, which amount to making sure your contributions are relevant, lawful, and are not threatening, hateful, or obscene. 2. Digital Point Blogging Forum The Digital Point Forum includes content on everything related to digital marketing and website creation. It also hosts an active discussion board devoted to blog-related issues. You can join existing discussions on the many Digital Point forums or ask questions by starting a new discussion thread. You’ll need to open a free account to participate in forum conversations. 3. Warrior Forum Warrior Forum offers extensive content on a wide variety of blogging-related topics. Not all topics covered here are relevant for bloggers; however, much of the site content is spot-on for those hoping to improve their blogging content and create a successful blog. That’s why Warrior Forum makes our list of top online forums for bloggers. You can join Warrior Forum discussions by signing up for a free account. You can also upgrade to the Premium Warrior Forum Membership for $97 annually; the membership includes dozens of digital marketing courses, tools, and resources. Best Facebook Groups for Bloggers While there are a handful of blogger forums that are still active and helpful—including the three I just mentioned—forums have primarily been replaced by Facebook groups as the go-to source for blogger networking. Facebook introduced groups in 2010 and, since then, their popularity has skyrocketed. You must have a Facebook account to join a group. The owner and administrator of each group set the rules for group interaction. Participating in group discussions is a terrific way to gain more exposure for your blog and build connections that can help you make more money blogging. Here are the top Facebook groups for bloggers that you’ll want to check out: 4. Write Better, Blog Better Facebook Group This Facebook group from Rigel Celeste and Gale&Plum offers writing support and resources related to blogging, including grammar tips, writing irresistible blog titles, and overcoming writer’s block. The quality of discussions and overall interaction in this group are off-the-charts amazing. One additional feature this group offers is a blogging mentoring program. You can find a mentor or become one. This is a free service that gives group members a unique way to support one another. 5. Blogging Like We Mean It Facebook Group The Blogging Like We Mean It Facebook group has over 13,000 members. Launched in 2017, this active group averages more than 800 posts each month. The Blogging Like We Mean It group was created and is managed by Carly of the Mommy on Purpose blog. Carly understands firsthand what it’s like to create a blog from scratch and grow it into a full-time job and shares excellent advice and tips with this thriving online blogging community.   6. Ultimate Blog Challenge Facebook Group Blogger Paul Taubman launched the Ultimate Blog Challenge Facebook Group in 2010 and has grown it to a community that’s over 10,000 strong. Taubman holds free blogging challenges four times a year in this Facebook group to help community members create and improve their blogs and create thriving blogging businesses. The best part of the challenges is that you get to see what others are doing, which means group members learn with and from each other. 7. Blogging 101 Facebook Group While this group from Nicole Floss of UniquelyWomen.net is called Blogging 101, the conversations featured here are often relevant for beginners and intermediate bloggers alike. The group allows you to ask questions of fellow members anytime. You can also grow your credibility as a blogger—and maybe even build your following—by answering questions others ask. The Blogging 101 Facebook group designates each day of the week for different types of conversations. For example, Monday is goals day, where you are invited to share your blogging goals and intentions for the week. Tuesday is promote something day, where you can share your latest blog content, including lead magnets. And Thursday is feedback day, so you can ask the community to help you evaluate anything, such as a blog post, logo, or site design. 8. BlogHer Facebook Community The folks at the BlogHer Network, which has been celebrating women in blogging since 2005, hosts the BlogHer Facebook group. BlogHer is best known for its stellar in-person and online blogging conferences as well as the SHE Media Partner Network, a thriving advertising network. BlogHer’s Facebook group is yet another way for community members to network with other bloggers and entrepreneurs. If you’re a woman who hopes to make a living blogging, you’ll want to join this Facebook group. 9. Women Helping Women Entrepreneurs Technically, the Women Helping Women Entrepreneurs (WHWE) Facebook group is not strictly for bloggers. It’s an active group for all types of female entrepreneurs, but conversations tend to skew toward making money online as an entrepreneur or blogger. That’s why WHWE made our list of best Facebook groups for bloggers. This mega-group that was launched in 2016 by Christina Rowe has over 391,000 members. This group has grown so large, that it’s now spawning new sub-groups based on geographic location. As a member of the WHWE group, you can connect here with bloggers of virtually every blogging niche under the sun. 10. Blogger Roundups A roundup post is a popular type of blog format that involves gathering thoughts from various experts on a specific topic and sharing those thoughts in a single blog post. A common challenge that bloggers who write roundup posts face is finding experts to contribute to their roundup posts. The Blogger Roundups Facebook group from Review Wire Media helps you connect to other bloggers who want to participate in roundup posts. The Blogger Roundups Facebook group has just shy of 2,000 members. All members can add requests for participation in their own roundups—or offer to participate in other members’ requests for roundup content. All blog niches can benefit from this group, though food bloggers seem to be the most active in the group. 11. Mom Bloggers Collective Mom blogs are among the most popular and profitable niches, so it’s no surprise that many Facebook groups are dedicated to this audience. The Mom Bloggers Collective group from the Millennial Stay-At-Home Mom blog offers a supportive community for mom bloggers and mompreneurs. I particularly like its focus on making money blogging. Launched in 2018, the Mom Bloggers Collective group has more than 3,200 members. The group is ideal for bloggers who want to ask questions of others who create and manage a mom blog. The group also offers unique opportunities to connect and collaborate with other bloggers who share the same challenges and struggles you face as a mom blogger. How Joining Forums & Facebook Groups Benefits Bloggers Don’t underestimate the value of joining blogger forums and Facebook groups. It can have more impact on your success than you might imagine. Blogger forums and groups are a great way to get answers to your top questions and learn how others are handling the same challenges you face. When you actively participate in groups and forums, you can get more exposure for your blog, which can lead to more traffic for your blog. These online communities also offer invaluable insights into top blogging tools and resources. If you’re wondering whether an app or platform is right for you, asking others who have experience using them can be quite helpful. Joining blog forums groups helps you build your network. Very few successful bloggers make it on their own; most depend on their connections for support and collaborations. Having a vast network can prove invaluable when it comes to blog outreach, which is essential for getting the word out about your blog—which is tied to how much money you can make as a blogger. The Main Drawback to Online Forums & Facebook Groups One big downside of turning to Facebook groups and forums is that the quality of the information you get varies. Anyone can answer your questions or offer advice, and not all those who offer their thoughts know what they’re talking about. I’ve found that a lot of beginners on forums and groups share their opinions as though it’s gospel, when in fact, the advice is weak or flat-out wrong. That’s why you should always do your homework before acting on anything you learn through a group or forum. Bottom Line Facebook groups and forums for bloggers are a fantastic way to expand your network. Joining online forums and groups is also a fast and easy way to get answers to your most pressing questions about blogging from others who face the same hurdles you face.

You’re ready to start a music blog, but you have no idea where to begin. No worries. Starting a music blog requires just six simple steps. This guide teaches you those steps plus shows you how to create a music blog that makes money. For the better part of a decade now, I’ve helped hundreds of new bloggers start blogs from scratch. My top tip for starting a music blog is this: Build your blog on a reliable and flexible blogging platform. I recommend using a self-hosted WordPress website to launch your new music blog. WordPress is the most powerful and versatile blogging platform on the planet. My favorite hosting solution for a WordPress blog is . You can count on Bluehost to offer reliable and secure blog hosting without breaking the bank. With Bluehost, you can launch your music blog for as low as $2.95 a month. There are just six simple steps to starting and monetizing a music blog. They are: 1. Choose Your Niche As a budding music blogger, the main question you must ask yourself in this first step is, “What kind of music blog do I want to start?” Now is the time to get crystal clear regarding which subjects you’ll include on your blog and who your ideal blog audience is. Examples of Music Blog Niches A niche is a specific subject area or overarching theme that you intend to focus on throughout your blog. There are several types of music blog niches. Your niche can range from somewhat narrow to extremely narrow. For example, your blogging niche could be the entire genre of hip-hop music, or it could choose to focus exclusively on hip-hop artists in Boise. Here are a few niche ideas that may help you clarify your blogging niche: A specific music genre, such as hip-hop, metal, rock, rap, or dance music Music industry news and trends Music facts and trivia Music technology New music Local or independent artists Reviews of recorded music Music festivals, concerts, and events Music lessons or performance techniques Specific musical instruments Your band or your music Choose a niche that you feel passionate about and feel certain you can create content for over the long run. Do your homework by researching other music blogs in the niches you’re considering. Learn from what others do well and not-so-well, and search for opportunities to create something more extraordinary than anything else on the internet today. The biggest mistake you can make right now is trying to cover every genre and every type of music. It’s simply too difficult to focus on the full depth and breadth of the music world. If you try, it will confuse site visitors. That’s why the most successful music blogs typically focus on a relatively narrow niche. Who Is Your Ideal Audience for Your Music Blog? As you consider which niche you want to pursue, you must also think about who the ideal audience is for your blog. Think long and hard about who will be most eager to visit your site and keep coming back for more. Here are a few examples of audiences your music blog could target: Fans of a specific music genre Music fans of a certain age Music fans in one particular region or city Fans of your music or your band Professional musicians Amateur musicians Music teachers Music students DJs Consider where your ideal audience hangs out online now. How are those people currently getting their desire for music news and information met? What types of content interests them the most? The better you understand your target audience’s needs, wants, and interests, the more success you’ll have as a music blogger. 2. Establish Goals & Select Monetization Strategies Step two to starting a music blog is setting goals and deciding how you’ll monetize your blog. You may be tempted to skip this step and proceed to blog platform selection and set up, but I strongly advise against that. I find that bloggers who take the time to develop a well-defined blog business plan achieve far greater success than those who launch blogs using the unreliable “just wing it” strategy. Here are some specific goals top music bloggers often share: Make money blogging Gain attention for your music Promote your music services — such as DJ or music producer services Become an online influencer Get free access to concerts, festivals, and events Land gigs in the music industry Set aside a little time to identify your top goals now, which may or may not appear on the list above. Top Monetization Strategies for Music Blogs If one of your top goals is to make money blogging, I’ve got some good news for you: there are many ways you can earn a living or a lucrative side income as a music blogger. Here are a few top monetization techniques: Post advertising on your site via a popular advertising network Create sponsored posts Sell music or music-related services Affiliate marketing — which is when you receive a fee promoting a brand, product or service Charge artists a fee to feature new music on your blog Set up an online store Your earnings potential as a blogger will depend on many factors, including blog traffic and audience engagement. If you want to make the most money, it’s wise to use multiple monetization tactics on your blog. 3. Choose a Blog Name & Domain It’s time to name your blog and select a domain. Your music blog’s name is the foundation of your brand. The best blog names are short—six to 18 characters—unique, memorable, and easy to spell. Blog names that include words that indicate what the blog is about are stronger than less descriptive names. Before settling on a name for your blog, you must check to see if the domain is available for it. You can do this now using this handy domain availability checker from Bluehost:  4.Select a Blogging Platform & Set Up Your Blog One of the most important decisions you make in setting up your blog is which platform to use. Switching platforms down the road can be a major pain in the neck, so you’ll save yourself a lot of time and effort by launching your blog on a platform that will grow with you as your blog grows. The best blogging platforms are stable, scalable, and easy to use. For those who want to make money blogging, I always recommend going with a self-hosted WordPress site—which is what I use when building new blogs. WordPress is a free, open-source content management system (CMS) used by more bloggers than any other platform in the world. With WordPress, you can access thousands of design templates, themes, and plugins that allow for maximum blog customization. You’ll need a secure and reliable hosting provider to launch your self-hosted WordPress blog. Bluehost offers hosting solutions starting at just $2.95 a month—and you’ll even get a free domain and custom email address in your first year. Set Up Your WordPress Blog Setting up a WordPress blog is fairly straightforward. Once you’ve purchased your domain and selected a hosting provider, you’re ready to pick a WordPress theme. A theme is a design and layout guide that ensures your blog looks appealing and professional. There are several providers from which you can obtain your theme, including , , and . You’ll even find WordPress themes explicitly for music websites. On average, expect to pay from $0 to $149 for your WordPress theme. Next, you’ll want to add some WordPress plugins to your site. Plugins are predeveloped pieces of code that make it easy to add additional features and functions to your blog. Here are a few of the most popular plugins for WordPress blogs: : Adds ecommerce functionality to your blog so that you can set up an online store Akismet: Blocks spammy comments (and most blogs get a lot of these) Contact Form 7: Automatically creates forms that allow your blog visitors to contact you WordFence: Offers an extra layer of security on your blog Yoast SEO: Helps you optimize your blog for greater visibility in search engines Social Snap: Makes it easy for blog visitors to share your blog content on social channels Smush Image Compression and Optimization: Reduces the file size of images on your blog so your site loads quickly Elementor: A page layout software that makes it easy to create custom page layouts on your blog MemberPress: Create a free or paid membership program using this plugin 5. Develop Blog Content You’re now ready to start developing and publishing content on your blog. You can post blog content as either a page or a blog post. The main difference between a blog page and a post is how they’re used. Pages are typically more static and have a singular focus. Blog posts are the pieces of content you create regularly and manage via your blog editorial calendar. Most music blogs contain these pages: Home Page: This is akin to your home’s front door—it’s a primary way to enter your site, though not the only way your visitors will come into your blog. About Page: A compelling About page tells your visitors who you are and why your blog exists. Contact Page: As the name implies, a contact page offers directions for how your blog visitors can get in touch with you directly. Other pages you might want to add to your music blog include an online store page and a page that features music videos. Create Compelling Blog Posts Your blog’s success hinges on your ability to create compelling posts that engage your audience and keeps them coming back. The best blog post ideas come from paying attention to what’s going on in your blogging niche and then creating entertaining content around what’s happening. Here are common types of content you may want to feature on your music blog: Best new music Music event discussions Artist interviews Instructional content Music reviews Music videos Music playlists Artist profiles Concert calendars Most music blogs depend more heavily on videos and audios than other types of blogs. Incredible images are also a must for music blogs. Consistently Create New Content for Your Blog The music industry is always evolving as new music, and new artists enter the spotlight all the time. That’s why it’s vital that you consistently create new content for your blog. At a minimum, you’ll want to post new content once a week. Adding new posts even more frequently may help you grow your blog faster, yet, never sacrifice content quality over quantity. If you want to stand out in the crowded world of music blogs, producing exceptional content is a must. 6. Get the Word Out About Your Music Blog One of the toughest tasks you’ll face as a new music blogger is getting the word out about your blog. There are three highly effective ways to generate more blog traffic, including search engine optimization (SEO), blogger outreach, and social media. Drive Blog Traffic With SEO Search engine optimization is the process of making your blog more visible in search engines. Ranking higher on Google will lead to more people seeing and clicking through to your blog posts and pages. One of the keys to effective SEO is taking the time to do keyword research—which is the process of finding and using keywords that align with content for which your ideal audience is searching. My favorite free keyword research tools for bloggers include Google’s Keyword Planner—which you can access through your Google AdWords account—Answer the Public, Google Trends, and (which also has a paid option). My favorite premium keyword research tools include and . Use Blogger Outreach to Spread the Word About Your Blog Most music bloggers don’t have much of a following in the first few months after launching a blog. That’s why it pays to reach out to well-established bloggers and music influencers who can help you get attention for your burgeoning music blog. This process is called blog outreach. Popular ways to conduct blog outreach include offering to write guest posts for other music blogs, appearing on music podcasts, and reaching out to influencers to offer services they need. Being helpful and providing value to others is a surefire way to grow a strong network that will support your music blog for years to come. Promote & Market Your Blog on Social Media You can grow a massive following for your music blog by becoming skilled at social media marketing. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter are popular social platforms where you’ll likely find fans for your blog. Since managing social media accounts can prove time-consuming, I recommend focusing on just one or two social channels when you’re just starting out. If your budget allows, you may want to hire a social media manager to help you manage social content and grow your social following. Success Tips for Music Bloggers At this point, your blog is up and running, and you’re adding new content regularly. You have all the basics down cold, but there are still a few more tips that’ll help you take your music blog to the next level. Invite Musicians to Submit Their Music to Your Blog You can build massive interest in your blog by inviting artists to submit music to your blog. The artists you choose to feature or review on your blog all have followings—some of which are larger than yours—and will likely share your blog posts with their followers. Plus, blog audiences enjoy hearing about new music—so sharing music is a win-win-win for you, the musicians you feature, and your blog visitors. Create a Visual Vibe That Aligns With Your Blog’s Brand When it comes to creating your website, don’t skimp on design. You want to develop a cohesive brand look that emits the tone and feel you want your music blog to exude. For example, the in-your-face bold design for a heavy metal music blog will be far different from the reserved, high-end look for a classical music blog. If your design skills are limited, and your budget allows, get help developing your brand identity—which includes your logo, basic color schemes, fonts, and overall blog tone. You can find talented and affordable designers on . Post Lots of Music Videos on Your Blog It should come as no surprise that if you plan to blog about music, then you need to include music videos on your blog. Some music bloggers post several different types of videos on their blogs. Videos will keep your site visitors more engaged than just about any other blog content you place on your site. Create More Content More Quickly Using Guest Bloggers Developing high-quality new blog content can be time-consuming. You can publish more content more quickly if you invite others to become guest bloggers on your site. You’ll still need to review content submitted by others to ensure it meets your quality standards, but using guest bloggers is a great way to build an information-rich music blog. Bottom Line Starting a music blog is as easy as selecting a music niche, choosing a name and domain, deciding on a blogging platform, and then developing blog content. Creating great content consistently and using smart monetization tactics are keys to launching a profitable music blog. Another key to creating a phenomenal music blog is building it on a stable blogging platform that will help you scale your blog as your business grows. WordPress is the best platform for music bloggers serious about making. For optimal results, go with a self-hosted WordPress blog using Bluehost’s affordable and secure hosting solutions.

Both blogging and vlogging are wildly popular ways to make money online. The real question is, which one is right for you? If you’re on the fence about whether to start a blog vs vlog, you need to understand the core differences between vlogging and blogging. You’ll also want to master the best practices that today’s top bloggers and vloggers use to achieve phenomenal success. What Is a Blog? Originally called a weblog, a blog is a log of content produced and posted online. Blogs are often created and managed by individuals but are also popular on business websites. People who write blog posts are called bloggers. While general interest blogs exist, most blogs are directed to a specific niche market or group of people who share common interests, wants, or needs. A blog is not a static document, but rather an ongoing mode of communication that is updated regularly with new, relevant content. Blogs typically contain dynamic links to other online content and may also include interactive or community engagement components such as a comments section. Blogs started out primarily as text documents, but today’s far more sophisticated blogs often feature dynamic visuals and videos. What Is a Vlog? A vlog, or video log, is the video equivalent of a blog. Like blogs, most vlogs target a niche audience that shares common interests and needs. While vlogs can and should be supported by text or metadata, the star of a vlog is the person or people talking on the video. Two things fueled the explosion of vlogging. The first was the 2005 launch of YouTube, which is still the most popular platform for vloggers. The second was a rise in popularity of the smartphone, particularly once smartphone video capabilities advanced to the point where virtually anyone can record high-quality videos from just about anywhere. When You Should Blog vs When You Should Vlog The key differences between blogging and vlogging are the degree to which the content creator uses video as well as where the content is hosted. If you love talking to people and feel comfortable on camera—and don’t necessarily want to build a website—vlogging may be best for you. If you’re a person who excels at the written word and wants to create your own website, blogging may be right for you. Many people are choosing to blog and vlog as they find that using both text-based and video-based content helps them reach the widest audience possible. Blogging vs Vlogging Comparison ¹Statista; ²OptinMonster; ³Statista Another Option to Explore: Podcasts I’d be remiss if I let you believe that your content development options were limited to just vlogs and blogs. Another popular way to build and connect with an audience is through podcasting. Podcasts are typically audio-based but can be audio-plus-video-based. A podcast is an ideal way to serve an audience that prefers to listen to content on-the-go. How to Get Started Blogging There are several ways to get started blogging. You can blog on social channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, or LinkedIn. You can also blog on general publishing sites like Medium. If your goal is to make money as a blogger, I recommend building a self-hosted WordPress blog. WordPress is the most popular and flexible blogging platform in the world. Even better, you can launch your WordPress blog with as your hosting provider for as low as $2.95 a month. Choose a Profitable Blogging Niche There are thousands of blogging niches to choose from, but some tend to be more profitable than others. To be successful as a blogger, you want to choose a niche that aligns with your interests and skills and gives you the optimal odds of accomplishing your blogging goals. Here are the 11 most popular blogging niches: Mom and parenting blogs Food and cooking blogs Lifestyle blogs Business blogs Fitness and wellness blogs Entertainment blogs Personal finance blogs Craft, hobby, and DIY blogs Travel blogs Product review blogs Fashion and beauty blogs Create Excellent Blog Content A blog’s overall content strategy will significantly influence how well the blog performs. The secret to blogging success is to create amazing content on topics that are in high demand. When you consistently develop superior-quality content, you can build a successful blog that stands the test of time. Your blog content can be primarily text-based—which is relatively common. The best blogs tend to mix up how they present content on their sites by adding interactive quizzes, videos, and high-impact graphics. One way to make the most out of your blogging content development efforts is to repurpose your blog content. For example, you can transform your blog posts into scripts to record as videos for your vlog. How Do Bloggers Make Money? There are several ways to make money as a blogger. The income you’ll make blogging will depend mainly on the type of audience you serve, how much traffic you drive to your blog, and the types of monetization strategies you choose. Here are the most popular ways bloggers make money: Affiliate marketing, which is when you receive a fee for promoting others’ products or services Advertising Sponsored content Develop and sell online courses Write and sell books and e-books Sell professional or freelance services Sell physical products—your own or others’ products How Much Do Bloggers Make? Those who treat their blogs like a business and operate with a strong blog business plan make a lot more money than those who treat their blogs like hobbies. Some bloggers never make a dime, while many get stuck in the $200 to $2,500 a month range. It is possible to make five figures or more per month as a blogger. In fact, many bloggers have shed their 9 to 5 jobs to create successful blog businesses that allow them to work from anywhere. To be honest, you probably won’t make a fortune as a blogger overnight, though. It takes a lot of hard work to build a profitable blog, but it’s certainly possible. How to Get Started Vlogging Getting started as a vlogger can be as simple as holding your smartphone in front of you, hitting the record video button, and then posting your new video on YouTube or another popular vlogging platform. In truth, successful vloggers put a lot more time and effort into coming up with their overall vlogging strategies and creating amazing shareworthy videos. Choose Your Vlogging Platforms The most successful bloggers typically build their blogs on their own websites. Unlike bloggers, the most successful vloggers vlog on platforms that host their videos for them. YouTube is by far the king of platforms for vloggers due to YouTube’s massive active user base. There are more than 30 million YouTube channels with 15 million creators uploading 80 million each month. About 16,000 YouTube channels have more than a million subscribers—an indication that many are making it big as vloggers. While YouTube dominates, it’s not the only place where you can vlog. You can vlog on Instagram via IGTV, which stands for Instagram TV. You can also vlog on Facebook through the social channel’s live video option or host videos on Facebook via Facebook Watch. Perhaps the most exciting and explosive trend in vlogging is TikTok, a video-sharing social networking service. Individual videos on TikTok are limited to a mere 15 seconds, though you can string four 15-second videos together for up to 60 seconds of total viewing time. The most popular vlogs on TikTok are playful and entertaining. Ryan O'connell has millions of likes on TikTok for his roller-skating vlogs. (Source: Tiktok.com) Choose a Profitable Vlogging Niche While there is a lot of overlap in niches for vloggers and bloggers, there are also differences. Beauty, fashion, fitness, lifestyle, finance, and travel are hot niches for both blogs and vlogs. Gaming, comedy, and entertainment are other niches that tend to work exceptionally well for vloggers. Is Your Ideal Audience Under 30? One thing that differentiates vlogging from blogging is audience age. Millennials in particular often prefer video content over text-based content. If your ideal audience is under 30, you need to strongly consider vlogging as part of your content strategy. Create Excellent Vlog Content Whether you’re a blogger or a vlogger, quality content is a must. How you go about creating that content, though, is vastly different. Get the Right Equipment for Vlogging Vloggers who are just starting out sometimes underestimate what goes into creating a shareworthy video. It’s not always easy to produce the high-caliber videos today’s audiences expect. That being said, a video that offers extreme value to viewers doesn’t necessarily need to be as polished as a high-end Hollywood production. Here is a list of equipment commonly used for vlogging: A smartphone or camera with video capabilities A microphone that can capture your voice without picking up background noise Sturdy support for your camera, such as a tripod Auxiliary lighting options when natural light is insufficient Teleprompter software, which can be downloaded to a tablet or laptop Professional backdrops Video editing software such as iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or Filmora9 Show Charisma on Camera In addition to using the right equipment to create your vlogs, you’ll need to work on your video delivery skills. In truth, very few people are flat-out naturals at being charismatic on video. It may take a fair amount of practice to become skilled at speaking on video with finesse and flair. As with any skill, though, the more experience you get under your belt, the more engaging you’ll come across as a vlogger. Create a Vlog Script to Save Time & Create Content Some vloggers “wing it” when they speak on camera, but a lot more are just good at making it look like they’re winging it when they’re actually speaking from a script. Scripts allow you to minimize both the amount of time you spend filming your vlog and editing it. Using a script also helps you stay focused on the content you want to feature on your vlog, thus serving your audience better. How Do Vloggers Make Money? For the most part, vloggers make money using the same monetization techniques bloggers use, including advertising, affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and selling all types of products and services. Vloggers can earn advertising income through Google AdSense for content posted on YouTube. You’ll need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours within the last 12 months to join the AdSense program for YouTube. How Much Do Vloggers Make? It’s difficult to report what the average vlogger earns because very few vloggers make that information public. As with bloggers, vlogger income varies greatly—and I’m talking from $0 to millions. Vlogger advertising payouts on YouTube average between $10 and $33 per thousand ad views. The most successful vloggers diversify their income streams, often using sponsored videos and product sales to generate the lion’s share of their income. According to a recent YouTuber survey, vloggers earn anywhere from $100 to $1,000 in sponsorship fees for videos with 10,000 monthly views. Vloggers with views in the millions each month can earn five- and even six-figures in sponsorship fees for a single vlog post. Bottom Line The choice between whether to blog vs vlog comes down to your personal preferences for developing content. Some people have personalities that are a natural fit for video, while others are born writers. You can make a great living as a vlogger or blogger, but to make the most money possible in today’s world where audiences for nearly every niche want to consume content in multiple ways, you may want to both blog and vlog.

While most bloggers use Facebook to support and promote their existing blogs, you can also blog directly on Facebook for free. If you want to learn how to blog on Facebook, it’s important to understand the benefits and limitations of blogging on this popular social platform. The Two Ways to Blog Directly on Facebook There are two ways to blog on Facebook. The first is through Facebook posts, which works best for short posts. The second way to blog directly on the social channel is through Facebook Notes, which allows you to create simple yet attractive longer blog posts that are easy for your followers to read. How to Blog Using Facebook Posts When you think of the term “blogging,” you may think of articles that are a bit longer than most social media posts. However, there’s also a practice called microblogging, which is when a blogger creates a short piece of relevant and highly focused content to share with an audience. Facebook is just one of many platforms ideal for microblogging—Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr are other popular microblogging sites. Many bloggers use Facebook posts for microblogging. Facebook is the ideal platform to share short videos, images, and text-based content. The maximum character count for Facebook is 63,206; however, studies show that Facebook posts with 80 characters or less generate 88% more engagement. When it comes to posting on Facebook, shorter posts with eye-catching visuals or videos tend to work the best. Just because short posts work well, though, doesn’t mean longer posts can’t work. For example, author Jeff Foster typically writes posts between 300 and 1,000 words which often produce high volumes of likes, shares, and comments that most bloggers would envy. To be successful blogging on Facebook, you have to understand your audience and figure out what they want from you. Experiment with different post types and lengths. Then, do more of what works best for your followers. How to Blog Using Facebook Notes Facebook Notes is a feature offered on the social channel that probably doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves. You can use Facebook Notes to create the same types of blog posts you could host on popular blogging platforms like WordPress and Squarespace. How to Add Facebook Notes to Your Facebook Page The Facebook Notes feature is not automatically active on your Facebook page, so you’ll need to add it. You’ll start this process by clicking on your Page Settings tab on your Facebook page administrator’s screen. Once you’ve opened your Page Settings screen, navigate to the Templates and Tabs menu option on the left sidebar. You'll add Facebook Notes to your page by first clicking on the Page Settings tab. After clicking on the Templates and Tabs menu, several options will appear, and one of them is Notes. Move the slider over to the right to turn the Notes function on for your Facebook page. Once you've gone through the steps above, Facebook Notes will be active on your page. You’re now ready to start blogging. How to Create a Blog Post Using Facebook Notes Make sure you’re logged in as your page administrator. Navigate to your homepage on Facebook where you’ll see your Facebook featured tabs, which could vary a bit from others’ pages because you may have different tools loaded. If you don’t see Notes in your featured tabs, simply click on the down arrow next to the More tab, and Notes will appear. When you click on Notes from your tabs bar you’ll see the following: To add a new blog post via Notes, simply click on the “+Add Note” button in the top right corner. Once you do this, a blank template will appear (see below). You will use this template to create your blog post. How to Format Your Facebook Note Blog Posts As you can see from the image above, the Facebook Notes interface is fairly simple. You can add an image, a title, and then your blog post content. The current date is automatically added to your post. You have the choice to delete, save, or publish your Facebook Note. If you choose to save the Note, a draft will be saved but it will not be published. You can save posts and come back and continue writing or editing later, and when you’re ready, you can then publish them. Optimal featured image dimensions for Facebook Notes are 1200 by 445 pixels. Since your featured image will appear in your followers’ feeds—and will influence how many will be intrigued enough to read your post—it’s important to choose an eye-catching image. While Facebook Note formatting features could hardly be described as robust, the platform gives you enough tools to create attractive blog posts. Most of the formatting tools are revealed only after you start typing; simply click on the circle plus icon and the paragraph icon to view your formatting options. Facebook Notes allows you to add images and HTML code into your blog posts. You can also embed videos, gifts, and links to content on other sites to your Facebook Notes. Blog post text-formatting options are revealed by clicking on the paragraph icon. You can adjust headline sizes or add bulleted lists, numbered lists, and quotes to your blog articles. You can also bold and italicize your text. Once you’ve published your blog post using Facebook Notes, this is what it will look like in your followers’ Facebook feeds: As you can see, only a short sample of the text for your blog post will appear in your followers’ feeds. Your fans will need to click “See More” to read your full blog post. That’s why it’s important to ensure your image and your blog post introduction are compelling; if you don’t, you won’t get your users to click on the “See More” link and your blog will go unviewed. When your followers click on the “See More” link, they’ll see your full blog post without ever having to leave Facebook (see example below). One Big Note of Caution About Facebook Notes Facebook Notes is a viable and free way to blog on Facebook. However, while this feature was a little more popular a while back, it really hasn’t caught on like wildfire and I’m seeing fewer and fewer people use it today. It appears that even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is only using Notes sparingly. While there’s been no announcement to date by Facebook about pulling this feature from its platform, Facebook does make service changes from time-to-time. If you plan on blogging on Facebook via Facebook Notes, I strongly recommend you keep a copy of those posts elsewhere. I’d hate to see you lose all your content should Facebook stop supporting its Notes feature. How Do I Make Money Blogging on Facebook? You can make money blogging on Facebook by selling products or services or through affiliate marketing or sponsored posts. You can also open a shop on Facebook. If you want to make the most money as a blogger, though, it’s best to create an independent blog using a popular blogging platform such as WordPress, Squarespace, or Wix. The Pros and Cons of Blogging Directly on Facebook Facebook is the most popular social media channel in the world. In the US alone, Facebook has more than 221 million users. As a blogger, you simply can’t afford to ignore this social media giant. The key question you need to ask is not whether you can start a blog on Facebook—you definitely can—but rather, should you blog directly on Facebook? To help you make a fully informed decision regarding whether blogging on Facebook is the right strategy for you, let’s review the pros and cons. The top pros of blogging directly on Facebook include: Free: You don’t need to pay a dime to blog on Facebook. Large user base: Facebook has a huge active base of users that includes nearly all ages. Easy: It’s easy to get started blogging directly on Facebook. Less reader resistance: Many social "scrollers" prefer to remain on the social channel they're currently on. When you blog directly on Facebook, followers can read your posts without leaving Facebook. Possible Facebook visibility advantage: Facebook loves for you to keep your followers on the social channel rather than sending them to another site. Facebook may reward you for blogging directly on Facebook by boosting blog post visibility in your followers' Facebook news feeds The top cons of blogging directly on Facebook include: No organization tools: There's no way to organize or categorize your Facebook blog posts. Limited formatting features: Blog post formatting capabilities on Facebook are extremely limited; poor formatting often leads to a subpar reader experience. Hard to build a brand: You don’t get a private domain on Facebook, which makes building a brand and reputation for your blog extremely difficult. Search disadvantage: You have more control over search engine optimization (SEO) on your own blog than you do on Facebook blog posts. Monetization is limited: There aren’t as many ways to monetize your blog on Facebook as there are on your own website. For example, you can’t make money from advertising on your Facebook blog. Complete blog content is hard for users to find: While new Facebook blog posts show up fine in feeds, it takes a lot of effort for followers to go back and find your other blog posts; that’s something visitors to a standalone blog site can do quite easily. Facebook is not widely used for traditional blogging: While people promote their blogs on Facebook, the platform is not as popular for hosting actual longer-form (over 300 words) blog posts. Could lose all your work: You're at Facebook's mercy; they could remove your blog content at any time (though you’d likely receive a warning before they did so). Is Facebook the Right Blogging Platform for You? Blogging on Facebook makes a lot of sense for some people but whether it's right for you depends on your goals. If you don’t already have a website for your blog—and you’re not sure you want to commit to starting your own blog yet—blogging on Facebook is an easy way to get started as a blogger. If you want to make money blogging, I recommend that you create your own blog and use it as your primary blogging platform. This gives you the most control over your site and the best chances of turning a profit. That being said, you can and should still create and use a Facebook page to promote your blog. You also may want to blog directly on Facebook from time to time as it could give you a slight engagement and visibility advantage. The Best Facebook Blogging Alternative While you can use Facebook to blog, you’re at Facebook’s mercy on who’ll see your posts and when they’ll see them. For example, say you build a Facebook follower base of 100,000. Not all those people will see all your blog posts. In fact, on average, you can count on less than 5% of your fans seeing every post unless you support all that content through paid advertising—which would get very pricey, very fast. Don’t get me wrong; Facebook is a marvelous marketing and promotional tool for bloggers; it’s just not an ideal blogging platform. If you are serious about building a successful blog, I recommend you create your own website using a top blogging platform. Then, use Facebook as a social channel to spread the news about your blog, engage followers, build a community, and promote your products or services. In my opinion, the best alternative to creating a Facebook blog is to set up a self-hosted WordPress blog using Bluehost as your hosting provider. This gives you the opportunity to have your own domain, brand your blog, scale it as your business grows, and design your blog the way you want it to look. It also lets you fully tap into the power of search engine optimization (SEO) so your blog content has a better chance of being visible in Google searches. You can get started with a self-hosted WordPress blog for as low as $2.95 per month using Bluehost as your hosting provider. How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Blog As a blogger and blogging consultant, I understand firsthand the tremendous value of using Facebook as a marketing and promotional tool. Every time I publish a new blog post on my self-hosted WordPress blog, I always add that post to my Facebook page to make sure it gets in front my large base of Facebook fans as well as to create a sense of community for my blog audience. I also use Facebook ads from time to time to target my ideal target market and introduce them to products and services that I think they might like. I even have a Facebook group for my blog where I build a sense of community and host special online learning events and challenges. There are so many ways to use Facebook to make more money as a blogger. You can extend your blog monetization efforts by posting sponsored posts on Facebook. And, you can even sell products directly on Facebook. Use Facebook to Promote Your Blog Posts You can add Facebook posts to your page manually or through a social media management tool like Hootsuite or Buffer (I personally use Buffer). All you need to do to link an article from your personal or business blog to Facebook is to click on “Create Post” from your Facebook homepage. Then, write a short intro and add the URL of the post you’re discussing. Facebook lets you choose to publish your post immediately or at a later date. Facebook also gives you the opportunity to add other features to your post. Those options vary a bit, but here are the options offered at the time this article was written: You can also Boost your Facebook post—starting as low as $1 a day—so more people will see and engage with your post. A Boost is a form of Facebook advertising, but in my opinion, is typically not as effective as other advertising options available through Facebook Here’s what your new Facebook post looks like after you’ve added your blog content and link but before you’ve hit the Post button: Posts to your blog on your own website look a little different in your follower’s feeds than blog posts created in Facebook Note. The side-by-side images below best illustrate the subtle differences. Examples of Popular Facebook Post Formats From Bloggers They say variety is the spice of life and adding variety to your blog’s Facebook page is a good way to achieve better engagement and overall results. Adding different types of content, including videos and questions in addition to links to your blog posts, is a wise strategy for maximizing exposure for your blog on Facebook. Example One: Add Video on Facebook to Promote Your Blog Videos get about 59% or more engagement on Facebook than any other type of post. You can post live videos to Facebook or link to existing videos on your blog or YouTube channel. According to HubSpot, Facebook users spend three times longer watching live videos compared to non-live videos. Since 85% of videos on Facebook are watched without sound, be sure to add captions to your videos that depend on sound to convey important messages. Some videos, like some “how to videos,” don’t depend that heavily on sound to work well. Example Two: Create a Personal Connection on Your Facebook Page Remember that Facebook is a social platform and it pays to get personal from time to time. Try posting audience questions, personal stories, and anecdotes on your blog’s Facebook page. Then, ask your followers to join in the conversation. This is a terrific way to come across as more authentic to your followers and to show them you care. People love doing business with those they can relate to and trust. Adding candid images of yourself can also make you more relatable to your audience. Example Three: Add Amazing Photos to Your Facebook Page While all blog niches can benefit from incorporating attention-grabbing images on the Facebook pages, there are some niches where amazing visuals are imperative. For example, travel, fashion, food, and home interior and design blogs absolutely must add amazing visuals to their pages. One of the top benefits to compelling visuals is that they’re frequently shared—often by a lot of people. This can yield more exposure for your blog. Bottom Line You can blog on Facebook for free using either the social channel’s post or Facebook Notes features. For peak blogging results though—especially if you want to make the most money from your blogging efforts—it’s best to build your own blog and use Facebook to promote that blog. You can build a self-hosted WordPress blog with as your hosting provider for as little as $2.95 per month. WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in the world, and Bluehost offers secure, flexible, affordable hosting solutions and extensive customer support. Bluehost even comes with a free custom domain for your first year.

A popular way to make money blogging is to join an ad network. Yet, there are so many network options available, it can be difficult to know which is the best ad network for you. We’ve done an extensive evaluation of all the options available today to find the very best ad networks for bloggers. The right network for you will depend on whether you’re just starting out or already have more than 100,000 page views per month, or fall somewhere in between. After conducting a thorough review of all the options—and looking at hundreds of real-life bloggers’ income reports—we found the five top ad networks for bloggers are: MediaVine: Best overall ad network for bloggers with 50,000 to 100,000 sessions per month Google AdSense: Best for beginners and those with less than 10,000 page views per month Ezoic: Best for bloggers with 10,000 to 50,000 page views per month AdThrive: Best for those with over 100,000 page views per month Media.Net: Best Google AdSense alternative for bloggers with less than 10,000 page views per month How Ad Networks Work An ad network works directly with advertisers on your behalf, handling all the details regarding advertiser negotiation, ad creation, and ad management. When you join a network, you’ll be given code to place on your website—often through an easy-to-use plugin—that determines where ads will appear on your blog. In most cases, you have some control over where the ads appear as well as how many ads are posted on your site. As an ad publisher, you receive a portion of the fee that the ad network receives from the advertiser. How much you earn depends on a number of variables, including your total website traffic, blogging niche, quality of your site content, and overall perceived desirability of your site to potential advertisers. The more success advertisers see when placing ads on your blog, the more money you can earn. Common Ad Network Pricing Models Bloggers typically receive around 50% to 75% of the total ad revenue that the network receives from advertisers. Ad networks retain the remainder of the fee for their effort in acquiring advertisers and managing the process. Each network sets its own terms and some do not disclose their formula for ad compensation. There are many advertising cost models used, but the most popular way networks charge advertisers include: Cost-Per-Thousand (CPM): Advertisers pay a fee for every thousand impressions a single ad receives. Cost-Per-Click (CPC): Advertisers pay a fee when someone clicks on an ad. Cost-Per-Acquisition or Action (CPA): Advertisers pay a fee when someone makes a purchase or takes a specific action after clicking on an ad such as signing up for a free trial. When posting ads on your site from a network, you will usually be referred to as a publisher. Ad networks may discuss publisher compensation in terms like Revenue-Per-Thousand (RPM), Revenue-Per-Click (RPC), or Revenue-Per-Acquisition (RPA). This is just the flip side of the coin, where networks are talking about what you as a publisher receive minus the ad network’s cut for managing the advertising process. How We Evaluated Ad Networks The top reason people join ad networks is to make money blogging, so you want to optimize what you’ll receive from ads on your blog. Monetization potential was the top factor we considered when evaluating options. Other factors we considered when conducting our review: Set up ease: You want an ad network that’s easy to set up so you can start earning ad revenue quickly. Support: The best ad networks offer significant support to their publishers and answer questions promptly. Payout thresholds and timing: Receiving prompt payment is important for most bloggers. You also don’t want to be subjected to long holds on your earnings as you wait to hit a high payout threshold. Dashboard and reporting features: You need to be able to quickly see how advertisements are performing on your blog. Traffic requirements: Many ad networks have minimum traffic requirements that can be rather high; we took a look at the traffic requirements for every network we reviewed. We poured through hundreds of blogger income reports in conducting research for this post on the best ad networks for bloggers. Hands-down, the most popular ad network was MediaVine. Successful bloggers turn to MediaVine more frequently than any other ad network. The only catch is you must have at least 50,000 sessions per month to join the network. Many ad networks require a certain number of page views to qualify for admittance; MediaVine uses sessions instead. Sessions are single visits to your website. For example, if a person visits your blog and views three different pages, the session count is only one while the page view count is three. Mediavine’s high session count requirement means not all bloggers qualify to join the network—especially when they're just starting out. The Five Best Advertising Networks for Bloggers The best ad network for you will depend heavily on your total monthly blog traffic. The higher your traffic, the greater your earnings potential. In our review of dozens of ad network options, we found that MediaVine, Google AdSense, Ezoic, AdThrive, and Media.Net were all top choices—each for different reasons which we’ll discuss now. 1. : Best Ad Network for Bloggers with 50,000 - 100,000 Sessions Per Month The main reason MediaVine tops the list for best ad networks is that its payouts are generous compared to many other ad networks. Bloggers report earning 200 to 400 times more on MediaVine than they earned with Google AdSense. With Mediavine, most publishers earn an ad revenue share of 75%—MediaVine keeps the remaining 25% as its share. You can also earn an annual loyalty bonus of 1% to 5% after year one. Bloggers with high-traffic sites that produce five to 15 million impressions within a 30-day period can earn a revenue share of 80% to 85%. MediaVine is known for its fast-loading ads—which is important so the ads don’t slow down your website load time. Signing up is easy; just complete a short Google form and you’ll be notified within a few days about whether you’ve been accepted. You’ll need a high-quality website that meets MediaVine’s standards to be accepted. Also, MediaVine requires that you verify you have the minimum 25,000 sessions in the last 30 days through your Google Analytics. Mediavine requires a minimum 90-day initial commitment. You also can’t be a member of any other ad network once you join MediaVine. The downside for many bloggers is they don’t meet the minimum 50,000 sessions per month traffic threshold that MediaVine strictly enforces. It often takes bloggers several months or even a year or more to hit this volume. Income Potential With MediaVine To give you some context of what you might be able to earn through MediaVine, we gathered real-world examples of actual earnings from bloggers’ income reports. Here are a few examples of bloggers making money with MediaVine: Money Dot Calm averaged earning between $323 and $922 per month with sessions counts ranging from 25,502 to 48,999 per month. The Chasing Foxes blog earned $7,595 from 1,066,534 page views in a single month. The Living the Dream blog earned $299 from 25,360 page views in a single month. The Twin Cooking Project blog earned $782 with 140,820 pages views in a single month. 2. : Best Ad Network for Bloggers With Under 10,000 Page Views Google AdSense is one of the easiest ad networks to join. It’s also the largest network with over 2 million publishers. Since Google is the king of online ads, millions of advertisers compete for Google ad space on websites and blogs, which could translate to more money-making opportunities for you. The sign-up process for Google AdSense is easy and straightforward and you typically hear whether you’ve been approved in less than 48 hours. One you are approved, you can choose to manually place ads on your blog or add one piece of code to your site that automatically posts ads tailored to your website’s layout and content. Google shares 68% of total ad revenue with publishers for display content ads and 51% for search ads; they do not disclose the revenue share for other AdSense products. Google runs both CPC and CPM ads. Advertisers choose how they want to pay for ads and Google delivers ads to your site that it believes will monetize the best for you (and for Google too). Most of the top ad networks are Google Certified Publishing Partners that require you to be in good standing with Google AdSense. This means, if you’re a new blogger, AdSense is a reasonable place to get started. Many bloggers move to other networks once their traffic exceeds 10,000 page views a month. The biggest downside to running ads through AdSense is that you probably won’t make much money. Still, it’s a great way to get your audience accustomed to seeing ads on your site as you grow your blog traffic. Income Potential With Google AdSense To give you some context of what others actually earn through AdSense, we gathered real-world examples from bloggers’ income reports. Here are a few examples of bloggers making money with Google AdSense: The Money Ninja blog earned $158 from 47,594 page views in one month. The Evolving Table blog earned $87.30 from 100,340 page views in one month from AdSense, and an additional $191.48 from Gourmet Ads (an ad network for food bloggers). She Dreams of Alpine blog earned $20 from 762 sessions in one month. This Online World earned $166.17 from a little more than 20,000 page views in one month. 3. : Best Ad Network Bloggers With at Least 10,000 Monthly Page Views But Less Than 50,000 Sessions Ezoic recommends that you have an average of 10,000 page views per month to join the network, and admittance to the program is unlikely if you don’t meet that traffic threshold. Ezoic also asks that your content be original and that you have a track record of identifiable traffic—in other words, Ezoic wants to know where your traffic is coming from. Since Ezoic is a Google Certified Publishing Partner, you’ll also need to adhere to Google’s Ad policies and be in good standing with Google AdSense to join Ezoic. You won’t need any coding or technical experience to start using the Ezoic ad network. Publisher support with Ezoic is exceptional, as they offer 24/7 online support; you’re even assigned your own account manager, which is rare among ad networks with such low traffic requirements. You can have as little or as much control as you’d like with the number and location of ads placed on your site. Ezoic is proud of its site speed accelerator, which it says can actually improve your website speed—unlike some networks that have slow ad servers that bog down your site. With a Net 30 payout schedule, Ezoic has fast payout terms for an ad network. It also has one of the lowest payment thresholds at $20 (unlike Google where you must earn $100 before receiving payment). Unlike MediaVine which requires a 90-day commitment, you can join and leave Ezoic whenever you want. Income Potential with Ezoic While Ezoic does not release its exact formula for publisher payouts, it is known for producing earnings that are two to four times higher than Adsense. Ezoic attributes its superior payouts to its data-driven machine learning functionality that optimizes ad types and ad placement on your site. Here are a few examples of what actual bloggers report earning with Ezoic: The Johnny Africa blog makes 95% of its ad income from Ezoic, and averages $450 per month with about 2500 page views per day. The Mathers on the Map blog earned $129 from 13,454 page views in one month. The Alluring Souls blog earned $1,304 from 223,322 page views in one month. 4. : Best Ad Network if You Have 100,000+ Page Views a Month If your blog averages 100,000 or more page views a month, then the AdThrive network is something you should seriously consider joining. Like other ad networks, AdThrive handles everything for you, including ad optimization and advertiser relationship management. You can also start making money through videos on your site using the AdThrive custom video player; AdThrive even gives you free video hosting. When some blogs start generating massive traffic, the blog owners often consider working directly with advertisers to negotiate custom ad contracts, which is certainly an option. Yet, AdThrive boasts it can give you a 173% average revenue lift over self-managed ads. Even better, you always get paid—whether the advertiser pays AdThrive or not (which isn’t always the case when you sell your own ads). AdThrive requires that the majority of traffic must come from the US and you must be in good standing with AdSense, as AdThrive is a Google Certified Publishing Partner. It’s easy to submit an application for Adthrive, though this premiere network can be a bit picky when it reviews your site for content and overall quality. As a publisher on AdThrive you’ll earn an ad revenue share of 75%—AdThrive keeps the remaining 25% as its share for the services it provides. This payout model is very similar to MediaVine’s formula (minus the bonus and higher-traffic income bumps). As a high-end network, AdThrive works with a number of high-quality ad partners which means you could earn more money per thousand page views with AdThrive than with MediaVine. Every blog is different, though, so you may want to run a test on your site to see which network monetizes best for you. Income Potential With AdThrive The income potential with AdThrive is extremely strong and AdThrive payout is Net 45 compared to MediaVine’s Net 65—so you get paid 20 days faster. That’s why many MediaVine publishers move over to AdThrive once they’ve reached AdThrive’s steep traffic requirements. Here are a few examples of blogs earning money with the AdThrive network: The Thrive/Strive blog earned $3,779 with 435,2981 page views in one month. Kate Kordsmeier earned $3,516 with 137,925 page views in one month. The SuzanRose.com blog earned $8,686 from approximately 700,000 page views in one month. Living the Blog earned $11,268 from over 4 million sessions in one month. 5. : Best Alternative to Google AdSense for New & Low-Traffic Blogs Thus far, all of the ad network options we’ve mentioned are Google Certified Publishing Partners (GCPPs). Media.net is not—which makes it a great alternative for anyone who experiences difficulties with AdSense or prefers not to work with the Google ad network. If you ever get banned from AdSense for any reason, you’ll need to work with a non-GCPP network. Media.net specializes in contextual ads from Yahoo-Bing network. The network also uses display, video, and native ads that are customized to the look of your website. Contextual ads are ads related to the content on your site based keywords used. For example, if a person found your site because they searched for “stress management” and you have an excellent post offering several stress-reducing techniques, a contextual ad for stress-relief products might appear. While Yahoo-Bing network is much smaller than Google, its ad quality is just as good—some say even a little better. Media.net has no minimum traffic requirements, though you’ll want to have good website design, intuitive navigation, and several pages and posts on your site before applying to join this ad network. Sign-up is fast and easy and you’re typically notified of acceptance within 48 hours. Income Potential With Media.Net While Media.net does not disclose its exact payout model, many bloggers report that they receive in the range of $3 to $6 per thousand ad impressions through the network. In other words, you may earn equal to or a bit more than with AdSense, but usually not as much as with MediaVine or AdThrive. It’s difficult to find income reports posted online from Media.net publishers because successful bloggers—the ones who post income reports—tend to grow their traffic quickly. Once they hit higher page views, they typically move over to higher paying networks like Ezoic, MediaVine, and AdThrive. Here are a couple of examples of bloggers using the Media.net network: The Ladies Making Money blog earned $621 in one quarter (page views unknown) with Media.net and then switched to MediaVine once it achieved the minimum 25,000 sessions requirement. The Simply Organized Home blog earned $62.33 from 36,016 page views in one month; it also earned $91.33 from AdSense in the same month, which is allowed because neither network has an exclusivity policy. Other Ad Networks Worth Considering While the ad networks above represent the best of the best for most bloggers, there are times when other options can work well, too. Let’s review a few other ad networks that you might want to consider if the top five aren’t right for you. There are several ways you can monetize your site through the Propeller Ads network, including pop under ads, native ads, and push notifications. Propeller Ads offers a free push service, so publishers can send content updates to website subscribers who opt-in for push notifications. A plus of the Propeller Ads network is its low payout threshold—only $5. Average payout per thousand impressions is around $2 to $4. There are no traffic minimums required to join the network, which makes it a good choice for new bloggers. In addition, you can monetize both your US and global traffic with Propeller ads. Formerly the Blogger Network, Monumetric is a solid alternative to Ezoic, as publishers with 10,000 monthly page views or more can join the network. Unlike Ezoic, Monumetric is not a Google Certified Publishing Partner. You must have a WordPress or Blogger site to join the Monumetric Propel program—that’s the network’s ad program for sites with 10,000 to 80,000 monthly page views. Other programs are available for sites with higher traffic volume. When joining Monumetric, you must agree to implement a minimum of six ad slots on both desktop and mobile, and the site must be approved by major advertisers. You’ll also pay a one-time $99 implementation fee, which is extremely unusual for ad networks. Payments are made 60 days after revenue is earned. According to users, earning potential is similar to Ezoic, but not quite as favorable as MediaVine. Adsterra works with publishers from nearly 200 countries, serves ads on a geo-targeted basis, and offers CPM, CPC, and CPA ad campaign models. Adsterra has no traffic minimums and you can use it with other ad networks. Adsterra pays on a Net 15 basis—which is much faster than most networks. The minimum payout threshold is $5 for Paxum and Webmoney, and $100 for PayPal and Bitcoin. While many bloggers have had little to no trouble with Adsterra, some have reported complaints from their audiences about Adsterra ads that appear to be fake or scams. SHE Media, formerly SheKnows Media, is a Google Certified Publishing Partner that offers several ad monetization options, including display ads, mobile, video, and branded content. Your audience needs to be mostly female—70% or higher—to work with SHE Media. You also need a minimum of 80% of your traffic based in the US. Also, you can only apply to this network once you’ve reached 20,000 or more in monthly page views. Earning potential through SHE Media is strong for bloggers with female audiences. You can monetize both your website and your social media channels with SHE Media. Payouts are made on a Net 60 basis; minimum payment threshold is $20 and payments are made through PayPal and direct deposit. Ad Maven is another ad network that beginners might want to try, as the network has no traffic minimums. Ad formats include push notifications, pop-ups, interstitial (full screen ads), and banner ads. Account sign up is simple and you can get started placing ad codes on your blog nearly immediately. The minimum payout threshold for PayPal and Payoneer is $50. Earnings are paid on a Net 30 Basis. Revenue Hits operates solely on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis. That means you’ll only be paid if your site visitors click on the ad and take a specific action—which usually means making a purchase, but could also be signing up for a newsletter, registering for a program, or completing a survey. It doesn't matter how many ad impressions you have, if your audience doesn’t take action, you can’t earn money. Some bloggers find that this payment model works in their favor and others don’t. If your ad earnings seem low, you might want to give Revenue Hits a try for a few months to see if you can boost your revenues. Payments are made through PayPal and Payoneer, where the minimum payment threshold is $20. You can also be paid via wire, though the minimum payment threshold for that is $500. A Few Parting Tips for Optimizing Your Ad Revenue The best ad network for you is one that offers maximum revenue potential for your niche and your traffic volume. There are many hidden factors involved with what you’ll actually earn—from the type of advertiser who actually posts on your site to the type of content you produce. If your blog traffic is below 10,000 page views a month, your earnings will be meager—possibly only $2 to $6 per thousand impressions. When your traffic grows, be sure to upgrade to higher-paying networks like MediaVine and AdThrive as this is where your ad income can skyrocket. I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that advertising is just one way to monetize your blog, and frankly, it’s not the way to earn the most money blogging. There are many other ways to make a living as a blogger, including publishing sponsored posts, opening an online store, launching online courses, and affiliate marketing. The most successful bloggers always diversify their monetization strategies.

If you’re wondering how much money bloggers make, you may be in for a surprise. Many blog owners earn a modest $200 to $2,500 a month in their first year of blogging. Established bloggers who implement strong monetization strategies earn $3,500 to $15,000 monthly. Top bloggers can earn seven-figure incomes from their blogs. There are different types of roles and streams of income for bloggers. Let's explore what they are and how much they make. Different Types of Blogger Roles When you think of bloggers, many think only of those who create and build their own blogs. Yet, there are actually three different types of bloggers: Bloggers who work full time or part time for companies where they blog Freelance bloggers who offer blogging as a service Independent blog owners who create their own blogs How Do Bloggers Get Paid? Blog salaries vary a lot and depend on how bloggers earn their money. Writers who blog full-time for businesses earn an average of $40,000 to $80,000 per year, which is on par with the $63,200 annual median pay for writers and authors in the United States. Experienced freelance bloggers who write for others’ blogs earn between 10 cents to $1 per word—beginners may earn less. Freelance bloggers are paid directly from clients or through the freelancing network they use. Independent bloggers—those who start their own blogs—don’t earn a traditional blogger salary. Instead, they make their money through various monetization techniques, including affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, advertising, memberships, services, online courses, and product sales. These are the bloggers we’ll focus on here. What Blog Owners Make From Various Monetization Methods Blog owners with page views from 10,000 to 100,000 a month can typically earn between 2 cents and 10 cents per page view from advertising, which translates to $200 to $10,000 per month. Sponsored posts average around $25 to $750 per post, depending on audience size, niche, and sponsorship arrangement. Bloggers who sell products and online courses can earn even more—as high as $10,000 or more per month. Affiliate marketing is yet another way to earn a good income as a blogger. For example, travel blogger Adam Enfroy earned $44,262 in March 2020 from affiliate marketing alone—and this was generated from site traffic of 303,960 and only 2,577 email subscribers. The bloggers who make the most money use a diversified approach to monetizing their blogs. Most have at least two to three different ways to make money, with affiliate marketing, advertising and selling products or courses being the most popular. What Influences How Much Bloggers Make? As a blogger and professional blogging consultant with two decades of experience as a business growth strategist, I’ve seen all types of bloggers create all levels of income. Those who make the most money blogging do so because they: Have a solid business plan in place Select a profitable blogging niche Use effective monetization strategies for their audience and niche Create amazing content that audiences love Have a solid grasp on search engine optimization (SEO) Proactively market and promote their blogs New bloggers often make the mistake that creating a blog and posting some articles is enough. It’s not; you need to do all the above to build a blog that makes significant money. How Long Does it Take to Make Money Blogging? The answer to how long it takes to make money blogging is not a one-size-fits-all answer. Many people start their blogs as hobbies or side hustles, and hence don’t devote 40 hours a week to blog development; there’s nothing wrong with that approach but it will take a bit longer to start making money. You simply won’t earn a full-time living with part-time effort, particularly at the launch phase of your blog. Even working full time, very few people earn much if any income in their first few months of blogging. As a rule of thumb, strategic bloggers that use smart content and business strategies can start earning a modest full-time income—around $30,000 to $60,000—in their first year of blogging. That can double or even triple in year two. There are always exceptions as some earn a lot more while others earn less. Many well-established bloggers report that it takes less effort to generate the same or even higher earnings over time. So while you can’t skimp on putting in the effort when building your blog, that initial effort can keep yielding positive financial results for years to come. It is possible to earn a great income from blogging without working full-time hours. How Much Popular Bloggers Make To give you an insider’s look at the true income potential of blogging, I asked professional bloggers to share how they successfully monetize their blogs. I think it’s important to set realistic expectations, so you’ll see all types of bloggers at all income levels on this list. I included an approximation of each blogger’s income based on the information they provided or from the income reports available on their sites. 1. The Ski Girl Christine Wang, Founder, TheSkiGirl.com Approximate income: Currently averaging six figures per month and on pace to increase that to seven figures in the next six months Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing Niche: Sports blog about skiing "Our top monetization strategy is to utilize Amazon Affiliates with links to the products we review. This is proving to be pretty effective and I would recommend it to other bloggers or those looking into starting their own blog.” —Christine Wang 2. Making Sense of Cents Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, MakingSenseofCents.com Approximate income: $1.5 million annually Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, online courses, sponsored partnerships, advertising Niche: Personal finance, lifestyle, blogging “It took me around six months to make $100, around one year after I started blogging, I was earning $1,000, and just a few months after that I was earning around $5,000 a month. I believe that I could have earned more even sooner if I had had that as my goal.” Michelle reports that she’s been earning around $1.5 million annually for the past couple of years from her blog. 3. Feminist Books for Kids Crystal Paschal, Owner, Feministbooksforkids.com Approximate income: $1,000 per month Monetization strategies: Display ads and affiliate marketing Niche: Book blog, children’s niche “My advice for anyone looking to build an income-producing blog is to learn all you can and to stick with it. The secret to success is consistency. Keep doing the work, even when you feel like it's not getting you anywhere. Your effort will begin to pay off if you're patient.” —Crystal Paschal 4. Shout Me Loud Harsh Agarwal, ShoutMeLoud.com Approximate income: $52,000 monthly Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, advertising, and e-book sales Niche: Blogging tips, online marketing Shout Me Loud is a community of active bloggers who write about blogging tips, including basic and advanced WordPress, SEO, and social media marketing techniques. The Shout Me Loud team earns income from a number of major affiliate programs as well as direct ad sales. Agarwal also creates e-books that he sells on his own store and on Amazon. 5. Vital Dollar Marc Andre, VitalDollar.com Approximate income: More than $1 million in total blogging earnings across six blogs since 2007 Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, advertising, services, and selling blogs Niche: Money and finance Marc Andre loves building blogs and then selling them. He’s earned more than a million dollars this way. He builds profitable blogs—and sellable blogs—through targeting a variety of niches and using common monetization techniques such as affiliate marketing, display advertising, and selling services. His finance blog, Vital Dollar, is his sixth blog. 6. The Wayward Home Kristin Hanes, Founder, TheWaywardHome.com Approximate income: $3,000 to $6,000 a month Monetization strategies: Sponsored posts, affiliate marketing, and advertising Niche: Travel lifestyle and nomadic living “I help people explore alternative living situations in a time when rents and homeownership are out of reach for many. I started monetizing my blog immediately when I started it back in 2017. That simply meant Google AdSense ads. They hardly made anything, but the ads got my readers used to seeing ads on my site. I also did affiliate marketing … Now my blog is earning through a mix of advertising, affiliate sales, and sponsored posts.” —Kristin Hanes 7. The Ways to Wealth R.J. Weiss Founder and CEO, TheWaysToWealth.com Approximate income: $15,000 per month Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing and advertising Niche: Personal finance R.J Weiss is a certified financial planner who has reached more than 4 million people since 2017 with his The Ways to Wealth blog. He blogs about legitimate side hustles, money-saving hacks, how to save money on travel, and investment tips for beginners. 8. Mom Beach Becky Beach, Ecommerce Owner and Business Blogger, MomBeach.com Approximate income: $5,000 per month Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, advertising, and printable products Niche: Personal finance and mom blog Becky Beach was inspired to start her blog after finding herself $120,000 in debt and living paycheck to paycheck with a baby on the way. Her goal with her Mom Beach blog is to help other mothers who are struggling with debt or are looking for ways to begin to make money remotely so they can stay home with their kids. 9. Pupster Passion Scott Jones, Owner, Blogger and Chief Dog Lover, PupsterPassion.com Approximate income: $1,000 per month Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing Niche: Pet blog about dogs for dog owners “Blogging isn’t as easy as some of the gurus would lead you to believe. It is hard work, competitive, and often stressful. But it is awesome. All you need is a device, a Wi-Fi connection, and a few bucks per month for hosting and you can work on your business. I love it and even though times are tough right now, I wouldn’t swap it for a safer option” —Scott Jones 10. The Bircher Bar Darcy Ogdon-Nolan, Owner, TheBircherBar.com Approximate income: $1,500 per month Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing and advertising Niche: Health, wellness, and lifestyle blog "I believe the key to success in affiliate marketing is 'quality over quantity' coupled with stubborn persistence. You are at the mercy of algorithm updates and commission changes, but those who keep at it and generate high-quality content come out on top." —Darcy Ogdon-Nolan 11. East End Taste Magazine/Blog Vanessa Gordon, Founder and Publisher, EastEndTasteMagazine.com Approximate income: $120,000 annually Monetization strategies: Event sponsorships and sponsored posts Niche: Lifestyle blog/online magazine The East End Taste Magazine focuses on serving the Hamptons and North Fork, as well as culinary-focused travel. Primarily a lifestyle blog, East End Taste covers a variety of topics such as dining, travel, lifestyle, fashion, and wellness. 12. Travel Blog Stories Natia Khania and Andrei Salokhin, TravelBlogStories.com Approximate income: $1,500 monthly Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, selling products, advertising, and sponsored posts Niche: Travel and blogging This couple travels the world and offers advice on vacation rentals, food suggestions, entertainment options at various locales, and how to save money on travel. They also teach other bloggers about how to start blogs. 13. Amazing Me Movement Iva Ursano, AmazingMeMovement.com Approximate income: $3,000 to $5,000 monthly Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, e-books, advertising, sponsored posts, and coaching services Niche: Personal growth and self-improvement Iva Ursano offers self-improvement ideas, inspirational content, relationship advice and even angel card reading on her Amazing Me Movement blog. She has more than 145,800 thousand followers on Pinterest, which yields more than 10 million monthly viewers. This massive social reach no doubt goes a long way in building traffic for her blog. 14 . Nikki’s Plate Nikki Bahan, Nikkisplate.com Approximate income: $2,800 monthly Monetization strategies: Advertising and affiliate marketing Niche: Lifestyle and DIY blog Nikki Bahan started her blog back in 2015 as a creative outlet to reduce stress and take a break from her university studies. Today, she’s a full-time nurse and part-time blogger who hopes to one day work exclusively as a blogger. In January 2020, Nikki's Plate blog received 156,096 page views in 115,324 sessions with the lion’s share of her traffic coming from social media. This impressive traffic from a part-time blogger helped her earn $2,726 from display ads alone, while the rest of her income came through affiliate marketing. 15. Smart Passive Income Pat Flynn, Founder, SmartPassiveIncome.com Approximate income: $125,000 to $167,000 monthly Monetization strategies: Affiliate marketing, books, online courses, sponsorship, and apps Niche: Entrepreneurship Pat Flynn is a legendary blogger who teaches how to make passive income— the smart way, of course. After losing his dream job as an architect back in 2008, he decided he wanted to be an entrepreneur and started a variety of online businesses. Today, his blog, podcast, courses, and books continue to be extremely popular, and consistently yield a sizable income. Tips for How to Make the Most Money Blogging I don’t want to give you the impression that all bloggers make money; they don’t. A Problogger survey of bloggers found that 26% earn under $10 a month and nearly 50% earn less than $100 a month. That’s not because it’s not possible to make money blogging— the 15 real-life examples just shared prove profitable blogs exist. The bloggers I’ve seen who aren’t making money often fail to understand the path to creating a profitable blog. It’s not rocket science, but building a profitable blog isn’t exactly instinctive either (that’s why I spend so much time writing about how to make money blogging!). Another reason bloggers struggle to monetize is that their enthusiasm for starting a blog sometimes wanes after they see how much work is involved— especially in the first year or so. Blogging is not a get-rich-quick proposition. If you’re serious about making money as a blogger, here are a few power tips for you that’ll put you on the road to success. Decide What Type of Blogger You Want to Be Be clear about the type of blogger you want to be from the get-go. It’s fine to start a blog as a passion project with the hope of one day monetizing it. It’s also fine to go all-in as a professional blogger intent on making a full-time living blogging. One tip: Don’t quit your day job thinking you’ll make a lot of money overnight. Unless you have a very large nest egg or other financial resources to fall back on, start your blog while keeping your 9-to-5. Remember, there’s no magic formula for when you’ll start making money or how much you’ll make. Choose a Profitable Niche Take great care in selecting your blogging niche. Make sure there is an adequate audience for the subject areas that you want to blog about. Do your homework to find the perfect niche market for you. Create a Blog Business Plan Treating your blog like a real business from day one will increase your odds of success tenfold. Take the time to create a business plan for your blog that outlines every step of the blog creation, monetization, and promotion process. Download Now Create a Professional Website You won’t earn a great living from a shoddy website. That’s why you need to develop an optimized, fast-loading, professional website for your blog. When it comes to blogging platforms, there are several terrific options on the market. However, for ultimate flexibility and scalability, I recommend going with a self-hosted WordPress blog using a reliable hosting provider. Bluehost offers affordable, secure hosting solutions that can grow with you as your blog grows. Even better, Bluehost services start at just $2.95 per month. Post Amazing Content on Your Blog Top bloggers don’t make generous incomes from so-so content. Instead, they sweat the details and provide the best answers to their visitors’ questions and offer effective solutions to tough problems. If your goal is to create an income through blogging, make sure you scope out the competition and then create an amazing blog content strategy that elevates you to the top of your niche. Create a Sound Monetization Strategy Don’t create a blog without having a sound strategy for how you plan to make money. You don’t need to have your monetization efforts in place before you launch; since you don’t have much traffic in the first few months of blogging, you wouldn’t earn much anyways. Still, you do need to know where you’re heading. There are so many ways to make money blogging. You can monetize through affiliate marketing, advertising, sponsored posts, memberships, or by selling services, products, or online courses. Don’t think you’re limited to just one monetization tactic. Blogs that earn the highest profits always diversify their income streams. Optimize Your Site for Search Engines If you don’t know much about search engine optimization (SEO), I recommend that you boost your knowledge as soon as possible. The only way for your blog to rank high on Google—a critical traffic source for most bloggers—is to optimize it for search. This can be a little tricky, but it can make the difference between dismal results and strong profits. Use Smart Marketing and Promotion Strategies The most successful bloggers are considerably more active in promoting their blogs than bloggers who struggle to make a buck. Don’t underestimate the importance of getting the word out about your blog. You’ll want to take advantage of all sorts of ways to promote your blog, including email marketing, social media marketing, proactive blog outreach, and perhaps even paid ads. Experiment—test what works best for your blog and do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. Bottom Line Now that I’ve answered the burning question, “How much do bloggers make?” and told you how blogs generate income, you can start creating a profitable blog right now—or improve profits on the blog you’ve already started. Every successful blogger will tell you that making money blogging will take time, but treating your blog like a real business will give you the best foundation to create and achieve your blogging income goals.      

If you search the internet for “how to make money blogging,” you’ll no doubt find a lot of advice. Sadly, much of what you’ll learn from well-intentioned gurus is incomplete—or inaccurate—and will at best guide you down the path to mediocrity. At worst, that advice could lead to dismal results. To create a profitable blog, you must treat your blog like a business, choose the best monetization strategies, and promote your business effectively. You must also track and analyze your results like a hawk and adjust your strategies when change is warranted. What to Expect in This Ultimate Guide to Making Money Blogging I’ve been a blogger and business growth consultant to bloggers for nearly a decade now and my marketing experience spans more than two decades. In this ultimate guide to making money blogging, I’ll walk you step-by-step through the exact process and strategies for creating a highly profitable blog. You’ll learn the true drivers of blogging success. If you want to make a living blogging—or even possibly generate millions of dollars blogging (like Fit Small Business has)—this guide shows you the way. Share this Image On Your Site Treat Your Blog Like a Business The most successful bloggers don’t just “wing it.” Instead, they create a blog business plan to guide them to profitability. These top bloggers understand the importance of investing in the right resources and choosing a profitable blogging niche. They also study their market and research the competition. Finally, they deliver the best solutions to their audience’s problems. Invest in the Right Resources You don’t need to spend a fortune building a blog, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever make much money if you try to build a blog for free. Investing in time-saving and profitability-boosting blogging resources is one of the best ways to set yourself up for blogging success. Set Up Your Blog on a Reliable, Flexible Platform When setting up your blog, it’s important to use a blogging platform that is dependable and can support your growth. That’s why I recommend building a self-hosted WordPress blog with Bluehost as your hosting provider. WordPress powers more blogs than any other website builder on the planet. Thanks to the large number of themes and versatile plugins available for WordPress, it’s easy to create any type of blog using the builder—even if your technical expertise is limited. Bluehost is one of the most trusted hosting solutions for WordPress. Millions turn to Bluehost for reliable, secure hosting services. Use the Time- & Money-Saving Blogging Tools Would you try to build a house with just a hammer and a saw? No, you wouldn’t. So don’t try to build a blog with an inadequate set of tools. Here are a few tools and resources to add to your blogging toolbox: Writing Tools: Ensure your blog content is mistake-free by using grammar improvement tools such as Grammarly, ProWritingAid, or WhiteSmoke. Ecommerce Tools: If you plan to monetize your blog with physical or digital products, you’ll need an ecommerce tool like Shopify, Ecwid, or WooCommerce. Project and Editorial Management Tools: Manage your blogging projects and editorial calendar using tools like Trello or the Co-Schedule Blog Calendar. Payment Processing Tools: Accept payments on your blog through Square Payments, PayPal, or Stripe. Image-Editing Tools: You’ll need to create and edit images for your blog. Try using PicMonkey, Canva, or Placeit. Email Capture Tools: Building your email database is key to building blogging profits. Try using popular name-capture tools like OptinMonster or Smart Bar by SumoMe. Email Marketing Tools: Contact your blog audience via email, using email marketing software from Constant Contact, Drip, Converkit, or Mailchimp. Social Sharing Tools: Make it easy for your blog readers to share your content by using tools like Sumo, Social Warfare, and ClicktoTweet. There are so many blogging tools available for many different types of business needs. If you ever find yourself struggling with any aspect of starting or running your blog, be sure to investigate whether there’s a tool that can make your life easier. Oftentimes, you’ll find the best solutions by asking other bloggers—in blogging Facebook Groups or online blogger forums—what they use. Don’t Hesitate to Outsource Most business owners aren’t experts at all the skills required to build their businesses. Likewise, most bloggers are not experts at writing, graphic design, editing, proofreading, video creation, website setup, marketing, SEO, and blog analytics. As a business-building blogger, do what smart business owners do: Do what you do best and outsource the rest. Here a few outsourcing and freelancer sites you can turn to get a myriad blogging tasks accomplished: : This freelance services marketplace specializes in providing affordable solutions for all sorts of blogging tasks, including digital marketing, blog article writing, and logo design. Upwork: Find all types of freelancers on Upwork, from beginning to advanced. : Have freelancers complete for all your blogging projects on Freelancer.com. : Find freelancers that specialize in blogging projects on the Problogger Job Board. Most successful bloggers keep a list of freelancers they can turn to for various blogging projects. Many also hire a virtual assistant (VA), which can be a great way to get simple tasks done on an ongoing basis so you don’t even have to assign projects—they’re preassigned to your VA. Study Your Market & Your Competition An important step in creating a money-making blog is selecting a profitable blogging niche. As a business owner, you need to understand the market in which you’re operating, the audience you’re serving, as well as the competitors in your blogging niche. The better informed you are, the more likely you’ll generate unique content that will wow your blog audience and keep them coming back for more. Deliver The Best Solutions to Your Audience’s Problems You won’t make a living blogging if you offer generic advice that doesn’t help your audience or that they can find in a million other places. You have to set yourself apart from the crowd of bloggers that are vying for attention— you have to offer more value and better solutions than your ideal audience can find elsewhere. Remember that the visitors coming to your blog are there for a reason. They have a question they need answered. They have problems that they need to solve. The better you are at moving your audience from where they are to where they want to be, the more successful your blog will be. To make sure you’re giving your audience the very best content, you need to create a well-defined blog content strategy. Your content strategy will guide you in creating blog posts that resonate with your audience. It will also keep you from developing unprofitable, irrelevant content that does nothing to add to your blog profits. Great content is the first—and most important thing—you must have to create an exceptional user experience for your blog audience, but there’s even more you can do. Make sure your blog loads quickly, organize your site so it’s easy to understand what your blog is about, and employ intuitive site navigation, so it’s easy for your visitors to find what they’re looking for. Choose the Right Blog Monetization Techniques Building a blog without having a monetization plan is never a good idea—and frankly this is where most new bloggers fall short. Because you are treating your blog like a business, you already know you must give serious consideration to how you’ll generate a consistent cash flow from your blogging efforts. There are many ways to start earning a living from your blog and some strategies are more lucrative than others. Some monetization techniques require a lot of effort on your part, like developing online courses or custom products, but the profits can be phenomenal. Others don’t take much time, like joining an advertising network, but you’ll typically earn only modest returns, particularly if your blog traffic averages under 25,000 page views a month. The good news is that you can start monetizing your site even if your traffic is on the low side. Highly successful bloggers maximize their profits by using multiple monetization techniques. Tap into the Money-Making Power of Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing is where you as a blogger make money by promoting others’ products and services. You receive a commission every time your blog readers take an action, which is usually making a purchase, but depending on the affiliate agreement, it can also be filling out a form or just clicking over to the third party’s website. It’s very easy to get started with affiliate marketing. Top bloggers often report 40% to 60% of their profits come from affiliate marketing. You can become an affiliate marketer even if you’re a beginning blogger. Some bloggers earn a few dollars a month from affiliate programs, others earn hundreds, and yet others earn thousands. You could potentially earn a full-time living from affiliate marketing, especially if you attract a large audience for the affiliate products and services you represent. Here are a few of the top affiliate programs and networks you’ll want to explore: Rakuten Marketing (Formerly Linkshare) ClickBank CJ Affiliate Flex Offers ShareASale Amazon Associates eBay Partner Network Affiliate Window (AWIN) JVZoo Target Affiliates (perfect if you love Target) The list above is just a handful of the most popular programs but there are thousands of companies that host their own affiliate programs. If you think of a product that would be perfect for your blog audience, be sure to explore whether that product owner offers an affiliate program. If you don’t want to work directly with affiliate networks and their merchants, you can join programs like or . These programs still let you tap into the power of affiliate marketing, but rather than joining one merchant program at a time, Skimlinks and Viglink scan your blog content and automatically create links to product owners’ affiliate programs. This batch-style affiliate link processing can save you a lot of time if you mention a lot of brands on your blog. Sell Digital & Physical Products on Your Blog You can monetize your blog by selling digital or physical products. These can be products you create or acquire through a third-party. Here are just a sample of the products you can sell on your blog E-books You Create and Publish (this is very popular and easy to do!) Branded merchandise such as mugs and planners Original art such as paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures Software and apps Meal-prep plans Fitness plans T-shirts Downloadable planners, checklists, journals, and guides Graphics or social media templates Subscription boxes Recipes Private label products Audio recordings such as meditations or original music Stock photos Handmade items You can set up an online store within your blog and get started selling quickly. Just make sure that the items you sell on your blog are relevant to your blog audience, otherwise, you’ll put forth a lot of effort only to see minimal returns. You can earn from a few dollars to several thousand every month selling products on your blog. It all depends on the products you’re selling and your ability to market products effectively. Monetize Your Blog with Advertising Many new bloggers see experienced bloggers incorporating ads on their sites and surmise this is a great way to make money blogging. The truth is, advertising is an OK way to make money, but this monetization won’t ever make you rich. What’s great about advertising, particularly if you’re working through a third-party advertising network, is that you can add the code to your site and then forget about it. Once the code is installed, you can literally sit back and collect passive income from those ads month after month. It’s easy money. The downside to advertising is that you need a lot of traffic to make much money; some ad networks won’t even accept you until you’ve hit around 25,000 to 30,000 page views per month. Even then, you may only make a few hundred dollars per month from ads. That’s why bloggers who monetize their sites with advertising also use other monetization techniques. Here are the top advertising networks you’ll want to check out: Google AdSense Mediavine Monumetric AdThrive Infolinks RevenueHits by Intango You can also work directly with product and service providers to negotiate advertising arrangements for your blog. This is more time-consuming but often results in a higher advertising income for you. To start a private advertising program for your website, add information on your blog about how to contact you for advertising information—this is typically placed in the footer of most blogs. You could also develop a rate card for advertising and media kit for your blog to promote on your site as well. Sponsored Posts Many bloggers make a good living blogging by adding sponsored posts to their blog and social media posts. Depending on your traffic and audience, you may make between $25 and several hundred dollars for each sponsored post. Top bloggers with large audiences can charge into the thousands per post. One of the easiest ways to find sponsored post opportunities is to join influencer networks. These networks connect bloggers to brands and manage all the project and payment details for you. Here are a few popular influencer marketing platforms worth exploring: Activate by Bloglovin’ Cooperatize (for travel bloggers) Clever Aspire IQ Izea BrandBacker Webfluential Everywhere Influencer Marketing Agency You can also secure sponsored posts by reaching out to brands and business owners directly. When conducting outreach campaigns, be sure to demonstrate the value you bring to the table as a blog influencer with a relevant and devoted audience. Make Money with Online Courses Selling online courses offers the opportunity to make a healthy living as a blogger. Top bloggers earn six- and even seven-figures a year with their popular courses. You might not hit those kinds of numbers out of the gate, but if you are good at both building a blog audience and creating relevant online courses, you could make a healthy income through this monetization method. Use Your Blog to Promote Professional Services Another smart way to make money blogging is to monetize your expertise by offering coaching, consulting, freelancing, and other professional services. You can use your blog to enhance your credibility and position yourself as an expert in your niche. Then, you can offer to sell your services to those who want to benefit more fully from your vast knowledge and experience. The amount of money you’ll make selling services varies greatly and will depend largely on what types of services you’re providing, your experience, and the overall perceived value of your services. For example, a freelance copywriter may make $50 to $95 per hour, while high-end executive coaches can command $250 to $750 per hour for their services. Events & Paid Speaking Opportunities If you’re a showman at heart—or a motivational and inspirational speaker—you can make a great living from your blog by promoting your speaking services. You can also earn big bucks by hosting your own events such as in-person or online retreats, webinars, seminars, and conferences. As a speaker, you can earn from a few hundred to several thousand from each speaking gig. As an event promoter, facilitator, and speaker—you could earn even more. Live in-person events can earn well into the six figures provided you have the right subject, the right type and size of audience to market to, and an irresistible line-up of speakers at your event. Unfortunately, the investment to produce a large-scale in-person event—which can run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands—means this monetization tactic isn’t realistic for all bloggers. For those without the funds or interest in going all in on a mega conference, an alternative would be to host a free or low-fee online event and invite others in your niche to participate. You can then monetize that event by selling event recordings or offering related services and paid courses as follow-ups. The beauty of hosting online retreats is that all the experts that participate in the event will share event promotions with their audiences. This can give you massive exposure for your blog. Make Money Blogging via Memberships & Private Communities Last but certainly not least on our list of popular ways to monetize your blog, you can set up private memberships and communities and charge for access to restricted content. There are a number of tools that can help you set up a membership site or gated content on your blog, including: Restrict Content Pro Wishlist Some of these tools offer limited free starter plans, but you’ll pay around $25 to $200 per month on average to use these membership platforms. The good news, though, is that you can earn into the low hundreds or even tens of thousands each month by developing a powerful, popular membership site that’s in high-demand. Build Your Blog Audience The old Field of Dreams quote, “If you build it, they will come” does not apply to blogging. You must deliberately and consistently market and promote your blog, and employ smart search engine optimization (SEO) techniques if you hope to build an audience. Growing your blog traffic is absolutely critical to making money blogging. Blog Marketing & Promotion There are several ways to get the word out about your blog. Most bloggers use lead magnets, which are free gifts or giveaways that their audiences want, to help them build their email lists. Social media, email marketing, and paid ads are also viable ways to promote your blog. You can also collaborate with others who have big audiences to get the word out about your blog. Top ways of doing this include appearing as a guest on a podcast or at an event, or volunteering to be a guest blogger. The better you are at promoting your blog, the better your odds of making a living from your blog. Develop Compelling Lead Magnets to Use in Blog Promotions & Marketing If you want people to follow you, it helps to offer an enticement to visit your blog or sign up on your email list. A lead magnet is a great way to attract an on-target blog audience. Here a few examples of popular lead magnets you can create and offer: Checklists E-books Cheat sheets Printables Free short courses Planners Case studies Book sample (read Chapter 1 for free) Webinars Free trials Quizzes Free coaching session Challenges Product samples You don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of time creating your lead magnets. What’s most important is that you create something that your audience will value enough to join your email list to procure the item you’re giving away. This opens the door for you to start a relationship with your site visitors through email marketing, which is one of the very best ways to monetize your blog. Use Email Marketing to Promote Your Blog The main reason that you want to get started with email marketing is so that you have a way to communicate with your blog visitors, instead of just waiting for them to come back to your blog or stumble upon one of your posts on various social media channels. According to the 2020 HubSpot State of Email Marketing Study, 99% of people check their email every day and 59% say that emails influence their purchasing decisions. If you’re committed to making money from your blog and you don’t already have an email service provider, now’s the time to get one. It’s also time to create a compelling lead magnet—or two or three more to test—so you can start growing your email database. When you send emails to your base, don’t go with a “one-size-fits-all” strategy. Instead, segment your audience based on their interests, which you can usually figure out by the types of articles they’ve read or lead magnets they’ve downloaded from your site. Highly-relevant, segmented email campaigns perform 760% higher than generic campaigns. Use Social Media to Promote Your Blog Most bloggers are no stranger to popular social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you’re a business blogger, you’ll definitely want to be active on LinkedIn. Social media marketing is a way to expand your online presence and drive more traffic to your blog. The challenge with social media is that while you can control what you post on the platforms, you can’t control what your followers actually see. There’s so much competition for what appears in social media news feeds that you’re lucky if 2% to 7% of your posts actually show up in your followers’ feeds. It’s really important that you think through your social media strategy and create stellar posts on a consistent basis. Social platforms love fresh, timely posts and reward those who produce highly engaging content. When your fans actively engage in your posts—through shares, likes, or comments—the number of people who sees your posts increases. A post that goes viral can do wonders for your blog traffic. When constructing your social media strategy, don’t forget about Pinterest and YouTube. These social channels are a bit different from others in that they function as content search engines, much like Google. People go to these channels and search for topics they are interested in and can discover your content if it is well-optimized for the channel. Both YouTube and Pinterest are known to drive considerable traffic to blogs. More than 58% of all internet users use YouTube, so there’s a built-in audience there for you to access. Pinterest is so effective for bloggers that some report that 50% to 92% of their traffic comes from the channel. Frankly, I didn’t believe it myself until I started using Pinterest to promote my blog. In just a couple of months, I went from receiving no traffic from Pinterest to more than 30% of my traffic coming from the platform. Develop an Effective Blogger Outreach Strategy The most successful bloggers know that they can’t just rely merely on passive marketing and promotion strategies to ensure their success—that’s why they create active blog outreach campaigns. Blog outreach is the process of reaching out to bloggers, influencers, and media outlets to get attention for your blog content as well as for yourself as an expert in your niche. There are two big benefits to blog outreach. The first is that you increase your online visibility, which can generate more traffic to your blog and in turn help you generate higher blog profits. The second is that blog outreach helps you get popular websites and influencers to link back to your blog; these are called backlinks. Having lots of high-quality backlinks is a sign to Google that your site is of good quality, which can lead Google to rank your blog posts higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). Increase Google Rank with Search Engine Optimization As a blogger, there’s a tremendous benefit to ranking high on Google. The higher your posts rank when people perform their Google searches, the better the chances of boosting the total number of visitors coming to your site from Google. The best way to improve your blog’s rankings is to create a solid search engine optimization plan (SEO) that includes optimizing every blog post you create to improve the odds it will rank high on Google. I don’t want you to underestimate the importance of proper SEO, nor do I want you to think that by choosing the right keywords you can rank No. 1 on Google for all your posts. Keyword research is very important but it’s just one of many steps you’ll take to optimize your site for search engines. Build Expertise, Authority, and Trust Google wants to provide its users with the very best answers to what they're searching for. To do this, Google evaluates the content on your blog in light of the Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EAT) your blog exhibits. One of the ways you prove your EAT to Google is by having well-written posts that are the appropriate scope for the subject at hand. For example, if competing posts contain an average of 3,000 words and your post has only 1,000 words, that may indicate your post is not as thorough as others. That doesn’t mean longer posts are better; it’s all relevant to the subject at hand. (However, according to a serpIQ study, the average word count for the number ranking on Google is 2,416; that doesn’t mean longer posts always rank higher, it just means top posts tend to be longer.) Primary Factors Affecting Your Blog’s Google Rank Backlinks from authoritative websites help prove your authority in Google’s eyes—which is why blog outreach is so important. High shares of your content is also evidence to Google that your content is highly credible. There are many factors that Google considers when ranking your site. Here are a few questions to ask to determine if your blog meets the basic SEO parameters Google seeks: Does your website have a sitemap? Is your blog the content well-organized and is highly-related, thereby exhibiting depth of knowledge? Is your content keyword-rich—not keyword stuffed—and is it written in natural language that people use as opposed to unnatural language to try to trick search crawlers? Is your website easy to use, fast loading, and responsive for viewing on any device? Do your page URLs and meta description accurately depict what the pages on your blog are all about? On-Page vs Off-Page SEO There are two types of SEO. The first is on-page SEO, which is everything you do on each blog post and page to optimize the content for search engines. The is the most popular on-page SEO tool for WordPress users. The second type of SEO is off-page SEO, and this includes everything you do “off” the page to increase your visibility and reputation for search engines such as building backlinks, creating sitemaps, etc. Most bloggers pay OK attention to on-page SEO. Where most bloggers fall flat is in their off-page SEO efforts, and this is where you can give your business a big advantage by making sure you do optimize your blog using the best off-page SEO techniques. Track & Measure Blog Results A business that has no idea how it’s performing won’t stay in business for long. That’s why you must keep a good handle on key business profitability factors—including expenses and revenues—as well as key performance indicators (KPIs) for your blog. If you need help keeping track of your blog’s costs and sales, I highly recommend using or . These easy-to-use bookkeeping tools will make sure you know how much money you’re earning from your blog. They’ll also make sure you’re ready for the tax man. You’ll definitely want to keep track of your social media performance metrics, as well as advertising metrics on any paid ads you invest in. Also, monitoring email metrics will ensure you know what’s working and what’s not so you can improve your campaigns. Watching different types of metrics will help you determine whether your investments of time and money are paying off for your blogging business. Google Analytics is the primary tool most bloggers use to track and analyze KPIs on their blogs. Pay close attention to the following Google stats on your site as you’re growing and managing your blog: Total sessions: This is how many individual sessions are started on your site; if a person comes five times, that counts as five sessions. Total page views: Advertising networks and sponsors will often ask for your total page views to decide whether to work with you. Acquisition overview: This tells you where blog visitors came from, such as through organic search, social channels, or directly from typing in your blog URL. Conversions: If you provide conversion parameters, Google Analytics can track your conversions for you. % of New Users vs Returning Visitors: A good way to track loyalty is to watch how many people come back to your blog. An easy way to track success of new campaigns is to watch now many new blog visitors are coming to your site. Average session duration: The longer visitors stay on your site, the more deeply they’re engaged in your content. Site content: Keep track of your top-visited posts as well as those that aren’t popular and could use a refresh. You can adjust your Google Analytics report to cover any time period, so you better understand how your audience is growing over time. You can also compare time periods, which is particularly helpful when comparing year-to-year stats as well as seasonal performance. Remember that when analyzing your business results, most website stats merely provide guidance for how you’re doing. The best measure of results is whether you’re actually making more money than you’re spending. Much like planting a tree, don’t expect to grow overnight. With careful nurturing and smart strategies—and a fair amount of hard work—you will start making money before you know it. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS) About How to Make a Living Blogging There are a handful of questions that I get from bloggers repeatedly. Below you’ll find answers to the most frequently asked questions regarding how to make money blogging. How do beginner bloggers make money? As a beginning blogger, you probably don’t have enough site traffic to monetize your blog via advertising. That’s why those who are just starting out choose different money-making strategies, including selling physical and digital products. The most popular way beginners make money, though, is through affiliate marketing. How much money do bloggers make? When it comes to how much money bloggers make, it’s a bit all over the place. Top bloggers can make $1 to $20 million per year. Mid-tier bloggers earn between $60,000 and $120,000 per year. Those just starting out earn around $20,000 to $40,000 annually. Those who don’t treat their blogs like a business rarely make more than a few hundred dollars a month, if that. How do most bloggers make money? Most bloggers make money through a blend of monetization strategies, including affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, advertising, and selling their own physical or digital products. Creating online courses, for example, is quickly becoming a top way many bloggers make money today. Is blogging dying? With the advent of podcasting and the growing popularity of vlogging, some wonder whether blogging might be on its way out. It’s not. In fact, according to Statista, the number of bloggers in the USA is around 31.7 and that number is expected to continue to grow. When should you give up on your blog? You should consider giving up on your blog when you don’t have the time to invest in it wisely. You can grow your blog slowly, but if you treat your blog more like a hobby than a true business with a solid blog business plan, it probably won’t ever make much money. Why do blogs fail? The No. 1 reason that blogs fail is because they don’t have strategic content, business, monetization, and promotion plans in place. You can’t just be good at one thing and neglect the other key aspects of creating a successful blog—it won’t work and your blog will fail. Bottom Line You can create a money-making blog, but it’s not as simple and easy as some blogging gurus would have you think. You need to treat your blog like a business and decide on monetization strategies that are right for you and your audience. You also must promote your blog and proactively drive blog traffic. Finally, you must track and measure performance, so you can consistently improve results over time. When you do all these things, you set yourself up to make a very nice living through blogging.

The most successful bloggers on the planet have one thing in common: they understand the power of a well-conceived business plan for driving blog profits. At its essence, your blog business plan is a road map that defines why your blog exists, clarifies your top goals, and provides a step-by-step outline of how you plan to accomplish those goals. Your plan guides you through the most crucial steps on your business-building journey. If you think creating a business plan is going to be difficult and confusing, put those fears aside. I’m a blogger myself and have been working with bloggers for nearly a decade, and you’re about to learn my shortcuts and tips that will make the task far easier than you imagine. 10 Essential Sections of a Blog Business Plan 1. Executive Summary 2. Market & Competitor Analysis 3. Brand Identity Overview 4. Blog Content Overview 5. Blog Monetization Plan 6. Blog Marketing & Promotion 7. Blog Management & Operation 8. Cost & Revenues Forecast 9. Blog Performance Analysis 10. Business Exit Strategy To get a jump-start on your business planning, download this free blog business plan template. It walks you through everything you need to include in your plan. The template is fully customizable so you can adapt it to meet your unique needs. Free Blog Business Plan Template Download Now 10 Essential Sections in a Blog Business Plan While there are 10 major sections in your business plan, each section of your plan is not necessarily self-contained. This means you can’t expect to finish step one and then move on to step two and proceed to each next area—you may go back and forth between sections when creating your plan. This holds especially true for the Executive Summary, which includes summarized content found in other sections of the plan. 1. Create an Executive Summary The Executive Summary is widely considered the most important section in a business plan. This one section boils down your business plan to the essentials of how you intend to create and operate a profitable business. As a blogger, the main reason to create an Executive Summary is so that you are clear and remain focused on what you want to accomplish. Your Executive Summary should list your blog’s name, a brief blog description, as well as summarized information about your blog’s target market and ideal audience. You will also want to include your blog’s mission statement and top business goals in this section of your plan. Enter Your Blog’s Name on Your Plan Your blog’s name may or may not be the same as your business name. For example, the popular lifestyle and personal finance blog Living Well Spending Less® is owned by Ruth Soukup Omnmedia. Soukup has several businesses and brands and gathers them all under one company name. If your blog’s name and your business name are not identical, that should be noted in this section of your plan. Deciding on your blog’s name somewhat mirrors the steps you take to come up with a business name. Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating your blog name: Look for names that aren’t already taken Decide the tone you want your name to convey such as serious, playful, formal, or informal Select a name that is easy to remember and spell When possible, use a blog name that you can also use as your domain name Here are some simple name-generating tactics that might inspire you: Incorporate the blog audience in your blog name. Find naming inspiration from characters in books or mythology Incorporate a location name into your blog’s name, if appropriate. Consider using a portmanteau, which is just two names modified and smushed to become one name (e.g., breakfast + lunch = brunch). You may find that naming your blog presents a little more challenge than you anticipated. Let’s face it, with more than 31 active million bloggers in the world, a lot of terrific names are already taken. Finding the perfect blog name and domain will take time and creativity on your part, but the tips listed above will make the process easier. Write a Blog Overview An overview is a 40,000 foot fly-over description of what your blog is about and why it exists. Write this from the perspective of a business owner who intends to monetize a blog. If you’re starting a blog as a hobby or passion project, you don’t need a business plan because your goal is not to make money. Your secondary reasons for starting a blog might be because you’re passionate about the blog’s subject, but your ultimate goal is to turn a profit. I really can’t overemphasize the need to view your blog as a business. Try to keep this section of your blog plan to 250 to 500 words. Remember, it’s a summary, not a dissertation. The primary advantage of creating a relatively brief blog description is so you can refer to it as you build your blogging businesses. When you stay focused on why your blog exists, and make decisions based on that why, you’ll avoid many bumps in the road that throw less business-focused bloggers off course. Add a Short Description of Your Target Market & Ideal Audience While it’s wise to include an overview of your target market and audience in your Executive Summary, it’s not something you can do before conducting in-depth research. This is what I meant by creating a business plan is not a straight step-by-step path; sometimes you have to skip a few steps and then come back to complete those you skipped. When creating section two of your blog business plan-—the Market & Competitor Analysis section-—you’ll conduct in-depth research and provide considerably more detail about your target market and audience. That detailed information will help you create the abbreviated content you add to this section of your Executive Summary. Write Your Mission Statement A mission statement is a short declaration of what you do and who you do it for, as well as how your blog is unique. The purpose of a mission statement is to keep all those who work on your blog focused on your business goals and ideals. When writing your mission statement, be sure to answer these questions: Who does the blog serve? What will the blog do for them; i.e., what’s its purpose? How will the blog accomplish this? (This is where being unique will set you apart from competitors. ) A strong mission statement is clear and compelling. The best mission statements are simple, jargon-free, and straightforward. Moreover, they’re inspiring. Your mission statement should both inspire you, those who work on your blog with you. Blog Mission Statement Template Our mission at [blog name]____________________________________ is [what you do]_____________________________________________ for [who you do it for] ________________________________________ that [what you accomplish] ____________________________________ Example of a Mission Statement for a Fictional Travel Blog Our mission at Travel Morocco Now is to provide incredible experiences for travel enthusiasts worldwide that offer an authentic glimpse at all this exotic land offers. List Top Goals that Are Key to Your Blog’s Success Once again, you may need to refer to other sections in the plan before entering this information on your Executive Summary. For example, you may want to set goals around the types of monetization strategies you plan to pursue (which is discussed in-depth in your Blog Monetization Plan) or set goals for your promotional investments (which you outline in the Blog Marketing & Promotion section). Include around four to seven goals in your top goals list. If you’re not certain how to set business goals, check out this list of 10 SMART goal examples. Goals can include anything from selling 1,000 e-books in the first six months at $19 each to achieving 30,000 average monthly page views so you can join a high-paying advertising network like MediaVine. 2. Market & Competitor Analysis Many bloggers do at least some niche market research before deciding to start a blog business. If you’re already done that, congratulations—you’re ahead of the curve. If you haven’t started yet, don’t worry, as you can still commence your in-depth study of your blog’s niche market as well as the top competitors in your blog’s area of expertise. Write Your Niche Market Analysis When starting a blog with the aim of making money, it’s best to focus on a niche rather than a broad market. Frankly, it’s simply too hard for a solo blogger to gain traction for a blog that tries to cover too many subjects (the exception being lifestyle blogs, that typically cover more areas but from one person’s point of view). You can always broaden or narrow your blog’s focus once it’s been up and running for a while. Before you do that though, it’s best to look at blog performance data to see if a change in content scope is appropriate. To create this section of your plan, you’ll need to conduct thorough market research. Once you have a good handle on your niche, it’s time to summarize your findings in the Market Analysis section of your blog business plan. Here are key questions to address on your plan: What topics are potential customers searching for on Google? How big is the market and is there any evidence it’s growing or shrinking? Who is your ideal customer and what are they like? Are there any uncontrollable market factors that could threaten or increase your odds for success? Your business plan isn’t a static document. Market conditions and demand change over time, hence you’ll need to revisit your blogging plan periodically to make sure you stay up with an ever-changing environment. This is especially true when it comes to your blog’s market and competitor analyses. Develop a Thorough Competitor Analysis Getting a good handle on who your blog competitors are is absolutely critical to your success—like “you won’t stand a chance of success if you don’t get this right” critical. A thorough competitor analysis is likely to reveal many opportunities you wouldn’t find elsewhere. Here are crucial questions to address in this section of your plan: Who are my blog’s primary competitors? How are those competitors making money with their blogs? What topics are my competitors covering on their blogs? What are they doing well? What are they not doing so well? What are the “holes” in their strategies (in other words, opportunities to solve problems competitors aren’t addressing)? How big is their follow base on various social media channels? How much traffic does each competitor get? (Tip: use to get this information.) When visiting competitors’ blogs, make sure you spend some time taking in the full experience. Pay attention to site design, overall vibe, use of visuals and videos, and other site features that make a favorable—as well as unfavorable—impression on you. Sometimes it’s those subtle details that add up to make a blog stand apart from the crowd. 3. Brand Identity Overview The amount of detail you include in this section of your blog business plan will vary based on where you are in your blog development process. If you’re still in the conceptualization stage of your blog, you may not have your entire brand identity worked out yet. At a minimum, include the following information in your Brand Identity Overview: A description of your brand’s personality—for example serious, casual, warm, or cutting-edge. What you want people to think of when they describe your blog’s brand. How you’ll reflect your blog’s core values and mission in your brand identity. If possible, also include: Your logo and all brand marks Specific typography used in your brand Brand colors Brand taglines Iconography and other key graphics Remember, your plan is not something you create and forget. If you don’t have all your brand identity components available to post in your plan now, go back and add them later. 4. Blog Content Overview Your blog needs an overall business plan, but it also needs a blog content strategy plan. In the Blog Content Overview, you’ll add a summary of your content strategy, discussing not only the types of content that will be created, but also how you intend to keep that quality high. Here are the basics to add to your Blog Content Overview: Core blog categories: List the main topic categories that will be covered on your blog. For new blogs, three to five categories is recommended. You may also want to include the first 10 blog posts that you’ll create under each of these categories. Types of blog formats planned: Most blogs use a variety of blog formats, including how-to posts, interviews, reviews, case studies, guides, opinion posts, and behind-the-scenes posts. How you’ll create 10X content: You want to wow your reader so here’s your chance to explain how you’ll develop content that’s ten-times better than anything else available. How you plan to establish your expertise, authority, and trust (EAT): Your blog posts will only appear in Google’s top search results if Google feels it meets its quality expectations. Posting frequency: Create a plan for how frequently you’ll post based on available time and resources. Two of the biggest mistakes new bloggers make are to create content inconsistently and develop blog posts that are irrelevant to the blog audience. Consistency helps you build your following while developing your brand’s authority. Creating content focused exclusively on the needs of your niche provides a trustworthy experience for your audience as well as shows Google that you have deep expertise in your niche.   5. Blog Monetization Plan If you want to turn your blog into a profitable business, you need a sound plan for making money. There are many ways to monetize a blog, though some produce better results than others. Affiliate marketing and selling digital products and services top the list of best ways to make money blogging. You can get started with affiliate marketing from day one on your blog. Digital products, such as e-books and online courses, may take longer to create, but the upside is that you get to keep all the profits. Seven-figure bloggers, including Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, Pat Flynn, and Brian Clark, all made the bulk of their fortunes through self-produced products and courses. Other monetization techniques include: Selling ads directly or joining ad networks Sponsored posts Private memberships Events and Retreats Exclusive forums Physical products Digital downloads (e.g., checklists,templates, and planners) Apps Offering coaching, consulting, or freelancing services Some monetization strategies just aren’t practical for new blogs. For example, you won’t make any money through advertising when your blog has very little traffic coming to it. That’s why many bloggers list two different  monetization strategies on their business plan. The first is a startup monetization plan. The second is a “next-step” monetization plan, which commences when blog traffic picks up. In the Blog Monetization section of your plan, be sure to include specific tactics you plan to pursue. Set goals regarding when you’ll start each tactic as well as how much money you hope to generate from each method. 6. Blog Marketing & Promotion Strategies You can create the best blog on the planet, but your results will be abysmal if no one knows you exist. Developing an effective blog marketing and promotion strategy is yet another key to your ultimate success. While there are many ways to promote your blog, you want to focus on those that make the biggest difference, which include a strong launch strategy, social media marketing, search engine optimization, and email marketing. If your budget allows, you may also want to consider paid advertising. Launch Strategy What’s your plan for getting the word out about your blog when it’s brand-new? It’s wise to create a blog launch strategy much like you would develop a product launch strategy. Types of marketing and promotional activities to pursue in the launch phase of your blog include: Tell your network about your new blog and ask them to share it with their networks Appear as a guest on popular podcasts Guest blog on other blogs (where you’ll get exposure for your blog) Create highly targeted, paid social media channels ads or Google ads Reach out to influencers in your niche The toughest phase of any new blog is the launch period. You may find that it’s difficult to get traction at first, but be persistent in your efforts to get the word out about your blog; that persistence will be rewarded. Social Media Marketing Strategy Successful bloggers understand the power of using social media for driving both blog traffic and blog profits. The trick is to identify the best social media channels for your blog—that means developing your presence where your ideal audience can be found. Your social media marketing strategy summary should identify which social channels you plan to use, how you plan to use them, and what your top goals are for those efforts. The lure of social media is enticing. I must warn you, though, that the hip-and-happening world of social media has a dark side where you could find yourself drained of time and money with little to nothing to show for your investments. Posting pretty pictures and clever sayings alone won’t build your blog business. You need to develop a smart social media marketing strategy. Done right, a solid social plan can catapult your business to success. Done wrong, you could end up on the dark side that I just described. My top success tip here is don’t try to be in all social channels all at once. Pick one or two social channels and focus on those until you have the time and resources to expand while still being effective. My second success tip is don’t overvalue the importance of your total follower count. The number of followers or fans you have is not necessarily an indicator of success. The actions those followers take—such as visiting your site, subscribing to your email list, or making purchases from you—are far better success metrics. View Template Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Strategy If you want to rank higher on Google—and trust me, you do, as that’s a key source of traffic for most bloggers—then you need to have a firm understanding of SEO and how to apply it to your blog. If you don’t have a solid grasp on SEO yet, start by reviewing SEO for Bloggers. Once you more fully understand SEO, you’ll be ready to develop an overview of your SEO strategy. When summarizing your SEO goals on your business plan, be sure to include goals for both on-page and off-page SEO. On-page SEO includes using relevant keywords and providing valuable content for your readers. Off-page SEO includes other factors that impact page rank, the most important of which is getting highly credible sites to link to your blog. Email Marketing Strategy If you’re serious about your blog business—and if you’ve read this far, I know you are—then you’ll want to get serious about building relationships with your blog audience. You can’t depend on them to come back to your blog again and again, much less make a purchase from you, without a little prompting on your part. That’s why every money-making blog needs a sound email marketing strategy. When listing your email marketing plan summary on your business plan, include the following: Your email marketing service provider Planned email name capture campaigns Emailing frequency plan Email capture goals by volume and conversion rates Some bloggers fail to capture emails on their blogs and this can be a disastrous mistake. You need to know who your audience is and have an avenue for reaching out to them. Social media is not enough—you need an email marketing plan. Paid Advertising Strategy Not all bloggers use paid advertising, though many top bloggers include paid advertising in their promotions mix. Successful bloggers are particularly drawn to paid ads on social media channels, but deploy those ads strategically. When first starting out, you may want to purchase paid ads to attract traffic to your blog. The best use of paid ads over time, though, is to use them to generate leads for items you plan to sell, including e-books, online courses, and coaching or consulting services. If you plan to use paid advertising in your business, be sure to include a summary of your strategy and goals—plus costs and sales forecasts from those ads—in your business plan. Average Cost of Social Media Advertising by Platform 7. Blog Management & Operations The Blog Management & Operations section of your business plan outlines how different tasks will be managed and executed. Here is where you describe who’s responsible for which tasks. You’ll also list key resources you plan to use in managing and operating your business. When creating your summary for this section, make sure you address the following: Blog platform: State the blog platform you plan to use, hosting provider, and any other key tools and resources you’ll use to build your blog. Technical and design plan: If you’re working with an outside developer or designer, include a summary of your arrangement in your plan. Blog content planning and creation: Decide who’s going to develop content, how it will be proofed, and how new content will be added to your website. You’ll likely do the lion’s share of this work, but list your freelance or outsourcing plan if relevant. Accounting plan: All businesses need a way to track expenses and revenues. Describe how you’ll conduct these activities, listing software and any other external resources or professionals you plan to employ. The purpose of the Blog Management and Operations section of your business plan is to make you think not only about what you plan to do with your blog, but also how you plan to manage the day-to-day operation of your business. This will help you avoid missed steps that bloggers who don’t plan ahead wrestle with on an ongoing basis. 8. Blog Costs & Revenues Forecast Blogs can be built on a shoestring or an opulent budget, but one thing holds true in either case: if you don’t know what you’re spending, you won’t know whether you’re turning a profit. In this section of your blog plan, you’ll outline anticipated costs as well as forecast revenues. Frankly, it’s a lot easier to come up with an accurate costs forecast than revenues forecasts. Still, you need a starting reference point so that’s why it’s important to include a basic outline of both projected costs and revenues on your initial business plan. You’ll revise your plan as your blog business grows at which time you’ll have more precise performance data from which to draw. Specify Anticipated Blog Costs Carefully consider how much money you plan to invest in your blog. Some investments will be a one-time purchase, others require an annual purchase, while still others will incur a monthly expense. Most new bloggers—particularly those on a tight budget—begin by investing only in the essentials and acquire additional tools and resources as their businesses grow. Below is a list of costs you may encounter. Typical Costs for a New Blog It’s wise to break down your costs summary in two categories, the first being startup costs for one-time expenses and the second being operational costs for ongoing expenses. Include figures for both on your blog plan. Specify Revenue Projections Every business plan includes revenue projections. To do this, outline which monetization methods you intend to use, when those methods will start earning revenue, and how much revenue you expect to earn. Be prepared: most bloggers earn little to no revenue in their first few months of blogging, but don’t let that discourage you. Everyone has to start somewhere. Sample Revenue Projections In the example above, the blogger forecasts that she’ll gross $50,216 in the first year. First year earnings are often modest, but if your business is successful, sales can grow nearly exponentially over time. While the blogger in this example plans to use six different monetization methods, the lion’s share of her earnings is expected to come from coaching services. It’s not uncommon for one method to be the main driver of a blog’s profitability. I don’t recommend putting your eggs in one basket, though. The most successful bloggers use multiple monetization tactics to build their businesses. Know Your Break-Even Point Your break-even point is merely the point where your total revenues minus your total costs equals zero. That’s the point where you’re not making any money, but you’re not losing any, either. Include your projected break-even point in the Blogs and Revenues section of your business plan. Add Your Projected Profits to Your Business Plan Once you know your projected costs and revenues, you can calculate your profit forecast and add it to your business plan. Simply deduct all costs from all revenues to come up with your profit forecast. 9. Blog Performance Tracking & Analysis Plan As a business owner, it’s imperative that you can identify efforts that drive results as well as those that underperform expectations. That’s why you’ll include a section on performance tracking and analysis in your overall blog business plan. First, list the tools you will use to track and analyze blog performance such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console, as well as social media management and analytics tools like and . Next, consider the key performance indicators (KPIs) that drive your blog’s overall performance. Include a list of KPIs you plan to monitor regularly in the Blog Performance Tracking & Analysis section of your business plan. Examples of KPIs that help you better understand blog performance: Overall blog visitor count Top viewed blog posts Total site backlinks and backlinks by individual posts Total page views Average number of page views per visitors Blog bounce rate Total post views Social share likes, follows, and engagement statistics Social media stats by social channel Number of sales leads Email list subscriber rates Conversion rates on a site and page level Source of lead acquisition The better you are at finding and replicating results-producing activities on your blog, the more money you’ll make in your business. Simply put, don’t skimp on performance tracking and analytics. Having a strong plan upfront will yield stronger profits over the long run.   10. Blog Exit Strategy Sadly, the primary exit strategy for most blogs today is abandonment. That’s because most bloggers don’t treat their blogs like a business. That’s not you. You understand the importance of pursuing your blog with a deliberate business-building strategy. That means you have more options available to you. Just because you’re enthusiastic about starting a blog today doesn’t mean you want to run a blog for the rest of your life. When the time comes that you want to move on, your three main exit strategies are: 1) abandon it, 2) give it away, or 3) sell it. If your intention is to sell your blog at some point, it’s best to outline the fundamentals of your money-making exit strategy now. Bottom Line I know what it’s like to dream of creating your own blog business; it’s both exhilarating and a little bit scary. I assure you that if you put in the effort to create a solid business plan for your blog, you’ll give yourself a business advantage that most bloggers simply don’t have. Take the time to create your own plan now using the template provided at the top of this post. The stronger your plan, the better your chances of creating a thriving business.