Want to launch a profitable blog business in 2021?
If you are wondering exactly how to make money from blogging, this step-by-step guide walks you through the 7 steps to launch a profitable blog business that will change your life!
Launch A Profitable Blog Business In 2021
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If you are still treating your blog is just your hobby, it is time to change your perspective and start treating it as a profitable business. The reason why is because a blog business gives you plenty of life-changing benefits including:
- You won't need to work for somebody else ever again; you'll be able to live the life of an entrepreneur and start living on your own terms
- As a blogger, you get to create your own schedule, decide what projects you work on as well as work however much you like
- You are also impacting people's lives by creating content and solutions for them
Ready to launch your profitable blog in 2021?
This step-by-step guide walks you through the 11 steps, from selecting profitable niches and keywords, coming up with blog posts ideas, growing traffic to practical ways to start making your first $500 from your blog through affiliate marketing.
Step One: Choose a profitable niche
When it comes to choosing a niche for your blog, it is a common mistake to think that profitable niches are in short supply. In fact, profitable niches like “blogging” and “product reviews” have never been more popular.
Another great misconception when it comes to your blog topic or niche is the focus on writing about things that YOU are passionate about. The truth is that profitable blogs will make you money, not your passion.
You don't even need to have a blog topic in mind before starting – profitable niches can be found by searching Google for profitable keywords related to whatever the topic might be and then doing some research on which topics are hot right now.
Here are some ways to find blog niches that are super profitable in 2021:
- Search for profitable niche ideas by going to Google Trends or typing profitable keyword searches into Google's search bar
- Use the Google search bar and type something like “most profitable blogging niche in 2021” and see what you get
- Dive in to the niches by looking for sub-niches. For example, the gardening niche has subniches such as container gardening, how to grow plants indoors and growing herbs
- If you see Google Ads at a CPC of 1 or higher for the sub-niche of “container gardening”, that means people are willing to spend money for ads within that topic
Once you have done the hard work of figuring out your niche, you can move on to the next step and start creating profitable blog posts.
Step Two: Keyword Research and Planning
Before you can start your blog or even write your first post, it is super important to spend some time doing keyword research and planning your content.
In order to make your first $500 from your blog business, you should be creating content that contain keywords that are related to your niche.
I highly recommend using KeySearch to find pillar and long-tail keyword opportunities that I can easily rank for on Google.
For beginner bloggers, it is a great keyword tool that helps you identify profitable keywords, do competitor research as well as find guest posting opportunities.
>>Grab Keysearch right here to find your profitable keywords<<
A profitable blogging strategy is to write content about a topic for which there is lots of search demand. There are at least 3 kinds of content you should be creating to make money from your blog in the early stages:
1) “How To” or Info posts
Whenever you are launching a brand new blog, it takes time to grow your traffic and make money.
To overcome this, you should be writing “How to” posts that answer questions related to your niche and offer practical solutions for people's problems or needs. For example, if you are a blogger who is passionate about fitness – go ahead and write the best how-to DIY guide on home workouts to get fit in three months.
The key with “How To” posts is that you are providing high-quality, useful content and solving some of your audience's problems or needs.
This gives you opportunity for backlinks from other bloggers who want to share a link to your blog post on their site because it could be related to their niche.
Building backlinks not only sets you up as an authority within your niche as a blogger, it also helps you improve your rankings on Google searches. This will definitely play an important part in having a profitable blog business, as organic search traffic from Google is extremely powerful.
This content will help you rank for profitable keywords and build trust with your audience, which is a really important part of building profitable blogs in the early stages.
Another benefit to this type of post is the ability to turn it into an eBook that you can sell on your blog and make money for each time someone purchases the product.
2) Best or Review posts
Once you have a whole bunch of “how to” blog content ideas down, it is time to search for best or review type posts you can write.
To find these keywords, do some extensive research on what your target audience or readers would be searching for and enter the following into Google: “best + [keyword] ” or ” [keyword] + review”.
Doing so gives you plenty of related affiliate products you can promote within your blog posts to readers. Once you have found at least 50 viable keywords for your blog, compile them into a Google Sheets document for your own reference.
3) Sponsored posts
The last type of content you will need to write in order to make money from your blog is sponsored posts. You can easily find sponsored post opportunities by doing some quick searches for “sponsored content” or “paid guest posts.”
These are great opportunities to make money from your blog because you can charge a lot of different rates depending on the reach and audience size of the website who is looking for someone like you. These sponsored post opportunities will typically pay up to $500 per article depending on the reach and audience size.
This is a good way to make money from your blog without having to do any additional work, as these posts usually require zero time investment on the part of the blogger who is writing them for someone else's site or business!
Michelle Shroeder(Making Sense of Cents) and her sister Alexis Shroeder of Fitnancials have made over $10,000/month from sponsored partnerships.
They teach all of their strategies in the course Making Sense of Sponsored Posts, which I highly recommend! It is definitely the most comprehensive course out there about earning money as a blogger from writing sponsored posts.
Step Three: Write Your First 10 Blog Posts
Now it is time to create epic content for your blog biz!
But first, it is important to create a schedule for writing your blog posts. You will want to come up with a content plan for every other week and try not to post more than two times in one day, as this may decrease views on old posts (especially if the same topic is posted).
Focus on writing your first 10 blog posts that will help solve your reader's problems or needs.
This is important because these types of posts rank higher on Google searches which means more profitable opportunities for your blog.
If you're blogging with a full-time job and trying to churn out content as much as possible, I totally understand the struggle…
I myself get really tired writing blog posts, Pinterest descriptions and meta descriptions on a regular basis, which is why I was so delighted to have found a much better way to writing content. Recently, I have discovered a great AI tool that helped me seriously speed up my blog and content writing.
Enter Jarvis.ai. Not the one from Iron Man, but the pro blogger's best friend! Ever since getting Jarvis Boss mode to help me improve my blogging workflow, I've written more than 20,000 words within a week—no joke!
Get your first 10,000 words on Jarvis for free right here!
Want to overcome the beginner blogger overwhelm? Once you have your blog niche and top 10 blog posts down, I highly recommend that you invest in the Launch Your Blog Biz course by Create and Go. After taking the Launch Your Blog Biz course, I went on to make my first $200 from my blog!
This course teaches all of the following:
- Blogging mindset
- Hosting, WordPress and Initial Setup
- How to choose the best blog themes
- Blog content and email strategy
- Making money from ads
- Sponsored posts for beginner bloggers
- Driving traffic to your blog using YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest
- Intro to Google SEO
Step Four: Drive Traffic To Your Blog and Grow Your Audience on Social Media
Once you have your first 10 blog posts down, you can start driving traffic to your blog by using social media.
Most bloggers choose to focus on driving traffic using Pinterest and Facebook in the beginning, or just using Instagram.
The most important thing to remember here is to figure out where you audience hangs out the most.
Do they spend most of their time on Tiktok? Or do they hang out on Facebook all day long?
It is definitely important for you to figure this out, and understand who your ideal readers are, what they want and where do they spend the most time online.
Once you have decided on which social media platforms you will use to promote your blog, it is time to start building your presence there. Being consistent with your social media postings is what will grow your audience and get them hooked on reading all of the great content you are sharing.
Step Five: Generate Revenue From Your Blog With Affiliate Marketing
The best way to generate revenue from your blog is through affiliate marketing programs, as you will make recurring commissions from them that can add up to $1000 or even $10,000 per month over time.
To find suitable affiliate marketing programs for your niche, all you have to do a quick Google search of “[your niche]+affiliate programs”.
You should be able to find plenty of affiliate programs to join as a beginner blogger. If you need some ideas on the best beginner affiliate programs for bloggers, here are some great ones to start with
- Ultimate Bundles
- Awin
- Amazon Affiliate
The very first course I invested in early on that helped me make my first $2000 in affiliate income is Michelle Schroeder-Gardner's Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course. Don't miss out on the free affiliate marketing cheat sheet here to start increasing your blog income!
Read my detailed review of Making Sense Of Affiliate Marketing course here.
Step Six: Use Convertkit to grow your email list and blog business
When you start driving traffic to your blog, it is important that you have a list of people who sign up for your email newsletter so they can get notified when new content goes live on the site.
This is what is known as your “email list”, and it is the most valuable asset you can have in your blog business. It is because your email list is entire your own, as opposed to your Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest account which does not belong to you.
The best email marketing software to use is ConvertKit because it integrates nicely with all of the social media platforms you are using, and also helps grow your blog business by prompting readers to purchase your products or services.
You can also sell products, services or memberships directly on ConvertKit, which is an extra revenue stream for your blog on top of doing affiliate marketing.
Another great thing I love about Convertkit is the ease of use when it comes to building landing pages and opt-in forms.
In just a few steps, you can create a form for your lead magnet or freebie and start growing your email list!
Here are some Convertkit courses and blog posts to help you grow your email list quickly:
- A beginner's guide to Convertkit is a free mini-course and training to help you set up your Convertkit straightaway. This awesome training by Lizzy Goddard includes how to tag your list the right way, set up automation rules, send your newsletter regularly and more.
- How To Clean Up Your Convertkit List The Unscary Way– an awesome step-by-step guide that covers everything about cleaning up your list so keep the most engaged audiences and weed out the freeloaders, so to speak.
Step Seven: Focus On Google SEO
Before you start focusing your attention on Google SEO, make sure that you have all your About and Legal pages properly set up on your blog.
If you need Privacy Policy, DMCA or affiliate disclaimer policies, be sure to use the awesome templates by Website Policies.
They are easily customizable and affordable, which means you can ensure that your blog is legally compliant without spending too much money.
Once you have all the above properly set up, it is time to work on Google SEO for your blog.
You need to make sure that your blog is optimized for search engines so people can find it when they are looking for information on the internet.
For example, if you are targeting the keyword “indoor succulents” in a blog post, you'll want your blog post to end up in the top 10 search results on Google.
In order to do this, start by adding relevant keywords and phrases in your header tags – these will help with SEO ranking!
Then write keyword rich content that targets a specific topic or problem that readers might be searching for when they are looking to solve a problem themselves. You will also want integrate keywords into your images and videos, so that you can rank higher in Google Image and YouTube search results as well.
Once you're ready to learn more about more advanced Google SEO tips for bloggers, I highly recommend Stupid Simple SEO by my friend Mike Pearson.
You can check out the free SEO starter pack right here to learn more about what Mike has to offer — trust me, your mind will be blown.
He is truly one of the best teachers out there when it comes to SEO for bloggers.
It is the course that has helped me grow my organic search on Google by 200% in a year, and is now my favorite blogging course of all time.