How To Start A Profitable Blog In 2021
In this article, I will share with you my top 7 tips on How to Start a Profitable Blog in 2021. I have implemented all of these tips to this very blog website, so you can do the same to see results.
Focus On One Niche
The first tip is to focus on one niche. Now a niche simply means the category in which you blog. While it can be tempting to write about everything under the sun, the more niches or categories that you decide to blog about, the harder it is going to be for you to stand out in a particular niche. It will also take longer for you to start making money from your blog. Not only is focusing on one niche a simpler and less complicated strategy to start a blog, but it is also something that will help you build your brand and authority in that particular niche faster.
Now if you’re focused on four different niches and you want to be an authority in travel, fashion, beauty, and lifestyle, it’s going to be much harder for you to stand out and get your blog discovered versus if you were to just pick one category and double down on that.
Pick The Right Traffic Source
The next tip is to pick the right traffic source. A blog with no visitors or readers is a blog that doesn’t make any money. The biggest reason why most blogs fail is not that the blogger doesn’t work hard or because he gives up too easily, it’s actually because he doesn’t have enough traffic. This means that if you start focusing on bringing in new visitors and new ideas to your blog right from the very beginning, you’re going to be able to grow your blog faster and start making money from your blog faster as well.
Think of your blog as a modern-day version of the newspaper business. Now typical publishing business will not be able to generate any money if it has no readers or no viewers coming to its website or even reading its newspapers. The same stands true for your blog as well. Now there are two main sources of traffic that bloggers can focus on at the beginning of their blogging career.
1. Google – Which is a Search Engine
The biggest mistake that most bloggers make is that they focus too much on Google at the beginning of their journey. When it comes to Google, it takes a couple of years until it starts to show your website in search results. If you only rely on google it can take you a few years before you start to see any decent traffic from it.
2. Pinterest – This is my favorite source of traffic
I’ve been able to see significant growth in my monthly sessions and page views for my blog and I was able to achieve this with quality traffic from Pinterest. Now the reason why I focus more on Pinterest from the start is that you don’t need to wait a couple of years before you start to see traffic from this source.
Not only that, but the way the platform works is that it is designed to get people to click out and go to check out my website. Pinterest users are already familiar with the concept of clicking on pins and going to other people’s websites.
There are a ton of videos on YouTube about Pinterest Marketing so make sure to check them out to understand more about how this traffic source works. You don’t need to pick one traffic source over the other. What I mean by this tip is that you should be focusing on one traffic source at a time and then building and leveraging that. Once you have built and leveraged one particular traffic source, move on to the next one and master it as well.
Don’t Waste Time On Multiple Social Media Platforms
The next tip that I wish someone had told me when I first started over a year ago, is to stop wasting time on multiple social media platforms. This means your time is best utilized in creating content that your audience wants to read and driving traffic to that particular audience.
Social media platforms, while they work great as a vanity metric and it feels great to have 30 000 Instagram followers, the sad truth is, the time you spend in growing multiple social media accounts is the time that you can spend on working on your blog content as well as driving traffic to it.
What I’ve learned from experience is that if you try to be everywhere then you won’t grow anywhere. Now the question you should be asking yourself is, where is my ideal audience hanging out? Are they on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, or Tik Tok?
The key thing to remember here is that you don’t own your audience on social media. Tomorrow if Facebook or Instagram decide to block your account then you end up losing all of the audience that you spend so much time building there. The bottom line is to pick one social media platform to focus on at the beginning until your blog has reached a point where you have more time and you can afford to create content for multiple social media platforms.
Create Content Consistently
Moving on to the next tip is to create content consistently. Now the first year of your brand new blog is going to be very critical in deciding whether or not you end up making money from it. When you’re just starting you can start by posting once a week but I would recommend you to post a little bit more and post two or three times a week so that you can get in the habit of writing blog posts as well as driving traffic to them.
The reason why you need to be creating new content consistently is that at the beginning, you are going to be competing for traffic with websites that have been around for 5, 10, 20 years.
This means that your ideal audience has a choice between reading your blog which has, let’s say 15 articles versus a blog that has 600 articles on a topic that they’re interested in. This doesn’t mean that you need to write 600 articles in your first year, but what it does mean is that when you consistently show up and create new content, you start to build an audience that also consistently shows up, reads your blogs, and buys your products and services. This is what eventually ends up making money for you in the long run. Not only will creating new content help you attract more people to your blog, but it will also help you improve your writing skills as well as understand exactly what it is that your audience wants.
Think Like A Business Owner
This next tip is the one that is going to decide how much money your blog makes and that is to think like a business owner. Now, it doesn’t matter if you want your blog to be a side hustle or you want it to be your full-time job or you want it to pay for your whole family. The bottom line is that every business sells something. Now, traditional bloggers rely on two streams of income when it comes to their blogs. One is Ad revenue and the other is Affiliate revenue.
Both these streams of income require a large amount of traffic to get started with and if you’re just starting you probably won’t make a lot of money if you limit yourself to only these two income streams. Modern-day bloggers who think like business owners end up creating their products and services because they understand that every business sells something.
While creating your product is a bit more challenging and does require you to have more experience, you can start selling your services from day one. Just list all of the skill sets that you have which you can offer in exchange for money. You can also use sites like Fiverr and Upwork and use your blog as a portfolio to get new clients. If you feel like you have nothing to offer in terms of services, you can pitch to a more experienced blogger to work for them for free. Maybe as an intern or as an assistant in exchange for training and experience.
Learn Search Engine Optimization
Moving to the next tip is to learn SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Now search engine optimization is simply the art and science of being discovered on a search engine like Google, Pinterest, or YouTube.
You can check out blogs that have tons of free resources for new bloggers to understand exactly how SEO works and how you can leverage it to start a ranking in Google Search and show up there as well. Now, remember each search engine has different rules which means that the rules on Google are not the same as the rules on Pinterest.
This is why I told you to commit to just one traffic source first. Master the SEO for the traffic source and then move on to the next. The faster you’re able to learn and optimize for SEO, the faster your traffic will grow, and the faster your income from your blog will grow as well.
Invest And Commit To Your Blog
The next tip is to invest and commit to your blog. Now, every blog that makes money and makes a solid amount of money takes time and effort. Much like any other business. Just like a regular business doesn’t become profitable on day one, a regular blog also doesn’t usually start making money on day one. The blog that I started took me about eight months to make the first income from Google AdSense and some affiliate products.
I now realize that once I can maximize my monthly traffic, I will be able to scale my blogging business for years to come. If I had given up in the first eight months of the blog, I would never have reached this point where I’m giving you proven tips on how to Start a Profitable Blog in 2021 by growing your traffic and making a good income.
Here Are TWO Bonus Tips That Can Fast-track Your Success As A Blogger.
1. Investing In Your Blog
Now, whether it comes to the resources and tools that you invest in your blog such as getting a self-hosted website as well as investing in a professional theme or it comes to the educational resources that you need to learn about your blog, start with whatever you can afford and then move your way up.
Just like you can’t build a solid business without the right tools and resources, the same way you also can’t build a solid blog without the right tools and resources. The faster you can learn what you don’t know, the faster you’ll be able to see growth on your blog.
2. Commit To Your Blog
Commit to your blog for at least one year. Blogging requires time and effort but it also requires you to learn many different things. Just as an example, I wrote almost 50 blog posts before I started to see any decent money come in. I couldn’t have done that in a month or two which is why I highly recommend that you give yourself at least one year before you finally give up on the whole blogging journey.
One year will give you enough time to implement what you’ve learned on your blog. It might take you less time or it might take you more time to start making money from your blog but if you invest in the right resources and show up consistently, you’re going to be able to succeed much faster.
Final Thoughts
You can make a living with your blog if you handle it as a business. For a business to be successful you have to invest your time and money into it. By taking this approach, you will be able to see significant growth with your blog in terms of traffic and income.
If you have learned a thing are two from this information, I would appreciate it if you could share it with others who can benefit from it.
Click on the share buttons below to share this article now and thank you for reading to the end.
