“How do you earn money blogging?” is one of the most often emailed inquiries to me.

The quick answer is that it’s both easier and more difficult than you may anticipate.

It’s simple since it involves minimal initial financial investment, you don’t need a degree or certification, the area is wide open, and profit margins are excellent.

Setting up a successful blog that generates a part-time or full-time income, on the other hand, will need a tremendous lot of effort, drive, consistency, and perseverance.

Here are five attributes you must have if you want to be a successful blogger.

1. Bloggers that are successful are marathon runners, not sprinters. Anyone may be a successful blogger, but there is no such thing as overnight blogging success unless you’re already a superstar. It requires a lot of effort, sweat, and more effort. It might be many months before you see a cent from the hours you put into your site.
2. Successful bloggers are really passionate about what they do. If you don’t think you’ll be able to create three posts per week on your selected blog topic over the next two years, you should either change topics or look for an alternative work-at-home opportunity.
3. Bloggers that are successful are self-starters. It’s nice to learn from others, but you won’t succeed if you expect to be spoon-fed. Start digging and investigating by rolling up your sleeves. Read books about blogging, articles about blogging, blogs about blogging, observe successful bloggers, and try your own experiments.
4. The most successful bloggers are also the most inventive. Fresh and original voices and methods will stand head and shoulders above the competition in an already saturated market. How will you set yourself out from the other bloggers in your field?
5. Successful bloggers are dedicated to their craft. Readers return when they know you’ll update your material on a regular basis. It’s far better to post three times a week on a consistent basis than thirty times every few months.

How to Make Your Blog a Success

1. Come up with a catchy name for your blog. The objective of your blog should be reflected in the name, and the purpose of your blog should be clearly stated. Don’t rush the name selection process; it’s your brand, and you want to be sure you enjoy it and that it’ll be something you’ll love for years to come. Consider suitable names for a week or two. Request the opinions of a few reliable friends. Toss about some ideas, and when you find one you like, check to see whether the domain name (the www internet address) is available on GoDaddy.com before committing to it. Important note: Blog names can be trademarked at the federal level. This indicates that a person or a business possesses the federal rights to a certain name or phrase. It must not be used by others, or you may face sanctions and be forced to stop using the name. To be secure, do a thorough web search to ensure that no one else is using the name you came up with or a close version of it.
2. Buy the domain name as well as any variations. When you’ve found the perfect blog name and double-checked that no one else is using it, acquire the domain name right away. It normally costs approximately $10 to $20 each year, and having your own domain name for your site is well worth it. I usually buy domain names from GoDaddy.com since it’s what I’ve done in the past. If you want to set up your blog using Blogger (see point 3 below), purchasing the domain name directly through Blogger rather than through a separate domain name provider makes things a lot easier because the domain will be instantly set to refer to your Blogger blog. You won’t have to go through the hassle of manually entering the code to point your domain to your blog. I also recommend purchasing all versions of your domain name if you wish to look long-term and plan to build your blog into a profitable company. You won’t have to worry about someone else registering a domain name that sounds similar to yours.
3. Select the appropriate blog platform from the start. “What is the one thing you wish you had done differently when starting up your blog?” I was recently asked. “I wish I had begun with WordPress*,” I quickly answered. I began with Blogger since it was, at the time, pretty much the only blogging platform available. When the Blogger SPAM bots identified my blog as SPAM in 2008, I was locked out of my Blogger site for ten days and had to migrate to TypePad. My site outgrew TypePad at the end of 2009, and I was forced to convert to WordPress. The transition from TypePad to WordPress was difficult and time-consuming. Thousands of posts and hundreds of thousands of comments had to be moved. There were several bugs, and there was a steep learning curve. To be honest, despite being a tremendous pain in the neck, it was one of the finest blogging decisions I’ve ever made. WordPress has helped me to create a far more structured blog and has many capabilities that TypePad and Blogger did not. So, if I were to propose a blogging platform, it would be WordPress. It is pricier, but it provides you with a lot more possibilities than other platforms. You also don’t have to be concerned about your blog becoming restricted or outgrowing TypePad. Another significant advantage of WordPress is that it has far more advanced SEO capabilities (i.e. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and refers to optimizing your site so that it ranks highly in search engines). People are far more likely to find you if you are on the first page or two of Google, rather than page 133!). At this time, I don’t do much in the way of SEO, but I’m all for doing simple things to help MoneySavingMom.com rank higher when people search for “money-saving blogs” or “grocery budget.” It’s quite simple to do so using WordPress.
4. Engage the services of a designer. Even if you had a simple, free Blogger blog design, you could have a large number of readers back in the “olden” days when there weren’t many blogs. If you had amazing material and updated often, you could have a significant number of followers. Because there are so many more blogs now, outstanding content is more crucial than ever, but a pleasant design and ease-of-use are also essential. People are considerably more likely to leave your blog if they find the design uninteresting or the layout chaotic. Please don’t be discouraged by this. You don’t need a flashy blog with a lot of bells and whistles to get started. A basic, clean, and easy-to-navigate design may make all the difference. Paying someone to put things up for you might be a good investment. If you can’t afford a designer, at the very least consider paying for a header design and then learning some simple HTML so you can alter your sidebar.
5. Make a schedule for your posts. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been delighted to check out a new blog after seeing it touted, only to discover it only had three entries! You need depth, series, and a diversity of topics if you want folks to remain around. Before you start promoting your blog, go ahead and create 10 to 15 entries, plus plan out and write another 15 to have ready to go whenever you start advertising it. Not only will this help you to get your feet wet and familiarize yourself with blogging before you have a live audience, but it will also give some wonderful content for visitors to your site. I use Google Calendar to plan out long-term article series. I’ve also started printing up a monthly calendar so that I can pencil in certain posts for each day. This provides me with accountability, motivation, and organization—at the very least, it’s an improvement over my previous blog-by-the-seat-of-my-pants method!

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