Make Money
How to Make Money with a Blog for Beginners (Your First $100)
Is it really possible for a beginner to make money with a blog? Can you make a living out of blogging or is it just another myth? The answer to both questions is ‘Yes’.
Blogging for money is not a theoretical concept but it’s a reality. Anyone with some basic knowledge of blogging, SEO, and a general idea on how the Internet works can start a blogging business and make money.
When you’re reading about “How to make money blogging for beginners”, $100 dollars doesn’t sound like very much. I agree it isn’t very much. You’ve probably splashed out most of that already on your first year hosting costs.
But before you click away, just accept that everyone has to start somewhere. If you can make your first $100, you can make $1000. If you can make $1000 you can make $10,000.
Is it a lot harder to make $10,000 than your first $100? No way! Making your first $100 a month from blogging is the hardest part of your money-making journey. You’re learning to crack the code…
How Much Can you Earn Blogging?
Whether you’re looking to supplement your income with a little extra to pay for a few nice treats or create a blog that will support your lifestyle and allow you to blog full-time, then you can pretty much make as much money as you like from blogging if you are prepared to put in the hard work.
There are lots of great stories out there of successful bloggers who make money blogging:
For example over the past couple of years, the husband and wife team, Bjork and Lindsay at PinchofYum.com, a food and recipe blog, have built up a huge following, and some months they have made nearly $25k.
Another blogging couple, Yeison and Samantha, who run mytanfeet.com are making over $5k per month while they travel the world and share their photos and stories on their blog.
How To Build Your Blog?
Let’s rewind and take it from the beginning. How do most bloggers make money online and how can you do the same?
It’s important for me to remind you that blog income doesn’t happen overnight. You will need to set up a blog, build an audience who trusts you, and drive traffic regularly before you can start making an income.
The exotic blogger’s lifestyle that you see on social media comes with a lot of hard work so make sure you’re ready to put the work in.
As a blogger beginner, you probably don’t have tons of traffic yet and don’t have a huge email list either. So the idea here is to start small ($100) and build up from there as your blog grows in size.
By setting yourself a realistic goal of $100, you will feel motivated – as a larger goal might seem too far out of reach. And, once you do achieve your goal, you’re going to get a better understanding of what works for your blog (and what doesn’t) and use the learnings to make even more money.
This is perhaps the easiest step. It’s so easy these days to register a domain name and set up a blog. All you need is a bit of help and pointers in the right direction.
1- Pick a Profitable Blog Niche
If you write about lots of unrelated topics, you’re confusing not just your readers but also Google. It won’t be clear what your blog is about. You’ll fail to build trust around a particular topic. Fail to build authority.
Writing about a tightly focused niche, not only sends clear signals to your readers that you’re an authority in this area, it will help you to be seen as an expert by Google.
A site with a lower domain authority can outrank a higher domain authority if it has high relevance in a particular niche.
There is no point in starting a blog that you want to make money from without a plan.
There are thousands of niches out there. Some are:
- Broad and huge.
- Small and virtually unknown.
- Easier to make money in than others.
Monetization of a website is key and picking the right niche is vital and one that should be well thought out.
This is why your research is important.
A good place to start when you are picking a niche is to look at your own interests in Google.
You may be a keen amateur photographer, a budding cake decorator, or want to write about traveling. So, carry out your research online by looking at different websites in Google and even on social media sites, such as Facebook or Pinterest, to see where the money-making niches are, where the people are, and if these niches are growing or shrinking. It will save a lot of heartaches later down the line.
Are you still with me? That’s a lot to take in if you haven’t done this before.
Best Profitable Blog Topics
Some great blog topics that are known to be profitable are:
- Health and Fitness
- Recipes
- Travel
- Parenting
- Specific Diets (Keto, Vegan, Etc)
- Lifestyle
- Finance
- Home Decor
- Beauty and Fashion
- Making Money Online
- Education
- Tech
Don’t overthink this too much, your topic will likely change over time as your blog changes. Also, feel free to pick two topics and combine them.
2- Set up Your Hosting and Domain
In order to set up a blog, you will need a domain name and web hosting.
Domain Name: Try to choose something short and catchy for your blog that will be easily remembered. I recommend that you stick to .com domain names if at all possible as many of the new domain names aren’t as easy to recognize.
Web Hosting: This is where your blog is stored online. Bluehost is the top provider recommended by WordPress.
We are going to use the blogging platform WordPress with the hosting company Bluehost as this combination is the perfect way to start for a newbie.
WordPress and Bluehost are like peanut butter and jelly for blogging because:
- WordPress is the main platform used by 95% of our successful blog friends.
- Bluehost is perfect for newbies and has 24/7 customer service.
- They are fully integrated with one another and Bluehost makes the setup process easy.
- You can get started for as low as $2.65/month.
Haven't got a blog yet?Use our special BlueHost link to get started for as little $2.65 a month. You will also get a free domain name worth up to $15 for the first 12 months for your new blog too.
Useful Resource:
3- Choose a Great Blog Theme
It’s time to make your site look the part by adding a WordPress theme to your website.
There are 1000s of free WordPress themes available. You can browse themes by going to “Appearance” and then “Themes”. Then click on the “Add new“.
Here you will be able to browse all the free WordPress themes.
You can click “Preview” to what the theme actually looks like before putting it live on your website.
Once you have found a theme that you like click the “Install” button.
A free theme is great when starting out, however, if you are looking to take blogging seriously and make income from it, inevitably you are going to use a premium theme.
This is because premium themes will usually have more capabilities and generally give you a more professional looking site.
If you are looking for premium themes, these are some that we recommend:
- Elegant Themes – When you purchase the Elegant themes you get to over 80 of their themes. We use the Divi theme and honestly think it’s one of the best themes out there.
- Genesis Studio Press – Genesis is one of the most popular WordPress themes. It looks nice, has great support, and a big community behind it.
If you decide to go with a premium theme, the installation process is very simple.
After downloading your theme go to “Appearance” and then “Themes” and then click “Add new”.
Click “Upload Theme”, then click ” Choose File” to select your theme and click “Install Now”.
To put your theme live on your new website click “Activate”.
Congratulations!! You now have your very own blog. What are you waiting for? Go check it out.
Enter your new domain (yourblogname.com) into a browser and voila!
Start Publishing Great Content
It’s time to answer the million-dollar question: “What should I write about? “
A blog with no content is nothing, a blog with mediocre content is just another blog in the millions of already published blogs, a blog with great content is a money-making business.
So, you have a website up and running, that’s great!
Now it’s time to get to one of the most difficult and challenging tasks of blogging, which is no other than creating the actual content for your blog.
Having said that, it is important to understand from the beginning the importance of content for your blog’s success.
Great content, will get you traffic, credibility, and make you money.
Make sure your posts are:
- Unique for your website (it’s not an exact copy of an already published post)
- Well formatted and look good with relevant images
- in-depth and entertaining
- Offer links to other posts to expand on points
If you’re going to be blogging for money, most of the content that you should create should be based on what people are already looking for.
This content people are already typing into the internet trying to find.
In a nutshell, you are creating content that people are looking for and trying to help them with their problems.
Let’s see how you can practically create good content for your website:
Choose a topic that you enjoy reading/researching/writing
When you start writing content for your blog, you should be in a position to provide content that meets the criteria of good content (as explained above).
If you are not passionate about the topic, this process will be very difficult and you will give up before you even begin.
A money-making blog needs a lot of content and you need to come up with a lot of ideas and topics to cover on a weekly basis (if not daily), so have this in mind when choosing your niche.
Choose a topic with a decent audience
It’s not enough to be passionate about a topic, others should be too.
Remember that in order to make money from your blog, you will need people to buy your products or advertisers to pay money for your ad space.
If your selected topic does not have a decent audience, none of the above will happen.
The easiest way to do a preliminary search as to the potential of your niche is to open Google and search for phrases (keywords), that come in mind.
Look for the number of results and types of websites that appear on the first pages of Google.
Don’t go too broad, make it specific
While you do need a decent audience for your chosen topic, don’t go too broad because chances are that there are already thousands of websites about the same subject.
Popular topics have a bigger audience but they are also very competitive. If you are starting out now as a solo blogger, it would be easier to compete with other bloggers rather than online businesses that have teams of writers and SEOs behind them.
Let me give you an example to make this easier to understand.
Let’s say that you’re passionate about ‘fitness’ and ‘healthy living’. If you do a search on Google for ‘weight loss’ or ‘dieting’, you will get thousands of results, many of them from online magazines or websites that have been established for years, loaded with thousands of content pages.
It’s impossible for a new website to compete with these and get Google traffic for such broad terms.
What you can do instead is to narrow down your topic and go after a specific niche that it’s still related to your passion but with less competition. An example would be “healthy living advice for kids”.
It’s a topic with a lot of interest, mainly from parents who want to learn how to provide a healthy lifestyle for their kids, and they also hold the money to buy a product (maybe an ebook) to help them do so.
This process of finding out what to write in your blog is called keyword research.
It’s a process that you need to master from the very beginning and I strongly suggest you take some time and read the following articles:
Build Up Your Audience
There are a lot of different ways to get visitors to a blog and start building a fan base:
- Google SEO
- YouTube
- Guest Blogging
- Email Drops
- Forums
Most bloggers immediately run to Facebook and Instagram because those are the two most popular platforms on the Internet. While they are very big, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are going to provide you with the best source of the traffic to your blog.
To make money blogging for beginners, start with ONE source of traffic first. If you try to be great at every platform, you’ll end up mediocre at all of them.
Google SEO is one of the best traffic sources for people who will buy your products/services or sign up to your email lists. SEO is a lot harder than it once was but don’t ignore it.
Useful Resource:
Best Ways to Make Money from Your Blog
There are many ways to earn money blogging.
A lot of bloggers today have built large audiences but have no monetization strategy. As a result, they leave money on the table. We don’t want that to be you.
These are all the different ways you can make money blogging (only some of them are suitable for beginners):
- Advertising
- Affiliate marketing
- eBooks & Workbooks
- Online Courses
- Printables
- Coaching or Services
- Product Reviews and Giveaways
- Sponsored Posts
- Membership Sites
- Webinars
1. Selling Ad Space (Google AdSense)
The first thing that we see most new bloggers do is rush into throwing up ads on their blog to try and make money blogging fast, and rarely this works out. That’s really not how to make money blogging, that’s how to get frustrated at blogging truth be told.
More often than not, the reality of ad earnings is often very far off of many people’s expectations.
If your blog brings in high traffic levels then displaying Google adverts can be a quick and easy way to make steady revenue. If your blog is good at keeping your users on the pages then these types of ads can work well for driving high conversions, especially with in-post ads.
The big advantage of using Google Adsense is that it takes just minutes to set up and you don’t really need any coding knowledge to implement it within your blog.
You add AdSense to your blog and when people click on one of your ads you get the 68% of the money paid by the advertiser (the remaining 32% goes to Google for proving this service).
It’s reliable because you know that Google will pay you on time and will do anything they can to protect the system from fraud and spam.
You can choose what type of ads to show, how often to show them, how the ads will look, and many other things.
How much money can you make from AdSense?
The amount of money you can make from Adsense depends on three things:
- Your organic traffic levels.
- Placement of your ads.
- The number of available advertisers for your niche.
Let us quickly examine these factors:
Obviously, the more traffic you have, the more money you can make from Adsense. It’s as simple as that.
To make money from Adsense, you need people to click on your ads and the position of your ads on the page is a very important factor.
Although the best way is to test different ad placements and find out which placements work better for you when you put Adsense in your main content (as opposed to the sidebar and footer), you can expect higher click through rates (CTR) and this means more earnings.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways when it comes to how to make money with a blog for beginners.
When you’re looking to make your first $100 from blogging this is your fastest option.
Affiliate marketing is selling someone else’s products or services for a commission.
How does affiliate marketing work?
Here is an overview of the process.
- Find which products you want to promote
- Enroll in their affiliate marketing program and you get a unique link and banners to use
- Add the links/banners in your blog
- When someone clicks on the links, they are redirected to the website of the provider
- When they make a purchase, you get the agreed commission
It sounds good, right?
Well, is not as easy as it sounds. You still need to find the right products to promote and you still need to test if your readers and community are willing to pay money to buy the products you will suggest.
How do you start affiliate marketing?
When you’re a beginner blogger writing your first few posts, Amazon Associates is the best program to sign up to.
As long as you have a blog, you should be eligible. Amazon will only check your suitability once you’ve made your first three sales.
The best thing about Amazon is the huge range of products. There’s something to promote for every niche. The downside of Amazon is the low commissions and 24-hour cookie.
Promoting Amazon products is a good way to get started and make your first $100. Once you’ve got your first 10 posts up and your site’s starting to look professional, move on to a better deal.
In order to get your creative juices flowing, below are some examples of blog posts that work for this income stream:
- Product comparison articles
- Product reviews
- Tutorials on how to use software or a product
- Round-up articles of the best products to use to solve a specific problem
Promote products you genuinely believe in
You don’t want to lose your user’s trust. Only promote products that you know from personal experience that will help your readers.
The best way to find products to promote is by searching on google. Search for the product you believe in by name and add the word ‘affiliate’. This usually works and you can ask to join the program.
In addition to Amazon Associates, you can sign up to use large affiliate marketing networks. These networks have thousands of affiliate programs for a variety of brands. You can choose the brands and products you want to promote and do it from one centralised platform.
Some affiliate networks you can apply to include:
- CJ Affiliate
- ClickBank
- FlexOffers
- ShareASale
- Rakuten
- Impact
- AWIN
Affiliate links will be provided to you by the companies you work with either directly or via the affiliate network. These links will have specific tracking codes that track conversions from your link.
3. Selling Your Own Products or Services
When you create your own product, you control the product price, sales page, marketing, and more, which allows you to master how to make money blogging and take your business to levels you never dreamed of!
Of course, this is not as easy as it sounds. It requires a lot of effort and hard work to create products that other people will be willing to pay money for it but it’s the best way to build a long-lasting online business.
Having your own products will maximize your profit and you know that every effort you make to get more traffic will make you more sales.
The easiest type of products to create and sell online through your blog are ebooks and online courses.
Don’t get overwhelmed! An ebook is not a novel. You don’t have to write hundreds of pages. In fact, most good ebooks are concise but packed with information.
Think of an ebook as a longer form blog post. You can create an ebook about almost any topic but obviously, it would make sense to make it about a topic that is relevant to your readers.
All you have to do is make sure it’s a topic you know well and can write about. And of course, it’s a topic that is interesting enough for your readers to buy from you.
Most beginner bloggers will sell their first ebooks for a very reasonable price. So, it’s a good idea to prices yours at $7 to $40 mark. That way, it’s not a huge investment for anyone to purchase and you can sell it easily.
Before spending any time and possibly money to create your own product, you should do some homework.
To be more specific, you need to answer these 4 questions:
- What type of product to create?
- Who can potentially buy your product?
- How much to sell it?
- How to test your product idea before actually making the product?
So you need to do your research and find out what is already available in the market, who sells it and how much they sell it.
Grow And Optimize
You’ve got a system that works, and you’ve made some sales. Now, it’s time to optimize your sales funnel to maximize your conversions!
This is a two-part process that includes learning how to drive more traffic to your sales pages and learning how to sell better to those visitors.
More specifically, you need to find new and creative ways to drive more traffic and generate more revenue. Some examples of ways to do this include:
- Outreach to other bloggers
- Start an additional traffic source
- Add additional products
- Optimize your opt-ins and landing pages to increase your conversions
This is the really fun part of blogging and the place we are finally at with both of our blogs.
If you have reached the end of this article, bravo! Hopefully, we have been able to shed some light on how to make money blogging.
Conclusion
Blogging for money is not a theoretical concept. Thousands of bloggers are making money through their blogs either by selling ad space, their own products/services, or through affiliate marketing.
All these successful bloggers have some things in common:
- Having blogs with great content.
- Managed to build communities around their blogs.
- They use more than one way to make money.
- They have their own products but they also make money from affiliate marketing and selling ad space.
- Blogging for years and it took them a number of years to get to the point of making a living from their blogs.
If you have made it to this point, I will let you go with this:
Everyone can learn how to make money blogging. The amount of money you will make depends on the amount of work you are willing to allocate to make it happen.
It’s not an easy job and it’s not something that will generate results in a few months or even years, it will take time and it needs a LOT of patience. BUT, as I mentioned above, once it happens it’s one of the best jobs in the World!
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How to Make a Full Time Income With Affiliate Marketing
If you have an online presence, whether it’s a website, an email list, or social media pages, you’ve probably heard of the term “passive income“.
For those who have never heard of it, it’s nothing less than money coming in while you sleep at night.
Most of us all make the same mistake in the beginning. We tell ourselves that since it’s passive, we don’t have to work, so it’s easy.
Let’s get started. You start a blog about your passion and add Google AdSense advertising. You’ve got the perfect package!
A few months later, you realize that your SEO strategy is not as effective as you would have hoped.
Yes, you have some traffic, but not enough to generate enough revenue with PPC (pay per click).
However, it was your friend “who knows about the web” who suggested it to you!
Well, he should have told you about affiliate marketing.
What is affiliate marketing and how does it work?
Affiliate marketing allows you to promote someone else’s products & services to your audience and earn a commission on sales.
You’re the one who has web traffic and is looking to monetize that traffic.
This can be through your site, your social media pages, or your email list.
If you decide not to go directly through the company, you can join an affiliate network that normally has a directory of hundreds, if not thousands of companies.
There are many and I am sure there is at least one with an offer in your niche.
Finally, we have the consumer, an individual targeted by your ads. When he clicks on your affiliate link, a cookie is installed in his browser.
If the duration of the cookie is 30 days (the duration varies for each seller) and the user buys the product/service within those 30 days, you get a commission on the sale.
5 Steps to Make a Full-Time Income With Affiliate Marketing
You can actually turn affiliate marketing from a side business into a full-time career:
1. Build Your Credibility
Before buying a product, consumers love to look for reviews, unbiased sources, and people who have experience with the product or the service.
If someone actually feels that they come across someone that they can trust and recommends this product, then they’re more willing to buy it.
So, you want to make sure that you’re building some credibility, you’ll be able to sell more of that product.
2. Choose The Right Niche
If you want to make affiliate marketing a full-time income, then choosing the right niche is very essential.
A good niche is one that you have some experience in. You want to make sure to be the product of the product and make sure that you know what you’re talking about.
3. Diversify Your Content
You know we all learn differently. So, whether it’s doing a video, writing a blog post, or even podcasting, you want to make sure that you’re diversifying your content so that you’re able to reach more people.
You can even do a live stream video and repurpose it online.
You can have it transcribed and written to a blog post, have it converted into audio, and make it to a podcast. There you go, you’re having one piece of content being able to diversify all over the Internet.
4. Choose The Right Affiliate Programs
If you want to create a stable online income and make this a full-time job, then you want to make sure that you have a product that has a great foundation and reoccurring revenue.
The magic key right there is if you’re able to sell a product that you’re getting payments for on a monthly reoccurring basis, that almost helps you create more of a stable income.
Also, promote a product that has high commissions.
A lot of programs, if you’re a beginner, like Amazon will be a lower commission but if you’re promoting a product that has 40% or even higher, then you can make a lot more money.
5. Stay Innovative
The Internet is always changing. So, it’s great that you are on top of your game and promoting yourself as the credible expert in your niche.
How to find affiliate offers on the web
Sometimes people have a clear idea of the products & services to be promoted because that’s what they use in everyday life. So there is a good chance that it will also interest their audience.
To find these products & services, simply do a Google search for “affiliate program + company name + product name”
Chances are that if the company has an affiliate program, they will have a page that explains how to become an affiliate.
Some companies decide to insert this page in the footer of their site, while other companies decide not to index this page.
For those who don’t know what to promote, it’s best to go through affiliate networks like Clickbank, CJ, Amazon associates, etc.
Be aware that all affiliate programs and affiliate networks are free to join.
7 ways to promote your affiliate links
The seller or affiliate network will give you a URL link.
According to the restrictions and terms of service of the sellers and affiliate networks, you promote the products & services.
There are many ways to promote an offer, here are a few of them:
1- Create a Blog
The best-known way is to insert a link in a blog text.
The advantage is that you can put your selling points throughout the text without it appearing because you give the reader the content they want.
2- Review / Best of
“Review” & “best of” websites abound on the web and it’s a great way to do affiliate marketing.
Many of these websites are affiliated with Amazon.
3- Coupon
Coupons work because people are always looking for ways to save money.
4- Push Notification
A push notification is a message you receive on your phone, tablet, or computer.
For example, if a new product is launched or a new blog post is published.
And why not put an affiliate link that leads to a landing page?
5- Search Engines
You can appear on Google for free, thanks to SEO strategies. It may take a few months to a few years before it appears in the first search results, but once it’s done, it’s very rewarding.
The good thing about Google is that people are looking for specific information, often a solution to their problem.
So it can pay off to put affiliate links in it because the user’s intention is great.
6- Email Marketing
The email list is one of the oldest marketing methods on the web, but it remains the one that converts the most.
It may require a greater investment when you have a lot of subscribers, but it’s worth it because it’s still a great way to turn a reader into a buyer.
7- Social Media
Facebook is still a very good platform to promote products & services.
Social media is the source of traffic that fluctuates the most because they respond to current trends and because platforms are free to do whatever they want.
So, I advise you not to rely only on social networks, because in the end, the traffic does not belong to you.
How to maximize your chances to convert as an affiliate
Now that you know where to put the affiliate URL, here are some tips that might help you increase your revenue.
Submit Affiliate Offers That Your Readers Needs
Let’s take again the example of the Moment lens. The blogger on photography and videography with smartphones could promote the lens of Moment AND also raincoats. Yes, raincoats, because his blog often talks about outdoor activities and he likes to take pictures & videos of animals in nature, rain, or shine.
Don’t limit yourself only to what you talk about, but think about everything your audience might need (related to your niche of course).
Build a Sales Funnel
No matter where and how you present the product & service, you may need to add selling points to get it converted.
To do this, you can add a landing page to your sales Funnel.
If after clicking on your link, it takes him directly to the buying page, he might turn back because he is not convinced enough.
So, the user can click on your link and then bounce to a capture page and then the buying page.
Tell a True Story
Tell about a problem you have experienced in relation to the product & service, mentioning that the solution is the said product & service.
Offer a Discount
The fact that they buy from you may give them an advantage over others, such as a 10% discount.
Conclusion
Remember that the goal is to monetize your traffic, so you shouldn’t rely only on leads, but rather on conversions.
Until now, you must have used very friendly language with your audience. This is normal because you didn’t have a sales intent behind it.
Now you will have to keep this language, but sell something without it appearing. That’s the marketer’s job. That’s what you become.
You want to be the one we can confide in our problems and who brings us real solutions.
Since you already have your traffic and becoming an affiliate is free, it would be very simple to become an affiliate starting with just one product & service today.
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13 Easy Steps to Create and Sell eBooks Online
If you intend to create and sell ebooks online, you’ve come to the right place! Online courses offer an excellent opportunity, for those who wish to work on the internet, to generate income from their knowledge and skills.
Through these ebooks, it is possible to create a business and even work on your own, as many people wish!
In this article, I’ll walk you through how to create your ebook and finish with the different ways to sell it on the web.
Do You Know About Ebooks?
The ebook is a book in digital format, which can be read on any electronic device, such as a computer, smartphone, e-reader (digital book reader), or tablet. They can also be printed and read like a traditional book.
They have great potential to generate new business, and they are very simple to produce.
Read this article to learn how to create an ebook to sell on the web!
1. Adopt The Ebook On Your Content Strategy
Ebooks are more complete than a blog post and, therefore, they are very useful to educate your audience about you and to show what kind of problem you can solve with your product.
When you deliver valuable content to your reader, you reinforce your authority on the subject.
2. Define The Theme of The Ebook
Choosing the theme is one of the most important steps in the process of creating your digital book. It is important that your ebook is about something that you master and can easily teach, thus conveying more credibility to the reader.
The chosen market niche must also have enough demand to guarantee a good volume of sales and make your investment worthwhile. Use tools such as Google Trends and Semrush to find out which themes are most sought after in the segment you want to act on. This can be a tip for the most common customer issues.
Don’t forget to access the sites that are on the top of the search results to see how they handle the topic and think of ways to differentiate your content and deliver even more comprehensive material for your audience.
Another strategy is to use your blog data (if you have one) to find out what topics your audience is looking for to get to your page and which articles are most accessed.
3. Know Your Persona
Even before writing your digital book, you need to know the reader’s profile to create content that is aligned with their needs.
This type of information is also important when choosing the best channels to promote your ebook.
4. Optimize The Production of Your Content
If you already have content published on the same subject in your ebook, you can use it to create your digital book.
Blog posts, videos, or podcasts can become more complete material on the subject, and the reverse can happen too: an ebook can become smaller content for your blog or YouTube channel.
When we talk about a digital product, it’s always good to think about multi-channel strategies. This way you will be able to reach more people with your content and optimize your production time.
5. Organize and Structure The Elements of Your Digital Book
Once you have decided on the theme, the persona, and your objective, it is time to decide which elements you will cover on your ebook.
Make a draft on each one and organize the chapters coherently, to keep the reader interested.
It’s important to justify your ideas, so do good online research on what has already been written and what is newer in the discussion of the topic you want to talk about.
Remember that your text must be easy to understand and, at the same time, it must offer all the information your reader needs to solve his or her problem.
Keyword search tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, can help you a lot with the selection of topics.
These tools help you understand the interests of your target audience. As a result, you will be able to organize your content more efficiently.
6. Illustrate Your Ebook
The use of images helps reading and leaves the content more attractive, especially when the subject is very technical.
You have two options to use pictures on your digital book, without the high cost.
The first option is to use images from your personal folder or to produce your own images, which will not cause you any problems with copyrights.
In this case, the only requirement is that the photos are in high resolution and that they are related to the content being discussed.
The second option is to use photos from image banks. On the internet, there are several available, even free of charge. Here are our recommendations:
ShutterStock
Search site that brings together thousands of royalty-free photos at affordable prices.
Pexels
Pexels is free, so you can use the images there for your personal project or for commercial use.
Public Domain Pictures
More than 5,000 photos and 8,000 illustrations for free use.
Pixabay
Over one million royalty free photos, illustrations, and vector graphics.
The advantage of image banks is that you save one step in the ebook creation process and you are sure to get high-quality images.
7. Choose The Format of Your Ebook (PDF or Epub)
The main difference between the two formats concerns the adaptation of the texts to the reader’s screen.
An ebook in the Epub format is reformattable, i.e. it offers the possibility of adapting the text and the size of the source automatically to the available display area.
Nevertheless, files available in PDF always maintain the same format as the printed version, regardless of the display area.
Features of Epub :
- Allow text resizing and source modification;
- Allow word search and insertion of highlighted parts;
- It is possible to change the page using the touch;
- Ideal for simpler ebooks without a lot of images.
Features of PDF files :
- They exactly reproduce the printed page model;
- Allows you to enlarge or reduce the page to better display the content;
- The navigation bar can be used to browse the pages;
- Ideal for more complex ebooks, where the number of images is significant and the format is more complex.
Again, your audience profile will choose: Is your consumer used to using mobile reading devices like tablets, or do they use the desktop instead?
8. Pay Attention to The Layout
In addition to being well written, your ebook must have a good layout. This will give a more professional look to the work.
One of the factors that most influence the user’s experience is the reader’s ability to take a look at your content and already know what it is about.
Pay attention to very long parts and check if you can separate them without disturbing the consistency of the text.
Another important tip is to choose images that are related to the topic you are discussing. This visual consistency helps increase consumer loyalty to your product.
And, finally, the visual identity of your ebook should be aligned with your other communication channels, such as websites and social networks.
The intention is to make money with the free, so if you are not familiar with the formatting tool and implementation, analyze the possibility of hiring a professional to perform the task.
Compared to the expense with a common book layout, the costs with an ebook will be much smaller. You will find good freelance professionals on websites such as Upwork or Workana.
9. Review The Content
When we are focused on content, a few details can go unnoticed. For this, we recommend having an external perspective. This ensures that you are running the best possible version of your material.
The revision of your ebook should have two steps: content revision and grammar revision.
From a content perspective, your text must be clear and objective. Ask for feedback from people in your market and outside, and ask them the main questions about the content.
For grammar review, consider hiring an editor, as this professional is more experienced at identifying errors in handwriting, accent, and tuning, almost invisible to those with no experience on the subject.
It is always good to remember that the Internet allows a certain informality, but this does not mean that you have to deliver complex or erroneous texts.
10. Set The Price of Your Product
As we said at the beginning, the ebook serves the different stages of your sales funnel and can even be your main product.
Generally, an ebook used to attract leads, also known as “digital bait”, is distributed free of charge, in exchange for the contact information of the downloader.
For obvious reasons, this strategy has no immediate financial return. You will need to nurture a relationship with these users if you want to convince them to make the purchase. Nevertheless, this model has shown excellent results for entrepreneurs who wish to have a recurrence business.
In case your ebook is your main product, its price will depend on the value you deliver to your audience.
In fact, good design wins people’s trust and screams “high quality!” Exactly what you need to stand out from the crowd, and sell more at a higher price.
If your content is of high added value, equivalent to a course on a subject, feel free to put a value above what is charged in the market.
11. Choose The Distribution Platform
After your ebook is ready, it’s time to set :
- How do I deliver my ebook after the sale?
- How to receive payments by internet?
- How to guarantee that my content will not be replicated by third parties?
To answer these questions, choose an online course distribution platform.
The platform you choose should have all the tools and infrastructure for all the details of the sales process so that you can only worry about creating a quality product.
12. Promote Your Ebook
Create strategies to publicize your work. Don’t forget to focus on the channels where your audience is most present.
Tips for promoting the ebook:
Social Networks
Promote your work on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and any other social networking sites that your target audience uses.
Don’t forget to leave the CTA clear for your subscribers to download your ebook.
Partners
Contact the sites that provide content related to the theme of your ebook and offer articles for publication, also known as guest posts.
This strategy is also good to strengthen your domain, very good for future launches.
Blog
Create a blog on the theme of your ebook, to create a network of contacts with individuals interested in the theme, and use the tool to market your ebook.
Affiliate Program
Through an affiliate program you can offer a commission to all those who sell your ebook, you can still define what the value of this commission is.
Email marketing
Build an email list of people interested in your content. From this, you will be able to communicate with your audience directly and promote your ebook.
Landing Pages
The landing page is ideal for highlighting your content and making it easy for users to download your material. Today there are several free tools for creating landing pages for people who have no knowledge of design or programming.
Sponsored links
If you don’t have a lot of traffic on your blog, use sponsored links to give visibility to your ebook.
This technique consists in paying the network of search engines, such as Google, to display ads that direct the user to your landing page.
13. Follow The Results
You wrote the ebook, paid attention to every detail, and put it online. You have the right to celebrate this result, but after that, get ready for the follow-up step.
This work is fundamental to understand the weak points of your promotion and optimize them for better conversion rates.
5 Advantages of Creating An Ebook And Selling It On The Internet
If you’ve come this far, you may have noticed some advantages of making an ebook and marketing it on the internet!
Prices
With a low production and disclosure cost, a high-quality ebook may be for sale at a lower price than a traditional book, allowing the seller to reduce the price to sell more, or simply maintain the price and increase your profit margin per sale.
Portability
To use a digital format, it can be distributed quickly and efficiently over the Internet to any part of the world.
The consumer does not have to go to a store or wait for your book to arrive at your home after an online purchase.
It is available immediately after payment approval and the customer can already start studying as soon as possible!
Development
There is also the possibility to make sales for people from all over the world, regardless of the day and time.
With a system that receives payment and makes the product available automatically, you automate the whole process, and boost your sales even more.
Possibility to work with what you like
If you have something that you really love to do, why not take advantage to make money with your talents?
You can teach your ability to thousands of people and, therefore, earn with it.
Some digital producers end up working integrally with their new business and there is also the possibility of getting extra income to supplement the salary.
At work!
With all of our tips, it became easy to organize ideas and create your first ebook, which will also be your digital product to sell online!
Make Money
How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog
Are you wondering how much does it cost to start a blog or start a blogging business? In this article, what we’re gonna do for you is break this down into two sections. One is your first three months of blogging and then what you can expect after that.
I know that many of you are interested in starting a successful blogging business but you just haven’t taken those steps forward. You might have seen online that people are making a lot of money blogging and be really like weighing the pros and cons of starting a successful blog.
Because we want to outline really what your most important expenses are at the beginning and show you that you can actually get started for a very reasonable amount.
We get this question all the time: how much it costs to actually start my blog?
We know many of you are sitting there considering doing it.
You probably have seen the income that people are making blogging. You’re like “I’m really considering doing this” but you’re probably feeling a little overwhelmed by the financial decisions that you have to make.
We want to clarify this for you so you can make the right decision.
The Blogging Mindset You Should Have When Starting
The first thing that we want to talk about is that when starting out you really have to treat your blog like a business. It’s important to remember that a new blog is very distinct from any purchasing activity because it’s an actual business.
When you start a blog, you’re actually starting a business that can bring you money.
Keep in mind that as a business there’s always a risk that you won’t make any money with your blog. Although we are in the belief that if you don’t give up, it’s really going to be hard for you to fail.
One of the distinctions I would say between blogging and other businesses is that blogging is just not a get-rich-quick scheme.
So you have to understand and accept that you’re gonna have to make investments in your business for that profitability over time.
It’s more of a long-term play than it’s a short-term play.
Why You Should Avoid Free Blog Software
Let’s talk about why you should avoid free blogging software before we get into specific finances.
If you start a blog on the cheap you can expect cheap results.
What specifically tell people is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, somebody always has to be paid, right?
So if you start your free website on Wix, the people who run those ads that have to get paid somehow. They’re going to get you to give them your money somehow down the road.
Let’s say you have a blog and you’re getting a few thousand subscribers or some readers, they’re gonna be like “hey! your traffic’s maxed out, now you have to pay us”.
You’re going to have to pay some amount of money at some point.
If you want to be successful, don’t go with the free option first. Go with a higher quality option which is WordPress.
Free Blog Hosting
Another thing that people do, is to start out on a free platform like blogger or free WordPress.
Free blog hosting platforms are incredibly limited.
They’re gonna be limited on what they allow. For instance, they don’t allow you to advertise, and they’re going to be limited to how much bandwidth you can use.
You don’t want to be limited in making a business and making a blog by using these free blog platforms.
Free Blog Theme
A free blog theme is another way that people try to avoid money.
This one is probably the most important thing you can spend money on. Because most free themes don’t allow you to make simple customizations like changing the color, even changing your menu, etc.
So with a free blog theme, you’re going to run into a ton of problems.
When you are opt-in for something free, you are never going to get as high-quality as something else.
Free Email Marketing
If you want to make money from your blog as quickly as possible then you need to start building an email list right away.
If you’re new, email marketing might be way over your head to start. But this is the same thing goes is that people try to start with free everything.
Because they just think that free is the way to go. It’s really not the way to go.
How Much Does it Cost to Start a Blog?
If you are trying to make money from your blog, you will have to spend money to make it.
Blog Expenses in The First 3 Months of Blogging
The good news is that the expected costs of you starting a blog is not going to be that much.
Let’s walk through what you can expect from starting a blog.
Blog Hosting
Blog hosting you would expect to be really expensive but you can start it for as low as $2.65 per month on Bluehost. That price is only available through our link!
Bluehost is the top provider recommended by WordPress. You can sign up for a 12, 24, or 36-month plan.
This is going to end up costing you about $59 to $95, depending on what plan you sign up with.
That’s one of the expenses you will have and trust me this is the way you want to go.
WordPress is the only place you want to be if you want to get massive traffic and have a fast website. You don’t use Wix or Squarespace.
If you start on Wix and you start to get traffic and your website’s slow, you’ll eventually have to switch to WordPress anyway. So start on WordPress.
Estimated Blog Hosting Costs: $59 (one year) to $95 (three years).
Blog Themes
A blog theme is a tool that allows you to customize the appearance of your website, including the layout, color, typography, etc.
Premium themes usually have a reliable code base and offer support if something goes wrong.
The funny thing is people will try to save $60 by getting a free theme. But they’ll end up spending many hours trying to get that theme to look the way they want to.
Usually what ends up happening is people get frustrated and they quit.
Divi theme is probably the first recommendation for new bloggers.
Another great theme is called the Avada theme. If Divi isn’t right for you, you can try out Avada as well.
Avada is very customizable and beginner-friendly. It comes to a lower price tag of $60 as a one-time payment and not a yearly payment as Divi.
Estimated Blog Theme Costs: $60 to $89.
Email Marketing Service
Email marketing service is very important. The lifeblood of blogging and making an income blogging is having a solid email list.
Even though MailChimp is your best free option, it’s really only free until your first 2000 subscribers, and MailChimp obviously is going to be significantly limited compared to other services.
The software that we recommend the beginners is actually ConvertKit. You can actually try it for free. We have a special link where you can have a free trial to testing out ConvertKit.
It’s the simple best email marketing software for bloggers. ConvertKit saves you tons of time and helps you focus on content creation.
Estimated Email Marketing Costs: $29/month (first month free)
Social Media Tools
We recommend Social Media Warfare and the Tailwind app.
Social Media Warfare allows your content to be shared. It’s actually very cheap.
Tailwind is something that you use for Pinterest. If you’re a blogger, Pinterest is sort of the peanut butter to the jelly of blogging.
So we added in another $10 to $30 per month.
Estimated cost in the first 3 months:
- First Month: $119
- 2-3 Months: $39
We believe that is the bare-bones minimum of doing it the right way.
Obviously, as your business grows, your spending will increase (the courses you buy, the products that you need to run a successful blog, and the hosting package you need will grow over time).
Thankfully, and if you’re doing it right, your income will be growing over time as well.
So it won’t be so hard to pay off the expenses as they grow over time.
Blog Expenses After 3+ Months of Blogging
After the initial “start a blog” phase, including set up and website design, you will start focusing on bringing visitors to your site and monetization.
Depending on how fast you move, you will reach this stage one month after starting.
if you are good with WordPress, you can get a blog started and set up within a month. It’s not that hard once you have the right tools and the right roadmap to do it.
At this stage, you are going to start incurring some additional costs of growing your blog.
These costs will grow as your blog grows. So they are harder to estimate because it based on how quickly you grow your blog.
If you are growing really fast and you’re getting a ton of traffic, your expenses are gonna be a little bit higher for those who are starting out a little bit slower.
Investment in Courses
The learning process is not stopping because the internet is always changing and there is always more to learn! If you’re starting out, it’s just not gonna stop at the very beginning.
So as you’ll continue to grow and continue wanna make money, you’ll want to continue to invest in your blog.
Total estimated blogging costs After 3 Months:
- Regular software on a monthly basis: $50-$100/month
- Investment in courses: $150+ (optional)
This is going to be kind of an average thing that you do as you move forward.
The right mindset about going into blogging is that you make the best investment that will get you money back.
Time Investment
Another investment is your time investment. Obviously, this is going to be the biggest investment that you make at the beginning. You have to have a massive amount of time focused on your blog in order to make money.
Keep in mind that in order to make this work, you will have to invest a lot of time.
Let’s summarize It!
The First 3 Months of Blogging
- Blog Hosting: $59 to $95 ($2.65/month with our Bluehost discount)
- Blog Theme: $60-90 (#1 recommendation: Divi theme)
- Email Marketing: $29/month (first month free)
- Social Media Tools: $10-30/month (Social Pug + Tailwind)
Total Expected Costs in the First 3 Months of Blogging: $119 upfront + $39/month after that + optional blogging courses.
Expected Costs in the After 3+ Months of Blogging
- Other Software: $50+
- Additional Blogging Courses: Optional
These expenses will definitely grow over time. So just keep that in mind, these expenses will grow as you move forward.
