How many times have you heard that you can make money blogging, and yet, every time you attempt to earn something from your blog, it never turns out the way you expected?
Be honest to yourself. You have tried it time and again. In fact, a lot of bloggers (even the top shots in blogosphere) are always looking for an extra way to monetize their blogs.
Personally, I am always experimenting with new ways to make money from my blogs. Sometimes, I will hit pay dirt like with the Amazon Associates Links in my weight bench reviews site that have so far earned me a cool $150 within one and a half months.
Or the iPage banner on the sidebar of this blog that has also made me some substantial income in the past few days.
At other times, my blog monetization experiments will backfire so catastrophically and leave me feeling like a complete idiot. That is what happened when I recently tried to monetize one of my blogs with the Infolinks Plugin. I ended up removing the plugin that was only making less than $0.005 per click!
Every opportunity has however been a learning experience.
So, allow me to show all the mistakes I have been making (and you are making) that are failing your blog catastrophically:
Why Your Are Not Making Money With Your Blog
1. You do not have a specific niche for your blog
For you to make money blogging in Kenya, you need to have a niche audience.
Who are you targeting your blog to?
What is your audience’s needs that you can fulfill?
Are there any merchants who might be willing to place adverts in your niche blog?
These are some of the questions you should ask yourself before you start blogging.
After you have answered these questions, you need to start creating blog content that is specific to your niche. If you use you use your blog as a dumping site for any dumb idea that comes across your mind, you might never make any money from your blog.
Building a Loyal Audience
It is important that you keep the topics on your blog as close to your niche as possible. It is the only way you can build an audience that is loyal.
An audience that is ready to buy from you.
A loyal audience is an audience that is ready to buy into your idea and into the products that you are advertising on your blog.
A loyal audience views you as an authority in your niche and is willing to chuck out their wallet to buy into the products that you recommend. Think about what Walter Akolo has done with his blog, FreelancerKenya. He is undoubtedly the go-to-guy for people looking for online freelancing jobs. With such a blog, Walter is able to create credibility and sell the products he advertises as well as his online courses!
Here is what you need to do. Find a niche market that you want to talk to- it could be people looking to lose weight, or people who love skateboarding or rabbit or quail farmers et cetera, list at least 15 enticing blog post titles, and devote the next 30 days to coming up with the content for these titles
After the 30 days, find other more enticing blog post titles in your niche and write content for them. Repeat this process for the whole year, and chances are, you will be ready to monetize your blog in less than 6 months. You will have established yourself as an authority in your particular niche, and people will be willing to buy from you and join your mailing list!
2. You are using a free blogging platform
Blogger and WordPress have their place in the blogosphere. I particularly love using them to build backlinks to my authority blogs.
However, if you want to really make money blogging, you have to avoid these free platforms like the plague.
Here are some few reasons why making money with a free blogger, WordPress or Tumblr blog is akin to passing an elephant through the eye of a needle:
- A lot of affiliate advertisers have a low disregard for free blogs.
- WordPress.com restricts any form of monetization on their free blogs
- You do not own the free blog (Google could decide to discontinue Blogger at any time. What would you do if that happened?)
How to Start a Profitable Premium Blog
Fortunately, if you really want to commit yourself to blogging, starting a premium blog is very easy.
All you need to do is sign up for web hosting, and you are in business.
The cost for web hosting with the company that is use to host all my blogs is less than 200 bob per month. Click here to get started now.
3. You Are Either Lazy or You Keep Procrastinating
Procrastination is your enemy.
A lot of people who make money blogging take a leap of faith. They take instant action. They act on their premonitions and instincts, and they end up making money that procrastinators can only dream about.
You probably know all the intricacies of making money blogging. You know how to purchase a domain name, set up an Aweber email list and writing content that can converts like crazy… but you never action!
You have all these insights, bright ideas, masterpiece thought… but they are not doing you any good if they are never actualized.
You never actually get down to doing any of it. You keep procrastinating and telling yourself you will get down to doing it after some time but you never actually do it.
Write that blog post. Register for a premium domain name in your niche and start making money blogging. There is not time like today!
I could go on and on with this list, but you probably know yourself and the reason that is keeping you from making money with your blog.
Allow me to very quickly reveal the ways in which you can monetize your blog.
Monetizing Your Blog
If you have really done your research well and created a blog that is very niche specific, the best way to monetize it would be to recommend products from the Amazon online store.
Join the Amazon associates program, find products that are specific to your niche and start recommending them in your blog.
Amazon Associates is the one affiliate program that does not give a fuss about how well-established your blog is or how much blog traffic it is receiving. You can launch your blog today and start implementing the Amazon Associates links on your blog right away!
Google Adsense
I have met critics who insist that you cannot make money with Adsense in Kenya. Every time I hear this argument, I get a feeling like I would want to pluck my ears out!
Listen. The internet (read Google) does not care whether you are blogging from Guatanamo Bay or from Siaya. As long as you have created a blog that is monetizable and you are effectively driving traffic to your blog, you will get the big bucks from Google Adsense.
It may take time (roughly six months to one year) before you can start monetizing your blog with Google Adsense but if you blog consistently for the next six months, I can assure you that you will see the fruits of your labor.
Selling infoproducts
If you are passionate about what you do, and you are knowledgeable about it, you could repackage some of the information you know in an ebook or an online email course that you can then sell to your visitors.
For instance, if you are the saloonist who every lady comes to consult regarding their African Hairstyles , why not start a blog, compile an ebook or video course about the subject and offer it for a fee to your blog visitors? (this is actually a niche I have been thinking about and from the look of it, it can be a banger!)
I hope you get the drift. You can start a blog on almost any subject matter that you have passion in.
Some of the bloggers in Kenya who have managed to set themselves as experts in their fields and are effectively selling infoproducts include Walter Akolo back at FreelancerKenya and Sheeroh Kiarie at WorkOnlineKenya.
The catch in selling infoproducts is that you have to set yourself as an expert in your niche. Anything less than that, and no one will be willing to buy whatever you have to offer no matter how cheap or valuable you make it.
Other Ways To Make Money From Your Blog
There are a gazillion other ways to make money from your blog. I have only given the ones that I have tried and they have worked. For instance, while I might have flopped with Infolinks, Spencer Haws back at Niche Pursuits reports incredible success with a niche site that he monetizes using the program!
What works for one niche website may be what kills another. You can always explore around to see what will work for you but beware of affiliate programs such as ClickBank that do not allow publishers outside of the US.
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Patrick Mahinge is a prolific digital marketer and "serial webpreneur". He runs multiple profitable niche websites and blogs monetized through affiliate marketing and advertising. Patrick generously shares his expertise in affiliate marketing, blogging, and online business through his Facebook group of over 5,000 aspiring entrepreneurs.
WOOW YOU REALLY MOTIVATED ME.
Hey Juliet,
I am glad to hear that the post motivated you. Do you have a blog?
wonderful how can i join and benefit from it?