I can’t think of one person who doesn’t have a dream of starting their own business from home. I’m sure that’s why you’re here on Dane’s blog, to find out about all the business opportunities that might be out there and how you could be leaving your dreaded 9-to-5 and focusing on something you love.
Many of these opportunities are great but there’s one that will require very little startup capital and a lot of hard work. It’s blogging about something you genuinely care about. It’s about building a lifetime income blog. A site that you can work on in your spare time, or full time should things go well, and can generate some supplemental income for you and your family.
Is it difficult to start a blog? No, you can get one up and running in less than ten minutes.
But before we jump into that, you need to nail down which of your passions you want to turn into a money making blog. Not all passions are created equal in terms of income opportunities. A one about BBQ is going to be less lucrative than one about personal finance (I have both and the personal finance one did much much better).
So to start, list all of the hobbies and interests you have that you feel comfortable writing about. You don’t need to be an expert! You just need to know enough to be dangerous and have a keen interest in learning more. I knew very little when I started a personal finance blog but I was constantly learning and writing about the learning process. My ignorance became the fuel for my blog posts.
Next, assess the income opportunities of each of your interests. You want to find ones with a large fan base and a potential to earn significant income. You can do one of several ways. To determine how much interest there is in that topic, check out Google Trends. Is interest growing or slowing? Enter in several terms, for different hobbies, to get a sense of how they’re changing in relation to one another.
Next, start typing in the terms into Google itself and see if there are companies bidding on those terms. You can use Google’s Keyword tools to give you an idea of how “hot” each one is. This very limited market analysis can give you a priority listing of which of your passions stands a higher chance of succeed.
Once you’ve picked your subject, you can go with a free blogging platform like Blogspot or WordPress.com. If you want ultimate flexibility, and I recommend this, get your own hosting and installed WordPress on your own. Many hosts will set this up for you so you don’t even need to be an IT whiz to succeed.
With a WordPress installation ready, it really just comes down to writing. Figure out a schedule you’re comfortable sticking with, whether it’s once a day or once a week, and keep with it. Make sure you are writing fantastic content that will keep readers coming back for more. When you aren’t writing, or researching, reach out to other bloggers in your niche and get active on social media. Facebook isn’t just for games now, it’s a great way to get the word out about your site.
This is just a very brief primer on how you can make money with a blog, you could go into each of these subjects in much greater detail but I wanted to give you an overview so you wouldn’t be intimidated. Anyone can do it, I’m proof of that!
Jim Wang founded a personal finance blog that was acquired for seven figures. Nowadays, he teaches folks how to make money at Microblogger.com. Come join him!