Intro 0:04

Welcome to the Niche Blogging Tips Podcast where we help you start and grow a successful blog. And now your host, Andre Vaughn.

Andre L. Vaughn 0:17

Welcome to the Niche Blogging Tips Podcast. In today's episode, we are going to continue and discuss our How to Start a Blog series. This is a final installment, actually we're gonna, this is gonna be our step, we're gonna call it our step five, and six of the series. Step five, being the marketing, using marketing to promote your blog. And Step Six being monetizing your blog.

So we're gonna go with step five, first using marketing to promote, let me put this out here, right now. I'm going to tell you what we're not going to do. We are not going to buy ads, to drive traffic to our blogs. Let me repeat that. We will not buy ads of any type, any social media ads or a Google ads to bring traffic to our site or to our blog.

There is a caveat to that. The caveat to that is you can use ads, if you are or if you have maybe an online course, or if you have some sort of giveaway or something to that effect, but just to a particular blog posts I'm gonna buy, I'm going to spend X amount of money on these ads, to get readers to my blog posts out.

I wouldn't suggest that if you're gonna buy ads to your blog. What you want to do is you want to give something away. So you want to make sure you have an opt in for your blog. So make sure you have an opt in for your blog, it could be anything to the effect of basically, it's a giveaway, it's something free, it could be a free ebook, it could be a free mini course, something to that effect.

But in terms of just shelling out a bunch of money, I guess that's my bigger point. shelling out a bunch of money to promote your brand new blog, do not do that. I would not do that. Hey, do what you want. If you got the budget and hey, you can throw up your results are probably not going to be what you want them to be. I'm just putting that out there right now at the beginning of Step Five using marketing to promote your blog cast your blog, cast your podcast, not your podcast, your blog.

See, I just screwed all of that up all the ones I told you guys in the in the trailer episode , I might go off topic, I might say some crazy things I might, you know, wish I can go back and change this but I'm not going back and changing anything in the editing.

But the ultimate key into promoting your blog posts is you want to drive traffic to your blog posts, you want to drive traffic to your site. And there are a few ways that you can do that. When you are starting off a blog, I always say this, I highly recommend using social media. And this is what you should this is what you should be doing anyway.

You should find the social platform where your readers are the most. So if they're on Facebook, hey start your Facebook page and start putting out content on Facebook. Not just putting out content on Facebook or and this goes for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit Instagram, Snapchat, Tik Tok, any of those places. What you should be doing is focusing on one social media platform.

So in my example that I just mentioned, don't just when you start a let's say a Facebook page, don't just put out content, make sure you are interacting. So make sure that you're in and places maybe in Facebook groups come in, maybe you want to start, you know, your own page or your own group or what have you, I would highly recommend you doing that. If Twitter is your place, you know, you can do that also.

But make sure there's an interaction. If you are on social media, make sure there's an interaction going on while you're sharing. It's kind of like the book Gary Vaynerchuk's, "Jab, Jab, Left Hook." You want to give, give, give, give, and then ask. The ask doesn't have to be anything such as you know, your selling anything to ask, could be anything such as you know, can you guys share this blog post of mine or check this blog post out that type of thing. So go in and be a conversational tool on these platforms, but choose one. Depending on how big your team is choose two.

I will start all of those just to start off, I will start a Facebook page, I will start a Twitter account, I will started Youtube channel I will start a Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, IG, Reddit, TikTok, whatever, you can still start all of those but focus on maybe one or two, one or two of those.

And make sure you have you know, you put out content for that platform, and you interact in that platform. But you know, all of these are different, you know, so all of these social platforms are different. Some are much short for, you know, for short term content, some of them are for long term content, and so on and so forth. But choose one or two social platforms, and do what you need to do with that because what you what you should be doing you should be using one of these with your blog or to elevate your blog.

So if you don't have a lot of time, start with one focus on one. If you do have time a maybe you can focus on two you know, maybe you want to start a YouTube channel and you know, Pinterest. So, but go to where your readers are on social media, pick a platform and have at it because you want it to you want to promote your blog on that social platform.

You know, you can do guest blogging, you can guest blog on maybe you can you know have interactions with other bloggers or what not. And you know, you all can collab and you can guest blog on you know, on their blog, you can go to sites also other sites such as you know, LinkedIn start your LinkedIn account and you know, you can blog there are you can guets blog on LinkedIn or maybe Medium or one of those sites.

Are maybe a larger platform. There's a couple of them that I've written articles for which is cool also. The Good Men Project is one, Medium, Thrive Global, Addicted 2 Success. There's so many I mean, all depends on what what, um, you know, what you're trying to do what what niche that you're that you're writing in or what not. But guest blogging is huge. So that's a good way to promote your blog. You know, you can republish your content on other blogs as well. So there was, like I said, there's so many ways of, of guest blogging and everything.

So another way to promote your blog is through Google search. If you're putting out enough content, and that niche is it's a rare niche, you can rank in Google quicker and get traffic to your blog. And that's that's what this is about. You want to you want to focus on Google traffic. You want to focus on social media traffic, another social media platform. That's pretty good is Pinterest. Pinterest is huge. Pinterest, and there's a tool you can use also called Tailwind that have different you know, you have different different communities, different groups of what not. In tailwind and also, you know, it's pretty much part of the Pinterest ecosystem.

Using email, to grow, and to promote your blog, and email newsletters. I talked about an opt in, you know, you want to collect emails to grow your audience, give away something free. And I kind of gotten into that earlier. And you'll need an auto responder. To help you with that. Also, you can use a company such as Aweber. There's so many Aweber, Active Campaign, MailChimp, ConvertKit. There's so many that that you can use to help you start collecting emails, and to grow your audience.

Check this cool way out to promote your blog groups on LinkedIn, you have different owners on LinkedIn, these people will be willing to be interviewed by you if it's in your you know, if it's in your same Niche or what have you. And you know, you you want to build a relationship. And you know, a lot of times these group owners, they will you know, if you can interview him maybe on your podcast, or maybe you can write an article about them, or what have you or what not nail, you know, you can agree to something such as sharing your blog posts for you what not. So keep that in mind. Also interviewing people in your niche.

You should always be networking with other other bloggers and seeing if you guys can collab and all of that stuff. So that's how, you know, sometimes Yeah, you can do this stuff by yourself. But if you kind of want to jump started, make sure you network with other bloggers.

Alright, we're gonna get to step six, monetizing your blog. How do you make money Blogging? How can one make money blogging? Are there many ways to doing that also, but we're gonna stick to want to stick to a few right here.

Affiliate marketing or joining affiliate programs. I use affiliate marketing anytime you hear me talk about places such as, you know, talk about hosting, you know, using SiteGround, nichebloggingtips.com/siteground. With affiliate marketing, you get a special tracking link from that affiliate company and they pay you once Well, you take that affiliate link, and you'll place that link within you know, your emails, your you know, your blog posts and things of that nature.

And when people click on it, you know, you get in terms of me and speaking of SiteGround I'll get a commission and, you know, you'll get a small commission, you know, when someone clicks on that tracking link and in purchase or, you know, sign up or what have you, you know, for that, you know, from that particular sale, you know, you will get compensated for referring new customers to affiliate partner so that's basically what it is so and join in different affiliate programs, you can do that.

See what's ever within your niche who has an affiliate program, some of the biggest companies in the world such as Amazon, have affiliate programs. You have even, you know, niche specific, you know, like I just gave you an example about web hosting you know, I talk about blogging here on this podcast and on on my blog and in my YouTube videos. And so I refer or I want to refer a web hosting company, which is SiteGround and that's how that works and there's so many affiliate programs that you can sign up for Amazon is one if you're if you want to, you know sell you know, physical products or what not or affiliates to physical product, Amazon.

There are so many of them out there and when I when I tell you there's so many of them I'm not gonna even name a whole bunch of them but there's so many of them out there you have companies such as ClickBank, you know, you know they sell digital products. You have another digital product JVZoo you have companies such as ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, which is Commission Junction affiliate. Oh on and on, and on and on and on and on and on. There are so many affiliate programs.

You can also check this out in monetizing your book lot, you can also sell your own products, sell your own products. Yes, you can, whether it's a physical product, or if it's a digital product, you can sell your own product. So affiliate programs selling your own products.

Also, you know, maybe you do some sort of a free, you know, some sort of freelance services that you can, that you can provide also to an audience. Also coaching and consulting, you know, that's some, some real high end ways to monetize your blog. You know, maybe, you know, you have people there, if you put enough content out there, it's gonna be people to come to you to ask you, "Hey, do you do coaching?" Hey, "we have this company, Do you guys do consulting? So there are many ways to monetize your blog many, many, many ways. And, you know, we just wanted to highlight those three affiliate programs, selling your own products, coaching, and consulting.

All right, I decided to give you some bonus coverage in terms of the how to monetize your blog. The three that I gave you affiliate programs, selling your own products, coaching and consulting, or you can actually say that for what coaching and consulting, but with those three, if you're just starting off, that's, you know, that that's a good, you know, if you want to kind of condense what you're doing in terms of making money, just if you want to make your focus or your focal point, very little, a little more narrow than maybe if you had a bigger blog, but I'm gonna kind of give you a bigger blog perspective. Or it may not it may not even be bigger blog perspective, it may just be other ways that you can monetize your blog, just, you know, different route that you want to want to go besides to the ones that I mentioned.

Online courses, is a way that you can monetize your blog, and you've all you all have seen, you know, a lot of these different platforms have, you know, they sell online courses and you know, that blogger make money or that you know, business owner or what have you, they make money from their online courses. And that's kind of up the alley a little bit of the sale your own products.

The second one is sponsored content, you know, a lot of times you'll get offers from outside entities that will pay you to advertise on your blog through your blog posts. And many of those companies, they just they just want to get in front of the audience that you've built. And so you have that option you don't want you have you know, once you drive traffic a certain amount of traffic, usually within five to 10,000 per month range. You can actually have someone you know, sponsor your blog or sponsor a particular blog post or what have you, whatever do you work out with them but sponsorships through your blog posts.

A third one and I'm only gonna go through two more here. A third one is through business partnerships. While you're blogging or while you're growing any platform, you know, you become successful, you're going to meet new people. You're going to have more opportunities. If you stay consistent and you build your blog, right you will have a lot more opportunities and sometimes you know you just have other offers you know you should always listen.

You know you you will have a lot if you because like I said if you become consistent but you know you have to you have to watch out for for a lot of these. I'm using air quotes here people want in for one year time or want access to the audience that you created the platform that you created, but you can meet a lot of people and maybe you want to do some some other side projects. And you know someone knows a little more about you about a particular project or what not. You know, you can collab with them and have some sort of business partnership and, you know, make money that way. So you can monetize your blog through business partnerships.

And last one I'm going to talk about is, drumroll. podcast. I know you're just not, you're just now starting off blogging, and you're like, "Man, now you want me to start a podcast?" I mean, this is for some people may want to start a podcast, and through podcasts, you can get sponsorships as well. You, it'll be the same thing you can actually, there's, you know, there's different, there's different different entities, the same as with the blog content that will reach out to you if you grow your audience via podcasting.

Also through through your podcast, you know, just like you hear me talking, you know, I can direct you to, you know, our blog or our particular blog posts that I may want you to read. I always talk about, you know, and I'm about to say this right now. Our show notes, for this episode will be at nichebloggingtips.com/episode6.

You see what I just did there? There's a lot of truth to that, but I'm sending you to the blog, I'm sending you to the blog, I'm sending you to the blog. So maybe if I speak about a particular blog post that I wrote, you know, I can send you guys through there, you know, via the podcast. So starting a podcast, can help you monetize your blog through sponsorships on your blog, and a lot of other things as well. And you will, you know, maybe that's some things we'll talk about later on down the line, or, you know, you can look up some information on different ways to make money while podcasting. But, you know, you always want to draw people as much as possible to a location. And in this case, for this podcast, it's our blog.

But I wanted to kind of give you some bonus coverage, to monetizing your blog, once again, the show notes will be at nichebloggingtips.com/episode6. Also, if you want to keep the discussion going. We have a private Facebook group at nichebloggingtips.com/group. And please leave a rating and review. If you're listening to this on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you can leave a rating and review, it will be gladly appreciated.

We're brand new podcast and actually we want to get get this out to as many people as possible and we are going to, you know, you you will be you know, we're gonna try to drop, we're gonna try to drop, I don't know, two or three episodes a week, at least starting off. And we'll get on them. We'll get more on on a consistent schedule in terms of, you know, hey, we're gonna put out a podcast on this day, you know, but right now we're gonna put two or three out per week.

And yeah, leave a rating and review and definitely, definitely greatly appreciate it. And thanks for listening to this series on How to Start a Blog and hey, we'll see you in our future episodes real soon so make sure you Subscribe. Thank you!

Outro 23:58

Thanks for listening to the Niche Blogging Tips Podcast at www.nichebloggingtips.com.