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As you know I’m a big advocate for blogging and I think everybody should start a blog. I’ve been blogging for over 16 years and I have built my whole business around it! I get a lot of questions about blogging all the time. Like is it too late to start a blog? Can you make money with blogging? I don’t have time to blog and more! Some of them are really relevant for 2023, so I thought it’s time to do a blogging FAQ!
You can always ask me additional questions. Mail them to nm at nonimay.com with the subject “blogging FAQ” and I’ll add your question here!
If you don’t have a blog or website yet, make sure you check out this post first: 4 simple steps to starting a WordPress blog from scratch if you have zero technical knowledge if you want to know how to start a successful blog check out the Ultimate Guide To Blogging.
The short answer to is it too late to start a blog? Heck no! It’s always important to build your own website, to build a brand – whatever you want to do in life. So claiming your domain-name with your own name is smart, so you can use it to build your own brand, now or later. The worst thing that can happen later? Is that somebody else grabs your (brand) name – domain, and you’re stuck with a ‘b option’ domain when you finally decided you want to do something and build a brand around it. So the answer to the question ‘is it too late to start a blog’ is no, start today and start a blog.
As you might know, if you build your brand on social media, you don’t OWN your followers. You can get banned and lose your whole business and following (it even happened to Trump!). So even when you want to become an influencer on Instagram, Youtube or TikTok, create a blog first. You own your blog. People know how to find you when the worst happen. You might question ‘is it too late to start a blog’? No, not if you compliment it with your social media and if you’re treating it like your ‘home base’. You have a place to build authority on over time, even when the ‘next hot social media platform’ is here and you have to start all over and forward followers from one platform to the other. So no, it’s not too late to start a blog. Not in 2024. If you’re enthusiastic, you can read my step-by-step on how to start a blog.
Yes – for sure! This is the #1 question I get in my blogging FAQs! I’ve been a professional blogger for over 5+ years, and earn a living off blogging, even in 2024. I have written a lot of posts on how to make money blogging on the blog so make sure you read the Ultimate Guide to Blogging for all blog resources and read How To Make Money Blogging With a Small Following.
In general, bloggers make money by advertising (as shown on the side bar for example, just simple ads), brand collaboration (working on blog posts and photos with brands features), affiliate marketing (forwarding your readers to products and receiving a small % of the sale when they buy something) and creating their own products.
My personal favorite is affiliate marketing, as many bloggers earn over $30.000 a month with affiliate marketing and it’s a great way to earn some money with your blog when you don’t have a big following yet. If that sounds good to you, this is a good way to start.
If you’re interested in making money blogging without building the big following, make sure you check out Blogging Wave.
I think it’s a very good idea to start offering content upgrades/freebies as soon as possible on your blog. You need a system for that, and the best one in my eye is Convertkit. You can now (in 2024) create a free account to get you started, and as you grow subscribers, you can change to a paid plan. I have written a Guide to Content Upgrades so make sure you read that!
I think you should do both, but to be honest, I no longer use all social media platforms. Even though Instagram was very profitable for me and I have some following there, it crushed my soul and I didn’t become happier staying there so I deactivated my account and only use Pinterest for my blog now. This was of course after many years of blogging and building readership, Pinterest followers, brand relationships and strategies and an email newsletter.
Whatever you do, make sure you pick one social media network to focus on and pick the one that comes most natural to you, not where your followers are or what you think is hot now, because you won’t love to create for it and it will show, resulting in less followers.
Blogging do make money! I think it’s quite surprising to know that even small bloggers that passionately blog about their own life, their hobbies etc. are even approached by brands and influencer networks to join. So even when you don’t treat your blog like a business, it’s probably in the cards for you to earn some money with your blog. Let alone, if you start treating it as a business, you can even make more money. Just make sure you optimize your blog from the very beginning as it will save a lot of time later.
For sure! I already spoke about this topic in this blogging FAQ a few questions earlier. But I still earn more money than I did the previous year with blogging, it’s only growing so make sure you start your blog now.
I explain why you need a blog in the first question!
Simply said, you buy a domainname (so the www.) part including hosting (the place you can install the pages) here for $3.95 a month, then install WordPress by using the hosting and then install a WordPress theme (the blog design). After that you’re online and ready to blog!
Of course there can be much more to it, read The Ultimate Guide To Blogging or Start A Blog In 4 Steps.
Not at all! Especially with my step-by-step guide to creating a blog for non-techies, it’s easier than ever to create a blog as a n00b. With the new Guntenberg editor used by WordPress it’s SO easy to create a beautiful blog post or page without using code. So even you can do it!
I guess telling you “as often as possible” is not the answer you want to hear right? But if you want to score higher in Google, which means more traffic and readers, you need to regularly update your blog with high quality content. So try to write at least one long read a week.
Consistency, quality & good strategy are key. When it comes to strategy, I suggest checking out my Pinterest strategy posts on the blog, the Google strategy posts and this post on how to build a following.
There are a lot of ways you can make money blogging, but my favourites are creating your own course, affiliate marketing and collaborating with brands.
You can find your bounce rate in Google Analytics. A high number of bounce rate (like 70 – 90%) often means there is something wrong with your blog OR your blog is not optimized for your readers. Things that can be wrong in this case are for example a slow website that doesn’t load enough and they exit your blog, or because they get an error like a large cookie banner that takes up most of the screen. Also annoying pop-ups and unpleasant reading experiences are reasons. If your bounce rate is 100% there is something very wrong and you should immediately get to work to fix it or find tech help.
Luckily for us, Adobe InDesign and graphic design skills are no longer necessary thanks to free and online tools like Canva. You can create about everything with Canva, from e-books to pictures and social media posts. Just have a look and check out Canva!
The less the better when it comes to plugins! Yes, you can do a lot more things with plugins and add really cool features but they come with security vulnerability. So if you can add some coding or a theme that comes with those functions, make sure you check them. Plugins I do recommend are: a plugin for security, a plugin for speed/optimisation, a SEO plugin and a plugin for your affiliate links.
I think the platform for professional blogging to be is WordPress. And I mean, a self hosted blog with WordPress.org. Blogger is perfect for hobby blogging if you don’t have any intentions in making money blogging. Squarespace is perfect for content marketing if you have a business or webshop. Read more.
You can blog for free at the blogger.com or WordPress.com platform. There’s a difference with WordPress.org, read about the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
No, you can still have a profitable blog with just a small following, hence I created Blogging Wave: Making Money Blogging With a Small Following. I believe the future are micro influencers, so make sure you follow my free training to learn more about the how!
Usually you get emails from advertisers, but if you’re not getting emails from the brands you’d like to work with you can reach out to them. I have a few guides on reaching out to potential advertisers. Another thing you should do is join blogging networks (i.e. Influencer networks) because they either make you pitch to brands or have brands pitch to you. Another road to go to if you’re a larger blogger: join an agency and they will represent you.
Thanks for reading this blogging FAQ! Like I said above, if you have any additional questions make sure you email me. I will keep this FAQ up-to-date and add the date of the latest update to the blogging FAQ above.
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