Bloggers face many issues in the course of their blogging journey. These issues result in multiple questions that Google may not always give tailored answers to. This article is a compilation of frequently asked questions by Bloggers. So if you got to this page, it means you are interested in blogging or already have a blog. Now, for whichever category, you definitely have questions.
That said, let's head straight to the FAQs
How can I earn from my blog?
There are different ways to earn from your blog. I will mention the basic monetisation ideas here.
- Advertising (Ad) Networks: These are platforms which place adverts on your blog and pay you by impressions (number of times the ads are displayed) and the number of visitors who click on the advert. Sample Ad networks include Google Adsense, Media.net etc.
- Affiliate Marketing: This is the art of placing sale links to products and services on your blog and earning a commission each time your blog audience buys that product through your affiliate blog link. This is one of the most lucrative passive income ideas for a blog
- Ad space sales - You can search for willing businesses and brands, offering an advert space on your blog. For this, you have to sell the fact that your blog has the necessary traffic and audience that will yield conversions over the advert. You can sell an ad space for as low as #500 daily (especially for beginner blogs)
There are other monetisation ideas for blogs but I'd take a pause with these so I can respond to other questions.
How do I drive engagement to my blog?
To this, one good way to drive engagement to your blog is to build a community around the blog. You can start an email list of dedicated readers (for this, you have to learn a bit of email marketing). You can also work around building a family on social media. That way, you do not need to always beg people to visit your site and engage with your content, including making comments and sharing your posts.
Now the sad truth is that, all of these will only work if you have really good content. You do not want people to come and make comments, engage and share posts that do not give them value. When you build good, content, these audience engagement ideas will work.
P.S: Like monetisation, there are other audience engagement ideas which I would share subsequently.
Can a website double as a blog?
Not absolutely. A website may have a blog alongside. However, a website is not a blog and a blog is not a website. No two words in English mean exactly the same thing and just like other synonyms, the words website and blog may be synonymous in use.
How can I monetise a free-hosted blog on WordPress?
To monetise a free-hosted blog on Wordpress, you can explore any of the ideas I mentioned in question 1 earlier. However, you cannot apply to major Advertising networks with a free hosted blog. Most of the ad networks have their reasons for this clearly stated in their terms and legal use documents.
How can I change a free-hosted Wordpress to self-hosted?
You can change a free hosted wordpress blog to a self-hosted one by buying a domain and hosting package from a web hosting company. There are different web hosting companies and I'm an affiliate for Whogohost, Namecheap and Bluehost among others. I recommend them too (as I have used a good number of hosting services). Although with time, you will find a preference spot for any one based on the quality of their services.
How can I attract my target audience to my blog
The internet is like a market place with many stalls (blogs). I come to that market (search on Google) to get information and then like the average market trader runs after customers, different blogs show me what they have through the snippets on Google's search pages. Now, I have to choose whom I buy from (whose information or blog I visit).
By this illustration, first, you can attract target audience through anything including (but not limited to) your blog appearance (theme/ design), site title, site description, direct content marketing, SEO and manner of publicity (social media). If you want to buy from those traders mentioned earlier and you see someone dressed in not too good clothes or looking quite unkempt, you will likely refuse to buy from such person. That is the same way it is on the internet.
How can I keep my content engaging so that they can come back for more?
I think that you many need to perform a content audit to know how you can keep your audience coming back again and again. It is a similar strategy to make them repeat customers. To do this, I suggest you:
- Do a content audit (especially to check which posts gave you much traffic than the other). That way, you are sure that if you post content relating to that, they will come again and again. This week, a volunteer at The New Man published our first short gospel story and it has increased views drastically. That will definitely cause us to put an eye on related gospel stories to make story lovers return. This leads to the second idea.
- Write about what people love and put in your own message. You see, blogging for me is defined as the art of writing what you like/love in a manner that will make the next person (the reader) to love what you love. When you do it that way, you convert their interests, content-wise, to your favour.
- Engage other content creative forms. People do giveaways (do if you can sponsor it), celebrate their audience per time, run blog quizzes and so much more. Just be creative. You will win their heart that way and turn them to a repeat audience.
How can I drive traffic to my blog and how I can get them to subscribe?
Is SEO useful in blogging?
SEO is very useful in Blogging. It is free, pure and forever-effortless traffic. However, SEO is simple, yet great work.
I attached a screenshot here. If you search for similar posts like "Biography of Pastor Femi Lazarus" or "Biography of Apostle Michael Orokpo" you will find my links on the first page. This is because, my niche makes me write things that people who are gospel inclined search online. Google in return has no choice but to bring them to my blog.
I said something about search engine being the best source of traffic (can be contended based on your results), so you ahould take it serious. I read a report that the energy it takes to complete Google searches can light up a bulb.
P.S: There are other search engines apart from Google too.
How can I make use of MailChimp with my blog?
To make use of Mailchimp, you need to sign up with the platform and set up your email marketing account. Thereafter, you should go to your integrations and include your web URL and configure your basic settings (usually details about your blog and your blog feeds). This will help your blog posts deliver to your subscribers as newsletters.
To get subscribers however, you need to create a form and select the details you want to collect - name, email, birthday. You can take a cue from Letters from God here or decide to set up a landing page. After your set up, you will be given a unique html code to insert in your blog and all is set to go. This will help you gain new subscribers
In paying for a self-hosted site, can it be done once instead of yearly or monthly?
Payment for a self-hosted site/blog cannot be done once per say. You either pay monthly, weekly, bi-weekly, three, four, five, nine... to as much as twenty years in advance (depending on your financial capacity at the time). If you are in a country like Nigeria, I usually advice you buy more years, especially if you are using a (.com). This is because our domain prices shift with the naira-dollar issues and really, you don't want your blog down.
How do i start a blog post(as in how does the beginning look like?
Starting a blog post comes after you have designed or developed your blog. To own a blog, you can either create it by yourself or have experts work on it for you (for a fee, ofcourse except otherwise and for personal reasons). When your blog is set, you only need to login to your dashboard and make the post. For example if your blog is hosted with blogger, you only need to sign in to Blogger in order make a blog post. If your blog is on Wordpress, login with your details and you get to the Wordpress (wp) editor. You should do the same if it's Medium, Substack, Wix or a custom blog. For whatsoever platform, there is definitely be a dashboard to make your blog post.
How often should blogging be done?
Blogging can be done as often as you can. You can choose to blog once a week, twice or three times a week. At the same time, you can blog everyday (depending on your time bank). I created a blog for someone who was blogging once in two weeks and yes, his audience are always available to read when he blogs. One thing you must learn is consistency. It is more than necessary for every blogger.
Is it right for a blogger to use the informal tone while writing?
It should not be a matter of right or wrong to write in informal tone. However, there are different kinds of blogs and you should only write to reflect the kind of blog and the kind of audience you are publishing to. There is actually a way to stay neutral in writing, conveying your informal life into some sort of formality and giving a perfect blend for both. This is what I do in most of my writings, but then it still depends. Actually, a proper content writing course is best advised if you want to address this.
I use a self-customized WordPress and it can get complicated for me at times. What do you advise? I know people get to complain about wordpress, but then, what exactly do you mean by complication? What exact issues did you encounter? I think that will make it better for me to respond specifically.
What other skills apart from content development goes hand in hand with blogging to make it easier?
If you really ask me, every digital marketing skill is necessary. These skills include Email marketing, Affiliate marketing and Social media management/marketing among others. All digital marketing skills are necessary. However, this does not mean that you will not do fine without them - it just makes it easier.
How does a blog post itself look like?
A sample blog post looks like this.
How is Adsense different from Double Click or Admob?
To understand the difference, Let me explain a few things.
- First, AdSense is a publisher network that allows publishers to signup.
- On the other hand, Google AdWords is the biggest buyer network on the AdSense network.
- Doubleclick is a subsidiary of Google, which develops and provides Internet ad serving services. Their biggest products are DFA (Doubleclick for Advertisers) and DFP (Doubleclick For Publishers).
- Now, AdMob is a mobile ad network also owned by Google. They allow app developers to monetize their apps and also promote them.
In basic terms:
- AdSense is where you make money for your blog or website.
- Doubleclick is a big advertising company that works with the biggest advertisers and publishers.
- AdMob allows mobile developers to make money by selling ads via their SDK.
So, while Adsense is essentially for publishers who are looking to monetize their website. Doubleclick's publisher products interface with AdSense directly e.g. via backfill.
FAQs by Bloggers is a compilation of frequently asked questions about Blogging on the Blogging Hub COmmunitty led by Nelson Vincent. You can join the community by clicking here and download this page in pdf here
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