You might feel like the blogosphere has become too crowded and saturated as every other man and his dog have a blog, and trying to earn money from it. However very few people know how to take their blog to the next level – a professional blog that keeps the audience engaged, provides helpful information and puts bread on the table. Follow these 5 seemingly simple yet powerful tips to establish a successful online home-based business from blogging.
Reassess your knowledge and passion
The golden niche that you should blog about is the intersection between what you have expertise in, what you love and what the market wants. Many people declare that following your passion is a dead end and you should only blog about what the market wants. But no matter how much the market is craving for toilet paper, unless you are a toilet paper enthusiast (stranger things have happened!), it will be a real challenge to come up with new ideas to blog about every day.
Research your niche well
A nifty way to come up with a profitable niche that makes your soul sing is to start with a general area that you are interested in and dig deeper towards where market needs lead. For example if fitness is an area that tickles your fancy, carry out a research to find out which niches in the fitness area have the most demand. Niche forums and Q&A sites such as Yahoo! Answers and Quora are great places to start your dig. Amazon Best Sellers is another insightful resource that gives hints about highly sought-after niches.
Create a business plan for your blog
We are not talking about ramping up a 30-page business plan. A simple plan or a business model canvas is enough to lead your blog to the right direction. Think of your blog’s business plan as a way to clear your mind by putting down all your thoughts on paper, from the blog’s main goal, its target audience, plan for content creation, marketing and how the blog will make money. Along the way you might want to revisit this “business plan” once in a while to make necessary changes as the blogging journey unfolds.
Start writing and publishing content right away
Many of you might start blogging as a side project while having a full-time job and plan to quit the corporate world once the blog starts to earn a substantial income. In order for that dream to manifest, a high-traffic blog with a loyal readership is the prerequisite. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so is a blog’s audience. Start writing and publishing as soon as you have found a suitable niche, and do it consistently. Once you have established a high-traffic blog and an engaged audience, monetizing is just a breeze.
Blogging when done right can become a great foundation for your online home-based business. It’s true that you will encounter fierce competition along the way from thousands of other professional bloggers (and one dog). But if you find a unique angle for your blog, understand your target audience and are willing to work hard, a successful blogging business is by no means a far-fetched goal.