Do you have a blog? Ever thought about taking things one step further and making it a steady source of revenue? Whether you built your blog to solidify yourself as an authority, or to drive awareness for your brand, there’s a lot of potential in the world of blogging.

The business model for blogging or vlogging is no different than creating a website or a magazine. In order to make money, they all have to generate enough traffic or readers to be able to sell advertising.

For example, anyone who has a printer can make a magazine, anyone can now write a blog, and anyone with a video camera can make a video blog or vlog. But until you are able to show your distribution numbers, you can’t sell ads. Selling ads is how you make money. Old school print ad model, new school media.

There are three steps:

1. Create content
2. Build a community to create traffic and then
3. Start selling ad space.

Content Generation is Key

You have to create interesting content that attracts and retains a loyal community. Then once you have your community built, advertisers will be willing to pay to reach your community. Your community will build naturally around your content niche, which is why it’s best to align your content with your passions and/or areas of expertise. Write what you know. The better you understand your audience the better you can communicate with them and add value.

Don’t Get Stuck

If you’re not a great writer, don’t let that stall you. If you know what you want to say and have the facts, but have trouble putting it in words, just hire a writer to help. Ultimately, you’ll serve as the editor, directing and approving all content. The writer simply makes it interesting enough to read. Read blogs that inspire your creativity and help you become a better writer like ProBlogger. Check out Google trends to see if there is anything in the top ten search terms relative to your subject matter.

Create a Road Map

Making a video blog may seem easy, but it still requires some road mapping – a script if you will. There are several applications out now that make the process of recording your vlog easier to pull off in a timely manner. The technology has definitely caught up to the demand. In addition, there are many free ways to produce websites and blogs and vlogs. Newtek Web Services offers a free website, tutorials and phone support get you started.

Build Your Community

1. Email subscriptions are a crucial jumping off point in promoting your blog. Allow your readers to sign up for weekly or daily emails and encourage them to forward to friends.
2. Create surveys, contests, and ask for feedback – all of which are great ways to build your community.
3. Provide links to social networks – it helps your best content have a viral effect.
4. Use relative tags and proper search engine optimization (SEO) techniques on all of your content so that it is properly indexed. There’s no point in posting if your blogs can’t be easily found.
5. Guest blogging on popular blogs is a great way to get in front of new readers.

Understand the Importance of SEO and Tagging

My favorite analogy for the web is a library with all of the books scattered on the floor. Books without the Dewey decimal classification can’t be found. Your post must have relative tags in order for the search engines to index them properly.

Search engines make money by providing the most relative results. If you don’t find what you are looking for when you use them, you’ll try the competition. This is why your content must be relative to the search terms or tags you place. The more you become an authority on your content, the more organic traffic you will get. The term organic means that your content is the most relative to a search term and ranks high without paying for top ranking.

And Finally…Make Money!

Once you have enough steady traffic to your blog, you can start selling banner ads and place relative ads from ad networks like Google. You can also endorse products, set up affiliate relationships, reseller agreements, and link exchanges. You can syndicate your content to other websites or guest blogs. When used in conjunction, you’ll see a significant increase in traffic to your blog. Essentially, your value is directly tied to your traffic. The more traffic you receive, the more you can charge for ad space. And that’s when the fun begins!

This concept may be new to some, but is likely well-traveled terrain for many business owners. What additional insights can you add to the list? One nugget that really promoted a positive change for your blog…

Tags: blog revenue, blogger tips, blogging, blogging for profit, building a blog following, building a community, how to create revenue with your blog