If you REALLY want to make a lot of money from blogging, here’s our tip: DON’T BLOG — the usual way.
To make money, don’t blog?
“Blogging,” for most people, is about writing stories they want to tell – be it about the latest trip to Boracay, a review of the Star Trek movie, or just plain ranting about the boss or the work.
Several bloggers who write these things do make money from blogging. But not a lot definitely. The problem is that the stories they share usually have a limited audience. On the internet, if you can’t attract a good number of visitors, you can’t expect to earn a lot from your blog or site.
How to make money in blogs without much effort?
The blog is indeed a platform that can be used to communicate almost anything. But if you want to turn your blog into a money-making machine, don’t use it primarily as a platform for your loves, hates, rants, or raves – stories which probably very few people will appreciate.
Use your blog to deliver content that millions of people, including those in other parts of the world, will find worth reading and re-visiting.
How then can you make money from blogging without exerting a lot of effort? Instead of writing stuff that will purge the last of your creative juices, create blogs with profitable niches but are NOT difficult to do.
7 Easy-to-Do Blogs that can make you money
What are some examples?
1. Fan Blog
This works even if you’re a paparazzi-type fan of a celebrity or a die-hard car fanatic. To earn money from a fan blog without exerting a lot of effort, don’t waste your time creating lame analysis or critiques. If you can’t write a la Us Weekly or Car Magazine, try doing a Perez Hilton. Simply get an interesting photo, manipulate it or add doodles, then add attention-grabbing captions.
You can also scout the net for uncopyrighted celebrity photos, then compile them in a “Celebrity Sightings” section of your blog. You can also embed interesting videos which you can get for free from YouTube.
Same thing goes for a Car Enthusiast Blog, although you might have to do it in a more serious tone. You can have a “Cars Just Launched!” blog by copying and pasting official press releases of car launches. Add photos and videos usually provided by the company. To provide “value,” include car comparison charts which you can find in Consumer Reports or in other car magazines. Just make sure you don’t scrape or plagiarize.
2. News Aggregator Blog
This is probably one of the easiest blogs to make. You get stories from traditional media, rephrase it a bit or put an interesting twist so as to make the post “fresh” or “unique.” You earn from the ad clicks of visitors, so the key thing here is to post stories that a lot of people are searching for online. The problem, however, with this blog is that most news are seasonal or, in most cases, non-recurring. For example, writing about the Olympics can bring huge traffic to your post but once the Olympics season is over, you will definitely need a new, popular article to write about in order to bring in hordes of new traffic to your blog.
3. Collection-of-Sorts Blog
With a “collection of sorts” blog, what you create is a compilation of interesting (usually funny) text, photo or video content which you can get for free from various content sharing sites.
Examples of this would be:
- Text Collection – inspirational quotes; funny jokes; funny text messages
- Photo Collection – weird or funny print ads; funny pics (as in FailBlog.org and Engrish.com)
- Video Collection – funny, weird, or scary videos; best TV ads (as in FunnyPlace.org)
Where would you get content? Funny jokes can come from SMS message you received or some joke you heard on TV or radio. Interesting photos can come from uncopyrighted pics on Flickr, Photobucket, or Webshots or you can also solicit contributions from your readers. Best videos are easily available on YouTube and other video sharing sites.
Just a reminder, make sure you are not violating any copyright before publishing content on your blog.
4. Lyrics Blog
A lot of people love to sing that’s why they search for the lyrics of a song online. Ride this trend by creating a lyrics blog. To differentiate your blog, you might want to post the lyrics of a song that is about to be released or of an old song that is difficult to find the lyrics online. Add to your post a YouTube video of the song to have “richer” content. Aside from earning money from ads, you can also sign up as an affiliate in Amazon or iTunes to provide an additional monetization scheme when users download songs or albums through your site.
5. Board Exam Results Blog
The announcement of the results of a board exam usually triggers a surge of searches for the exam results. Exploit this by creating a board exam results blog.
The key factor here is to optimize your post ahead of the announcement date so that it will appear on the search engines weeks or months prior to the announcement. Don’t make a post on the announcement date itself. That’s because you lose income from visitors who visit in anticipation of the results. More importantly, it might be too late before your newly-created post will appear on search engine results.
Prior to the announcement, simply state that your post will be updated once the results are out. Then properly update it upon the release of the exam results. Where to get the list of exam passers? From the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) site or from Inquirer.net or GMANews.tv.
6. Exam Reviewer Blog
Alongside your Board Exam Results Blog, create an informational blog that will help future examinees prepare for the board exam. Now, this might require a bit of effort because you will be talking about your experiences. If you still have your old reviewer books, you can repost sample exam questions on your blog — as long as it does not violate the book’s copyright. You can even sell those reviewers online! That’s one more way to make money from your blog.
7. Law Blog
Don’t worry, this law blog won’t entail you giving legal advice to people. All you have to do is repost text of actual laws on your blog. That’s not difficult to do. These laws are publicly available, which means there are no copyright constraints and you can easily get them from the websites of the Senate, the House of Representatives, or government agencies.
You can earn from it because there are a lot of people searching for copies of actual laws, and we’re not just talking about lawyers or law students.
In the Philippines, ChanRobles.com seems to be the preeminent source of text of Philippine laws, but does that mean your law blog can’t compete with it?
Make money from blogging without really trying
Of course, the seven blog types above are just some examples. What you can do to your blog is limited only by your creativity and innovativeness.
There indeed is money in blogging but it doesn’t mean you have to write well or exert a lot of effort. To earn money in blogging, all you need is a niche market that is not yet saturated and good, valuable content that your visitors will find worth reading and worth re-visiting.
All set to make money from blogging without really trying? Good luck!
Photo Credit: Getty Images
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