Today morning, I had a nasty experience with one of the struggling Kenyan bloggers. This blogger has made numerous mistakes while trying to make money online and he wanted to find out whether we really make money from our blog. But the way he presented his case degenerated into an argument, which I later downplayed and minded my own business. This article is a follow up on the conversation I had with the blogger.
We all make mistakes while we blog, but over time we have leant how to overcome them. I remember when I was a newbie in blogging, I stumbled on a blog by the name Shoutmeloud- the owner is now my bosom friend. I first looked at the blog and wondered how he made money because I never saw a single AdSense advert on the site. One day I found an urge to inquire from him how he made money considering few adverts were available on his blog. That’s when he took me through the art of blogging, something that opened my eyes to date. From that short conversation, I understood one thing, that making money online is not all about stuffing your blog with adverts but knowing how best you can use your writing skills to attract meaningful sponsored content into your blog.
Below are mistakes you should avoid and how to increase your income online
- Overlying on AdSense
AdSense has blinded most of our bloggers into believing whoever is not in the program is not making any cash. If you look at this blog, Venas News, you will notice that AdSense adverts are not featuring anywhere. But if you have followed us over the past 5 years, you might have noticed that we used to have AdSense on the blog. Our decision to switch from AdSense arose due to the fact that we wanted to focus on recurring income. Recurring income is what established bloggers focus on and it works well with extremely gifted bloggers. This income comes even when your blog does not receive any visitor.
Currently, we have over 70 companies we are marketing products for. Most of these companies send us sponsored articles to post on our blog. We charge Ksh5,000 to Ksh 50,000 per article depending on some undisclosed factors. We get an average of 30 sponsored articles per month. On average we make Ksh 150,000 from sponsored articles each month. Besides sponsored articles, we are into several affiliate programs, which give us average of Ksh 300,000 per month. One of the affiliate programs we focus on is 1XBET, which is doing incredibly well. You can click here to join the program.
Besides, you have noticed we have MGID on the blog. This alone brings Ksh250,000 to Ksh400,000 per month(you can click here to join MGID).Summarily, we make Ksh 600,000 to Ksh800,000 per month from this blog alone. We also generate substantial income from Opera Mini.Recurring income, which comes after people have signed up for some products amounts to Ksh150,000 per month.This means even if I do nothing and the blog receives no visitors, I will earn Ksh150,000 until old age or when the people using the products have stopped using them.
We discourage banners because we have experience that they decrease the loading speed of our blog.Therefore,we recommend sponsored content, which is why you don’t see many banners on the blog.
After weighing on our current income statistics and what we could get from AdSense, we realize that AdSense could be limiting us.
Now, from the information above, you’ll get the point that AdSense is just one source of generating income from your blog.
- Relying heavily on Facebook traffic
It’s sad that Facebook changed its algorithm, which has impacted negatively on traffic of millions of blogs worldwide. Relying heavily on Facebook traffic has killed the aspirations of many bloggers. While it’s not bad to share your stories on Facebook, it reaches a point your readers get fed up. The best way to counter this is to focus on keywords. To succeed in this, you have to learn how to use keywords from Long Tail Keyword Tool and SEMRush
Since social media traffic is becoming worse each day, you can take refuge in organic traffic. Using the two tools will go a long way into helping you learn a couple of things about organic traffic.
- Not having your own unique content
There is nothing as irritating as reading content on a new blog that is 100% lifted from a popular blog….it turns me off. One thing that traps many bloggers is the temptation to read what popular blogs have written and lift the content into their blogs.If you’re a blogger who is fond of doing this, you won’t go far.
Successful bloggers have unique content such that their readers know that if they visit a certain blog ‘this is what they will get’
Your main aim as a new blogger is to strive to build a brand, and the only way to succeed is to have your own style of writing.
- Not spending on hosting
When I started blogging, that’s in 2011,I was cautions on the amount I spent on web hosting.Initially,I used to host my sites in Kenya and I was comfortable with that,but it reached a time when traffic outgrew the local hosting services.I was hesitant at first,but I found myself losing more than I made, my sites also lost readers.Finally,I was forced to move them to Bluehost.Currenly,none of my sites are hosted locally and comfortable with that.
In blogging, there is something we call downtime, this is one issue that can kill your ambitions. In the process of seeking success as a blogger you have to identify the best hosting company, and I have a suggestion (contact us through 0722927138 for recommendation)
- Giving up so easily
By the way, blogging is not a gold mine.For money to start trickling in,you have to attract readers. This comes after you have gone through a lot.For my case,I blogged for 6 good months without earning a coin, but when money started coming, I don’t remember the time I pocketed below Ksh100,000.
What is needed from you is patience. Give your blog at least 1 year—you will eventually see results.
