Are blogs still relevant in 2020? In this article, I will explain to you:

1. Blogging is not only still relevant, but picking up.
2. The different ways you can make money from a blog.
3. The best way to start making money from a new blog for beginners.
4. What you can avoid to ensure success for your new blog.

Let’s begin:

3 Reasons Why You Should Start A Blog in 2020

Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room. Do people still read blogs? According to Optinmonster:

“77% of Internet users regularly read blog posts”

Blogging has evolved tremendously over the years. It’s no longer an online journal to update your friends with what you’ve eaten over the weekend. Social media have taken over that role.

In 2020, businesses have blogging to build rapport and develop branding in their respective niche.

Now that we have statistics to back up that people are still reading blogs, I want to point out 3 other reasons why you should still start a blog in 2020:

Reason 1: Blogs Rank on 1st Page of Google

If you’d Google “Affiliate Marketing” for example, all the first page results are blogs:

(Source: Google)

Blogs rank on the first page of Google, not landing pages. Why? Because blogs have relevant, in-depth answers to someone’s search query on Google.

You can try this experiment with other keywords. Most of the time, someone’s blog is ranked on the first page of Google, not their landing pages.

Reason 2: Personal or Company Branding

Businesses use blogs as a platform to educate their potential prospects. In fact, companies who blog get 97% more customers than those who don’t.

Over time, a blog with informative content that answers prospects’ questions will rank organically on Google or quoted by someone else, establishing your website and brand as an authority in your niche.

Prospects need to know who you are, like you, and trust you enough to buy from you. You can earn your prospect’s trust by educating them about your product and services on your blog.

For example, Digital Entrepinoy has its own blog that educates people how to run an online business, including content marketing, monetising content and finance investment.

Reason 3: Have Full Control of Your Content

The truth is, you don’t own your social media profiles nor the contents you upload to it. In the unfortunate case, any social media shuts down or passes its fad.

Let’s take MySpace, for example:

Remember MySpace? (Source: Web Design Museum) 

MySpace used to be the go-to social media platform back in the early 2000’s. But nobody uses it anymore since the more addictive Facebook showed up.

If you’re building your audience solely on social media like Facebook, and god forbid, it ends up becoming like MySpace; you’d have to rebuild your audience from scratch again.

When you own a website or blog, you own and have full control of your content. As long as you pay your hosting company, your blog will always be there. Also, with a great email list, you can keep in touch or redirect your audience at any time.

Now that I’ve established that blogs are not only relevant and in demand, let’s move on to show you 4 common ways you can make money from blog:

4 Ways You Can Make Money From Your Blog

 

Blog Monetization 1: Sell Your Own Product or Services

One of the best ways to monetize your blog is to sell your own products or services through your blog or website.

Let’s take a look at an example of Pat Flynn, the world’s top Affiliate Marketer. Pat sells online courses on how he generated passive income online and how you can do so too.

Pat Flynn made a whopping $203,219.04 in his first year online. Here’s what his website that sells his course look like:

(Source: Smart Passive Income)

The sky’s the limit when you sell your own product or service on your website.

But if you don’t have many visitors to your website yet, this method might be a little far fetched.

Let’s move on to the 2nd way to make money from your blog:

Blog Monetization 2: Sponsorship

Sponsorship means getting paid to create content around a specific product or service.

Let’s look at Jessica Chaw, a beauty blogger who has built up a steady audience that enjoys her blog content about make up in Malaysia.

Jessica has built up quite a name for herself that brands start to approach and pay her to write up a good review of their product.

Brands are willing to pay Influencers with a loyal following like Jessica in hopes that Jessica’s loyal audience will be persuaded to purchase the promoted product.

Let’s take a look at a real example from one of Jessica’s sponsored content:

(Source: Jessica Chaw)

Cetaphil, a cosmetic brand, decided to pay Jessica for a sponsored article on her blog. In return for her payment, she needs to review the product and promote it to her audience.

Who doesn’t like to get paid to review your favorite products? Unfortunately, just like selling your own products or services on your blog, you won’t be getting any sponsorship deals as a new blog without a defined audience, which often takes time to develop.

Which brings us to the 3rd method to monetize your blog as a beginner in Malaysia:

Blog Monetization 3: Display Ads

Placing display ads on your website is very common amongst bloggers, especially for someone who is just starting out.

Similar to those ads you see in newspapers or your favorite magazines, bloggers can place displays on their websites. Banners can be placed anywhere you want on your blog. Typically on the headline, sidebar, footer, and in between their content.

Here’s what a sidebar ad looks like:

(Source: Iman Abdul Rahim)

If your blog has a defined audience, you can negotiate with brands directly and pitch to them to rent one of your display ad placement for a certain amount of money.

But if you’re starting, you don’t have the brand image and audience size to approach companies directly. So an easier way is to use an Ad network like Google Adsense.

Google Adsense will automatically place relevant ad placements on your blog. Most of these ads are Pay Per Click (PPC).

When your audience clicks on the ads, the Advertiser will pay Google Adsense for each click, and Google will slide you a cut.

Unfortunately, most bloggers admit that Display Ads income is just peanuts compared to other methods of monetization.

Also, certain ad networks will litter your blog with ads that could impact your blog’s readability:

(Source: Coredna)

In the next section, I will share with you the best and easiest way to make money as a new blogger:

Blog Monetization 4: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is earning a commission for promoting someone’s else’ s product or service online.

Here’s how Affiliate marketing works:

1. You generate an Affiliate Link for the product or service that you want to promote.
2. Create content around that link, i.e., a product review, and insert your Affiliate link somewhere in your content.
3. Promote your content to your audience.
4. If any of your audience clicks on your link and ends up buying the product, you’ll earn a commission.

Let’s take a travel blogger example, Fana Halim.

She creates review content about traveling and recommends her audience on which hotels to stay in. The link to the hotel is where she places her Affiliate link.

If her audience clicks on the Affiliate link and ends up making a reservation thanks to her marketing help, Fana will earn a commission.

(Source: Fana Halim)

Simple and easy right? Click here to sign up as a Partner to start promoting.

Now that I have established that Affiliate Marketing is one of the best ways to start making money on your new blog, here’s our proven 6 step formula to increase your chances of success:

5 Steps to Affiliate Marketing Success for Your Blog

We’ve worked with many bloggers throughout the years, and they have shared with us several tips on how they would start Affiliate Marketing if they were ever to start all over again:

STEP 1: Pick a Niche & Stick to It

When starting a blog, you need to be known for a specific topic, which is your niche. You should make sure that you stick on topic.

For example, A fashion blogger will only create content around fashion. A fishing blogger will only talk about fishing-related activities.

Niching down: If you want to launch a cooking recipe blog, that’s a great lucrative market to be in with all the cooking equipment you can promote, but you’re in direct competition with big established recipe channels.

To get a chance for your new blog to stand out in a sea of similar recipe blogs, try to niche down.

For example; Be known as the less than RM 7 per meal air fryer recipe blog.

Source: Seekpng

Great, but how exactly do you pick a niche that works for you?

Read on:

Tips on How To Pick a Niche with Ikigai:

Here’s how you can pick a niche for your new blog using a Japanese concept of Ikigai. Which is to find the intersection between:

(Source: Building the Blog)

Pick the topic you know about

You need to at least be knowledgeable on the topic you choose. Or at the very least, able to do research to bring you up to speed to start teaching people on the topic.

Pick the topic you love

You have to personally like the topic of your blog. You don’t want to run out of steam a few months in. Blogging is a long term game.

Pick a blog topic the web needs

Figure out if the topic you want to be in is something other people besides yourself are interested in.

Pick the topic that makes money

Figure out if people interested in your topic are willing to spend money on it. Or else, it would be a complete waste of your time.

STEP 2: Create Useful Content That People Search For

The best way to start creating content that will get clicks is to create useful content that answers peoples’ questions online.

For example, if you have a blog about traveling in Malaysia, think in the shoes of the people you’re trying to reach out to.

If you plan to visit Kuala Lumpur or already there and Googled on what to do, what article would you want to read?

If I’m planning to travel to Kuala Lumpur and Google on what to do, here’s some article headlines that I’d click:

1. What to do in Kuala Lumpur in 3 Days.
2. Best Halal Chinese Restaurants in Kuala Lumpur.
3. Best Hiking Places Less Than 1 Hour Drive Away From Kuala Lumpur.

Without spending on an expensive keyword tool, you can quickly start with Google’s Auto Suggest feature that gives you topics people are searching for.

Try to Google “What to do in Malaysia?”:

(Source: Google)

There you have it, Google is giving you what topic to write about. All for free.

STEP 3: Register as a Publisher on an Affiliate Network (Involve)

Now that you have picked a niche and created helpful content, it’s time to monetise your blog by first registering as a Publisher with an Affiliate Network like Involve.

Involve is southeast Asia’s largest Affiliate Marketing network with more than 1,500 localized brands for you to promote. 

Involve makes it easy for you to find products to promote and keep track of all of your conversions in one convenient platform. 

Join Involve Asia as an Publisher. 

STEP 4: Pick a Product to Promote & Generate Your Affiliate Link

After your Publisher account is approved by Involve Asia, you can start generating links and promote your content. 

Login to your Involve Publisher dashboard and generate your Affiliate link for the product that you want to promote:

Insert your Affiliate link into your content and promote people to consume your content.

STEP 5: Promote Your Content

A percentage of people who read your blog will click on your Affiliate link, and another smaller percentage of that will buy the product you’re recommending.

It’s simply a numbers game. The more people you get to read your blog, the more likely someone will buy from your recommendations.

These are 3 ways people can find your content:

1. SEO: People find you organically because your content is answering someone’s query on Google.
2. Paid Ads: You bid for ad placements on Google and social media. 
3. Social Media: Share your content across your social media platform and engage with your audience to gain followers and influence. 

Wrapping Up: Start Making Money on Your Blog

Making money from a blog is not an easy task. But then again, it’s also very possible if you follow our proven steps to blogging success.

Click on the button below to register as a Publisher with Involve to start monetising your content: