How do you make money from blogging (or how do you make money from a blog) in South Africa?

You make money from blogging in South Africa in the same way that those outside of South Africa make money from blogging. Blog owners monetize their blogs with advertisements. They send or attract traffic (visitors) to their blogs. When these visitors perform actions related to the advertisements on the blog, the blog owner earns money. Steps can be taken to increase income from the advertisements.

The beauty of blogging is that one doesn’t have to have one’s own products or services or membership site to make money online. One can make money from blogging by promoting other people’s products, services and sites.

How does one monetize a blog with advertisements? What type of advertisements?

Besides placing ads or writing information about one’s own products or services, blog owners can join advertising programs like Google Adsense, or can become an affiliate for one or more sites, like Amazon.

One gets the code for these ads within one’s advertising program account or affiliate program account, and then copy pastes that code into one’s blog, so that the ads can appear. The ads may be image ads or text ads. The ads may be placed at the top or bottom of a blog, in the sidebar of a blog, or within the main content area – where content has been written and published (the actual blog post on that page).

The code in these ads contains a reference number that identifies the blog owner as the ad publisher. This is so that the advertising program or affiliate program can know who it was that advertised their products or services (or their clients products or services), so that they know who to pay for doing that promoting/advertising (you, the blog owner!).

Blog owners can also rent advertising space directly. People who are interested in advertising their business on a certain blog might contact the blog owner with their ad, and they pay a monthly (or other pre-determined time period) fee to have their ad appearing on that blog.

Ads can also be displayed that invite people to become a member and be active at certain sites.

How does one get traffic to a blog in order to make money from blogging?

Traffic is very important if you want to make money from blogging.

Without traffic the ads on a blog are not going to be seen. The blog owner will not make money from blogging.

With only a little bit of traffic, the ads on the blog are not going to be seen enough to earn the blog owner much of an income.

One can use time, effort and free methods to get traffic to a blog or one can use paid methods of getting traffic, or a bit of both.

A few examples of free methods of getting traffic to a blog:

Learn and use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) on one’s blog
Write blog posts of at least 300 words each
Write and add many blog posts, regularly
Leave links to one’s blog on other sites

A few examples of paid methods of getting traffic to a blog:

Use Google Adwords
Pay somebody to help one write content and SEO one’s blog
Offline advertising in newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, or on posters

How do the ads on a blog make the blog owner money?

Depending on which type of advertising program, affiliate program, or membership site a blog owner has an account with, the blog owner can make money from blogging in one or more of the following ways:

When the blog page that the ad is on is viewed
When the ad is clicked (and the site it leads to is visited)
When after clicking the ad and visiting the site it leads to, a purchase is made
When after clicking the ad and visiting the site it leads to, actions are performed like filling in a form, joining a site, or being active on that site

What can be done to increase income from advertisements on a blog?

Have patience, and don’t give up; it may be a long time before one is earning from one’s blog, or earning a nice amount from it.

Be professional right from the start: register a domain and get hosting for your site – you will struggle to find a really successful blogger online who uses a free site.

Write well, and write engaging content – you want your visitors to come to your blog again and again.

Avoid placing too many adverts on your blog. There should be more text content than adverts.

Pay attention to the design or layout of your blog. People should feel calm when they visit your blog, and not be distracted from the content or ads, or feel irritated by a busy background, annoyingly bright colours, or text that is not easy to read.

Have I made money from a blog? Yes!

I am not a fulltime blogger, but yes, I have been successful in generating some income from my blog.

How have I made money from a blog?

A lot of reading and learning! There is an amazing amount of free and helpful information on the Internet about blogging and marketing one’s blog.

Trying to make sure that the content I write is helpful or interesting to more than just a few people.

Paying attention to my grammar, spelling, and format

Writing posts of at least 300 words each, often much longer

Learning how to use on-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

From being a Google Adsense publisher and abiding by their strict rules regarding earning from their ads on one’s site

From being an affiliate for an online surveys site

From getting sign ups who become active at an affiliate program membership site that I belong to

From offering services or selling products from my site

Understanding that I should not expect to make a fortune overnight, or ever, without putting in time and effort

What do I think the best subject is to blog about?

This is a tricky question to answer because it’s debatable and may depend on many things.

Some examples of what subjects might be lucrative (or not), and why (or why not):

Blog about anything you already know and understand or do, no matter how simple that thing may be, others may be interested to read about it. This will make writing quick and easy. You can churn out more content for your blog if you don’t first have to research the subject. A possible problem: There may not be many other people interested in that subject.

Blog about subjects that relate to businesses that advertise a lot and that pay good prices for advertising, for example insurance, finance and loans. A possible problem: much learning, time, effort or expense may need to be invested in beating the competition (other sites also writing on these subjects) who are also trying to get lots of traffic to their sites.

Blog about things that many people often want to know about. Get a Google Adwords account and check the search volume for different keywords or phrases (how many people on average each month use those words when they look for information on the Internet). Possible problems: much competition to try beat, and, although a popular topic, may not have many advertisers.

Blog about blogging or earning extra income. So many people want to know how to make money online, or how to earn some extra income. Share your own journey on your way to making money from blogging, or share what you do to earn extra income.

Conclusion

It may sound tough, to make money from blogging, but the hardest part, really, is getting started. Take that first step (whether it be to get a site or to start writing or to start doing some more reading and taking notes), and learn as you go along. Just remember to be patient and never give up.

© Copyright Teresa Schultz 2015/2016