Blog with A Passion and Maybe Some Money Will Roll In Too

Passion with a little bit of expertise thrown in. Two components necessary for successful blogging.

Perseverance also helps as does elementary knowledge of search engine optimization, usually referred to as SEO. Take a subject, any subject. How about savings account in the UAE – that’s the United Arab Emirates? Think Dubai, the UAE’s largest city, or Abu Dhabi, the capital. Know where we are now? Yes, the Persian Gulf.

But what’s any of this got to do with blogging? Nothing much. Unless, of course, you work for a bank in the Middle East or have a reasonable knowledge of Middle Eastern financial services. In other words, the expertise, mentioned earlier, which can form the perfect backdrop on which to build a solid financial blog. The blog can be technical or it can be personal. It can even be a bit of both. Got the passion?

But what if you don’t have any actual experience and yet still want to credibly blog about banking in the Middle East, for example, or any other subject for that matter? No problem. The Internet to the rescue. Google. Email alerts. Read all the news articles you can from as many sources as possible. Before you know it, you’ll know more than the average reader you’re aiming to attract. In fact, with a little effort, you’ll probably appear a bit of an expert. But you’ll still need the passion if you don’t want to run out of steam.

Can you make money blogging?

It’s the $64,000 question, one which every would-be blogger at least considers. Think about the question and then dismiss it. Put it completely out of your mind. The truth is comparatively few writers make a real living out of blogging. Yes, it’s fairly easy to make $5 dollars a day, or $10 or $20, especially if you use Google AdSense or some other advertising system to monetize your blog. Even so, you’ll certainly need several hundred readers or even more just to make that sort of paltry sum. Or you might make absolutely nothing.

Blogging blueprint

Niche, niche and niche! Savings accounts in the UAE may be slightly over the top, but you get the picture. In other words, write what you know about, a hobby, cooking recipes, crime novels, tech gadgets and so on. A wide-ranging subject is not only hard to get your head around but it’ll likely spell the death of your blog too. Narrow it down and then entertain and at the same time inform and you won’t go far wrong. Don’t think about making money. Just aim to produce great content instead and the readers will come, eventually. So will the money, with a bit of luck.

At the same time, get social. No good writing great content and no one knows about it, right? Push the blog on Facebook and Twitter. That’s a given. But also read other blogs related to your chosen niche and then comment, leaving a link back to your own site, of course. It sounds so simple, and it is. But marketing – that’s what we’re talking about here – is the other side of the coin and it takes a lot of time and effort.

Want some more inspiration? Check out ‘Your blog won’t make money – but write anyway’ by Claudio Gandelman, founder and CEO of Teckler. You can read this excellent article here.