Blogging for a second income - does anyone else here do this?

Annie021063

I teach primary and am involved in tutoring for the 11+, I would love to get involved in blogging but really don't know where to start or how I can make some income from it.

SpendyMcSpenderton

Hey guys!

I've been dipping in and out of this thread recently with great interest. I originally trained to be a journalist but unfortunately, despite a lot of effort, I ended up in a slightly different career.

I've had a few blogs over the years that I started to get a following with but then life got in the way.

I've recently started to think about this quite a lot. When I was getting married I went on a lot of blogs that are businesses themselves and I follow a lot of beauty bloggers and vloggers who do this do.

At the moment I've only just restarted but I'm already getting quite a few page views, signed up for affliates and started getting some clicks. I've also got a full career based around selling, selling advertising and marketing which I'm hoping will come into play in the future as I'd love to end up with a blog that is also a brand.

My question is how do you find your "niche". I love beauty products but I'm no way as glam as a lot of the beauty bloggers and nor do I have the disposable income to try and splurge and review everything. How did you come to find your niche or did you not and have a general kind of blogging persona? Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I have the skills both in website development, writing and marketing and advertising but I need to think how to build up some traction before I make a proper go of it!

Thanks X

dramarama

Good morning,
I think beauty is a fab niche for blogging. It seems to get lots of hits/audience. I have been running my blog for about 3 years and recently set up another to promote a business idea of mine (fingers crossed it works!!).
Just find what you're comfortable with and start blogging, there seems to be a big market for bargain beauty like home made remedies, £land bargains, freebies etc.
I think it's about finding what suits you over time but well done on making money already, that's great :T

shmeeko69

holliea wrote: »

hi, I'm a bit confused about these i wonder if anyone can help. I have a blog that gets good traffic (writing about design and crafting) but i don't do any of this.

5. I searched for the free tool but it says it not available anymore
6. what's an affiliant link? is that just the link from the free tool or with the affiliate programme because I don't really want to go down that route
8. how do i ping the URL?

It's recently been replaced by the Google Keyword Planner which is a basic search for Adword suggestions and is still free for average monthly clicks for your chosen keyword phrases.

daz501

betterlife wrote: »

Hi,
i will be registering as self employed in the next couple of weeks, and at the moment im setting up my website, i design and make vintage wedding stationery, and thought it would be good to have a blog featuring wedding design idea`s, offer free printables, and giveaways. my website gives me the option to add a blog which i like the idea of as my sellable items will be there aswell, but im not sure whether this would get the same kind of hits as say a blogger, blog etc, can i advertise my business on a normal blog? with links to my website? any advice would be much appreciated thank you.

WordPress is your best bet. Most people start off with blogger and then end up wanting to migrate to WordPress. If you can get started with WP I would recommend doing so.

There are thousands of videos on YouTube which will help you, and there are lots of nice themes which would compliment your niche.

There are a few key points to WordPress that need mentioning:

1. Never edit parent themes or core files
2. Try and use a Framwork like Genesis and buy some premium child themes
3. Get InstantWordPress (a virtual offline server)
4. Avoid plugins which are not supported or have low ratings
5. Get a good plugin like WordPress duplicator (free) or BackUpBuddy (paid)

If these things are a bit over your head, try and find a local web designer or developer to help you set up hosting, domains, databases, WordPress etc. WP is much better for SEO and have more flexibility and support than Blogger.

EndlessStruggle

Thank you for the Google Keyword Planner. It was interesting to see what people who may like my blog would search for and it has given me some ideas of what to include in posts and what to post about to improve my income from my blog.

EmmaJP

My sister makes quite a lot of money and gets loads of freebies by blogging. She does it all through Twitter. Companies are always tweeting for people to review their products and write sponsored posts as she calls them. Search for the hashtag #bloggeropps

I sometimes get a little jealous of the parcels she receives through the post but to be fair she puts a lot of work in and I just don't think I'd have the commitment.

shabbadoof13

Hey all

I have decided to join into this now. I have been thinking about doing it for many years as the area I am writing about is something I am passionate about and have got a lot of information to share which I am sure people will find useful.

A link to it (It's called The Money Shed) is in my profile if anyone wants to take a nosey

It's still work in progress

Thanks

patman99

I must say that I found Hubpages to be a good site if you post reviews and info-blogs.
I started a page about PPCs and have had over 10k visits to it so far. The secret is to keep creating Hubs & to keep the content up to date.
Had my first $50 (around £37 after currency conversion) last month.
I also have a blogspot blog & run a self-hosted wordpress site.

shmeeko69

patman99 wrote: »

I must say that I found Hubpages to be a good site if you post reviews and info-blogs.
I started a page about PPCs and have had over 10k visits to it so far. The secret is to keep creating Hubs & to keep the content up to date.
Had my first $50 (around £37 after currency conversion) last month.
I also have a blogspot blog & run a self-hosted wordpress site.

The best thing to do for any niche you're in, is to type a few keyword phrases in to Google and check to see which blog or free site is getting the most success for page one searches. This will give you the answer and piece of mind going forward.