Keyword research is just the beginning – you need to put them into the blog!
Keywords are the most important component of your blog – these are the words that people use in their search and this is what makes your blog visible to the readers. It also helps your blog show up as advertisements that the readers are likely to click. You can use Google keyword research tool for this. As, already discussed, include the keywords in important places like the title, first few sentences of your post, tags and links.
However, that’s not the only way you can build your audience.
You need to write insightful posts by having the keywords placed strategically in the content – including in the title, the body and the sub headings.
What do you do after keyword research?
Now, if your blog is more than a hobby and you want to generate income from it you need to put it on the market and promote your blog like any other product or service.
Promote your BLOG to get more user engagement
Post on social media and blog directories
Share your content on social media like Twitter, Facebook etc. to enhance the reach of your blog. You should also consider posting links in communities and forums that belong to the same niche.
Follow and Crosslink
Get in touch with other bloggers in your community and promote their content and ask them to do the same for you. It’s a win-win for both the parties but don’t overdo it.
Invest in paid ads
If you are serious about monetizing your blog and increasing the audience of your blog, you should consider using paid advertisements for FaceBook, and Google Adwords.
Email Marketing
If you can engage your readers well enough, have them subscribe to your posts by entering their email addresses. This way you can send them email updates about your new and upcoming posts and drop hints to share them. Gathering emails also help you retain your readership. Create an email newsletter that makes the readers want to come back to your blog.
Ads
Advertising is one of the easiest ways to monetize your blog. If you have a good visitor footfall, several companies would love to use that visibility to advertise their products or services. You simply have to paste their Javascript or HTML code in your page to run an advertisement. The more the ad gets clicked or viewed, the more you get paid by the advertising company. If your niche is very competitive you will certainly get more CPMs. You can also tie up with major players like Google Adsense, Microsoft PubCenter, Chitika, Clicksor, Burst Media. If you choose advertising as a way of monetizing your blog you can also get sponsored ads on your page.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate programs offer you a text link, banners etc whose code you need to paste on your website to traffic referrals. You get a commission when the traffic from your page clicks on the link, goes to the affiliate marketer’s site and makes a purchase. The sellers track this performance through your affiliate ID.
This is a great way to make passive income. If you want to succeed at this choose good products and choose only a handful – you don’t want to look like a sales agent pressing the readers to make a purchase, your blog then loses its charm. Choose products that have a good demand and are relevant to your blog and always choose a good merchant, if your readers do not have a good experience that doesn’t reflect well on you and will come back to bite you.
Offer Services and Products
If you have a certain skill like writing, web designing, graphic designing, data analysis etc. don’t be shy and put that on your blog. Use your blog to offer your services and grow your business. Promote your Blog to sell products. If you have a product that you made and will make your readers’ lives easier, feel free to endorse your product on your blog. Your readers trust you and it’s highly likely that your product will sell pretty well. For physical products, you will, however, need to deal with manufacturing, storage, integrating payment gateways, and shipping.