Can Blogging Create Passive Income?
To answer this question, first of all, we must understand what is blogging.
To me, blogging is just another traffic strategy, something like article marketing.
Assuming you have not done anything to your blog, no link, no promotion, no JV, a blog post is just another piece of content lying somewhere on the net. If you’re lucky, someone may find the post through the search engine and read it. If not, it will just be another digital dust.
When the gurus tell you that you can make money from blogging, what he is really saying is you can make money by leaving tons of ‘content footprint’ on the net. The more ‘content footprint’ you have on the net, the more traffic you are likely to attract.
As I’ve said, blogging is just another traffic strategy. It’s what you do with the traffic that determines whether you can create a passive income from it.
So can blogging create passive income? My ‘immediate’ answer is – it depends on what you do with the traffic to your blog.
Many years back, when the idea of internet marketing first started, there was a myth that says “Built it and traffic will come”. ‘it’ refers to a website.
People started building different kinds of websites, only to realize that their websites are only visited by ghosts.
The concept of blogging was introduced and everyone starts to blog. The myth now becomes “Blog and traffic will come”.
People started to blog about different things under the sun, only to realize that they are just talking to themselves.
So can blogging create passive income? My ‘better’ answer is – it depends on whether you can generate ‘passive traffic’ to your blog and what you do with the ‘passive traffic’.
What Should You Do With The Traffic So As To Create Passive Income?
Assuming you know how to generate passive traffic to your blog, the next challenge is how to monetize the traffic so that you can earn passive income.
Unless you have a very popular blog, chances are no one will advertise directly with you. The easiest way to start selling your advertising space is by putting Google Ads on your blog.
As your blog becomes more popular, you can find your own advertisers and earn more.
I’m not talking about selling ebooks. If you want to build a passive income, you should promote products or services that can earn you recurring commissions.
Some examples are web hosting services, autoresponder services, network marketing products and membership programs.
For non-internet marketing niche, try to promote membership programs that can generate recurring commissions for you every month.
Eventually, you want to sell your own products through your blog, preferably a membership program so that you can build another recurring income.
Selling your own product has another advantage because you can recruit affiliates and generate more traffic to your blog.
This is the ultimate thing you should do with your blog to create long term passive income.
Do you know why companies spend so much money on branding? Because people prefer to buy from brands that they are familiar with.
Once your blog becomes a brand by itself, every other things will fall into places. Your traffic will increase beyond your wildest dream. Advertisers will be queuing to pay you. Your sales will soar. And more importantly, you can employ people to produce the content.
This is when your blog truly becomes a passive income source for you.
Great explanation Kenneth, I like the way you always seem to be able to put things in perspective for us. This will be a great post to share. Thats a pretty popular question these days.
You need to monetize your blog and promoting affilates that generate recurring income such as membership site. You need continously provide fresh contents to generate traffic from search engine or “visitors” to your blog’s.
Blogging really is not easy. Sure typing some words is easy but most blogs fail after a few months. I am guilty myself of first choosing the wrong blog topic that I did not know much about which was FOREX. I got over it and now blog about what I love and that is sharing what is working to pay some bills.
I originally made Money Mingle to go with a dating affiliate site called Millionaire Mates…..but realized that I could be creating a nice brand for myself. Blogs are powerful indeed but staying focus right from the start and sticking with your game plan is the path to success.
I totally agree blogging should bring in commissions and should become something very familiar like branding…Google and adbrite are about as close I have ever got to “selling” ad-space and it’s pretty much what I put into practice.
Some good pointers there, i think you have to experiment with different affiliate programs but as you say membership ones are better for recurring income. You also need to make your blog appeal to a wide audience and make them come back time after time with articles that are targeted to their needs.
Your blog should be your main focus but with carefully crafted elements to take your visitor to many other parts of your network.
As for ads there are many choices out there and once your blog becomes more established you can gain better income, i also like to go for affiliate programs that give you your own page to promote and sign people up, as long as you have your own hosting you can throw up as many sub domains as you like.
I think blogging is a good source of passive income..just add content and promote some products..
As Kenneth has rightly put it, Blogging is just another traffic strategy. It can and should be used in conjunction with other traffic strategies like article marketing (Ezine Articles), social networking (Facebook, MySpace), social bookmarking (Digg, StumbleUpon), content sharing (Squidoo and Hubpages) etc.
All these traffic strategies when put together will create a huge content footprint on the internet for people to find you and allow you to monetize the traffic.
Of course , you don’t have to rely only on blogging for you to get lots of traffics. Using other strategies specially social networking can boost you up .
Good tips Kenneth! I have to disagree with you about setting up Google ads on a new blog.
Unless you set up a network of niche blogs from the beginning focused on getting adsense revenue, one lonely starter blog monetized only with Adsense will take you probably more than a year to reach the $100 minimum payout.
There are other alternatives which can provide you a faster return (which is also encouraging to go on) like Bidvertiser, Project Wonderful or CPA affiliate ad networks. Even Pay per post can help the new blogger to get some quick cash.
I have to agree with you on this. If a blog is getting good traffic, CPA and Pay per post may help you to earn more. But Pay per post isn’t really passive, is it? Adsense is probably the easiest to start with and it’s passive. But it may not be paying you the most. Bidvertiser is a good alternative to Adsense, but the ads are pretty limited to certain industry.
Yes Kenneth, Blogging is just another traffic strategy, to make money.
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Nice bog you have here. I pretty much lurk the internet when I’m bored and read all I can about the organic lifestyle, but I really liked you view on things. I’ll bookmark the site and subscribe to the feed!
I agree that you said blogging is just another traffic strategy. Anyhow since there are so many blog out there and to rely from SE traffic is a big mistake especially to newbies. So in order to make it work as a traffic strategy it needs social interaction.
Great Blog Comment’s, so here’s to making some “Moola” from your blogs.Also put this link into your blog to make extra commissions.
As far I know blogging is good practice to reach out and extend the conversations with others. Blogging is to share interesting things and experiences with friends and others. If we share our feelings in right manner then it will help people and make them happy we will win some friends. Surely it’s an easy way to earn lots of money.
Thanks for the good tips about blogging. I have a blog and other sites that I have been trying to promote in the search engines. One thing that I did recently was post an ad on Craigs List with my blog link.
When you have expertise in a subject area, blogging can be an effective tool to let others know you exist. Also, search engines LOVE blogs. It’s amazing how quickly your website rankings can improve just by adding a few pages of well-crafted text to your site.
You are wright that you must position your blog as brand.
Cool, this is very Fun!.
I run out of things to write about….how about you?
Thanks for this.Great Blog Comment’s, so here’s to making some “Moola” from your blogs.Also put this link into your blog to make extra commissions.
Blogging of what you desire can bring that little extra income.
But what’s more important, is building relationship’s through blogging of what people like to read and understand, and what creats interests !
Another important point I would like to make is, don’t try and sell something on your blog. Let them see the interest in your content, this in turn brings out the interest of a possible customer, client, or better still a long term networking relationship, that brings the financial rewards you have being seeking…!
Yes I certainly agree with you Kenneth. Thanks again for posting this informative helpful data.
I do agree that blogging is a passive income as long as many subscribe and comment on your post . And of course you have to maintain your blog that no spammers will get through it .
I agree with you that it depends on whether you can generate ‘passive traffic’ to your blog and what you do with the ‘passive traffic. Blog is nothing without that passive traffic.. Great share here. Keep Writing!
Blogging does not truly generate passive income while you set on the beach relaxing. But it does give a decent income and there are also other way to earn other than blogging.