₦airaland Forum

Hello guys! Haven been a guest of this forum and gained insights from certain contents here, I now fell obligated to contribute my own quarter and this thread will address this.

Within the next couple of days, I will briefly highlight why a blog network is a money monster and help guide as many of you as possible in tapping from this goldmine while the opportunity still rocks.

At first, a blog network is a series of various blogs mostly operated by different authors but all nicely connected together in such a way that each blog is an entire different site but gains free residual traffic from others on the network thereby catapulting earnings exponentially at no extra effort of the bloggers. Other benefits of these include free backlinks which in turn boosts your SEO (domain rank and overage organic visibility) very quickly.

Side Note:
With the advance of AI, I have learned to automate most of my blogging tasks in such a way that the blog platform itself does more than half the job for me and I can quickly source contents for auto publication too. In fact, you can setup it up within hours and leave it to run on autopilot... constantly generating revenue.

=> Next I will talk about why blogging still works when it comes to earning good bucks in dollars.
=> How to blog on autopilot using the right platform to quickly source contents, monetization etc.
=> Then, I will highlight the major mistakes most failed bloggers did and how to avoid them.
=> And finally, I will guide you on how to get started in capitalizing on this to the maximum.

Is blogging still a good way to earn good dollars online?
To better summarize this point, let me quote my associate Pamela96

So, I've done tons of gigs/businesses online the past decade including blogging.
I once ran a quality standalone blog briefly years ago but arbitrage earnings and the ton of work blogs demanded (these have all be automated) made me abandon the blog. But soon after, arbitrage got scrapped and I was too busy doing many other online hustles that I didn't consider blogging again until last year when I was building a startup and thought it necessary to have a blog for it as a form of content marketing.

This blog, though dedicated to promoting the startup offerings, scaled up so quick generating good sales for the business that I was even surprised. Then I separated it from the startup and soon after (Feb 2024), I got a reasonable $6,000 buy offer and I sold it off because I wanted to concentrate on my new venture. Sadly, the new owner scrapped it for parts.

I'm not saying every blogger would have that instant success cause I was already experienced in it, plus I used the right tools, knew my way around SEO and most importantly, I registered an old dotcom domain that already had good authority, backlinks and ranking. It's worth noting that I have a tech guy & a content guy. And the platform we used was custom-built.

All these are some of the key edge that fast-tracked that brief blogging journey, I observed. So, I decided to run an experiment with my guys. They launched a new blog on a new dotTop domain that had no prior authority. Yes, this took longer to make headway for many reasons as evident above (also because I wasn't particularly marketing it) but was still fast compared to those days. We applied the same procedures except that the domain was new and it is dotTop. It basically took 10 days & $13 to create this and it started making $37 after two months. Here's the blog: https://www.proes.top and it's available for new ownership if you want it.

The verdict is very apparent at this point. As evident above, the experiment proved that blogging is, in fact, a cashcow when done right!

Let me also share this recent blogging journey of a Nairalander I just across here; absolutely unaffiliated. See result: https://www.nairaland.com/7655871/blogging-still-works-2023-see/3
And this was a new singular blog without the benefits of a blog network nor the faster scaling rate of an expired ranked domain!

Where others get it wrong & give up?
In as much the niche plays a crucial role in molding your blog for success, what matters more is the content in niche. For instance, the entertainment niches are good but posting contents like "Tonto Dike insults VeryDarkMan again" will not fetch you any reasonable funds. In fact, it's a recipe for disaster! Gossip blogging may have worked for Linda those days (it's failing woefully now) but it's certainly not a valuable concept to embark on. Unfortunately, this is the path most Nigerian bloggers take and that's why they fail & crash out quick.

From my experience coupled with the recent blog experiment, it's rather apparent that the first mistake bloggers make is in the domain name. In fact, everything is tied to the domain. In blogging, traffic is everything. And traffic can only happen organically if the domain is in order.

But then again, traffic only matters if it's the right audience.
Some give up cause they only get low grade traffic that earns very little Ad revenue and they couldn't monetize their blog any other way. These errors are that of quality bloggers cause the majority don't even choose the right niche nor publish any good content to warrant any earnings. The contents themselves ought to be well-structured and optimized for search engines using quality keywords. Thankfully, we have automated all these now in our blogging platform.

Actually, issues preventing the success of a blog could be numerous. Even something as little as page speed (loading time) will kill your ranking and hamper earnings. And a lot (hosting, content size, plugins etc) could affect your speed. Hence, you have to ensure you choose the right blogging platform that's very optimized for the niche audience.

Luckily, with our guide, you won't be making any of these mistakes!

Are y'all getting ready for the guide to capitalize on this modern blogging goldmine? Coz I'm so excited! This is an exceptional opportunity for all involved.

Ask your questions. How to get started?

How exactly are blogs connected in a blog network?
In most blog networks, they link each blog to all other blogs on the network like a spiderweb. And they do this manually since the network has a predefined number of blogs. While other private blog network only add a link of their main blog to the rest of the blogs on the network. This is because the rest of the blogs were only created to boost the main blog.

Unfortunately for intending bloggers looking to join, these blog networks are usually very private with almost no public notice of onboarding new blogs. The owners only created the network to boost their own blogs and their major benefit is backlinks.

However, a real blog network like mine does not depend on invisible links as such. The blogging platform connects each blog in such a way that contents from your blog are shown and recommended to readers on other blogs in the network.

In fact, sometimes a search on any blog on the network could bring up your contents providing you better backlinks and residual traffic. It is so connected that a reader only needs one login credentials created on any of the blog in order to access members area of the rest on the network. And yes, it's an open blog network that can onboard new bloggers very quickly.

Seeing how lucrative this is, it almost sounds too good especially due to the added advantage of a blog network. However, it doesn't happen overnight. If you are looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not for you.

I'm willing to buy any good blog that has been integrated with Google analytics and monetized.

Remember, It's not too late to launch and start learning your $$$ this December.

What does it mean to blog on autopilot using an automated blog platform?
Frankly, what differentiates blogging of those days with now is automations! It was quite herculean blogging those days but now, you can blog like a pro within minutes. A.I adaptation is crucial to ease your blogging efforts and I'm not even referring to just content creation. You really need to find a way to make as many aspects of your blog work automatically as possible.

For instance, we saved so much time by automating the finding, matching and insertion of affiliate links in our articles that we didn't have to worry about linking at all. It is magnificent...mostly because it is done dynamically which ensures there's no broken link. If a link dies, it is removed and if it changes, it is updated across all posts even when the page wasn't reloaded.

To make blogging fun & work for you on autopilot, you have to make it very easy to run by automating as many areas as possible and using a platform that focuses on what matters.

Operational Speed: Your site should be light weight and minimize the use of external resources. In our platform, everything is coded in-house. In fact, we make sure to load very few files per page to improve speed.

Modern Functionality: We observed that blogs with more ease of use and modern UI & UX-focused functions, scaled faster. In our platform, from background navigation that ensures readers move across pages without reloading the entire page, to the routing structure etc, we made everything easy for the users.

Revenue Generator: You need to ensure your blog is equipped with more monetization methods than just Ads. Besides, certain Ads can drive off readers. The better methods you have, the more you earn. Our platform is equipped with additional ways of generating revenue which includes a Tipping/Gifting feature and a premium subscription to skip Ads.

SEO Helper: Your blog has to help search engines discover and structure your contents properly. Our platform auto detects search engine spiders/crawlers/bots, structures the posts and add schemas to help them to clearly see and understand the content. Even the URLs are SEO-friendly and unbreakable as they are inserted dynamically on page load.

Engagement Features: You need to make sure your blog has most of the features that will keep readers engaged with your contents. Our blog platform comes with all the conventional features (post rating, clapping, commenting, sharing) and many more cool features (e.g pinning posts, reading time & history, table of contents generation).

Blog Automations: As already stated, try to automate your blogging tasks. On our blogging platform, from auto pinging search engines (Google & Bing) to alert them of your new content, to auto insertion of the most suitable internal and affiliate links into your posts dynamically on page load, the platform handles half the job for you.

Blog Design: I observed that design & layout also affects blog growth. Minimalist layout stood out in a way that caused no distractions to readers which in turn doubled retention rates and overall earnings. This is why we maintained an elegant minimalist style.

Quality Contents: If you intend to run a serious blog with revenue generation in mind, then you can just post anyhow contents. You need to ensure your blog provides value that will keep attracting searchers. Fortunately, our platform allows you to request for & get such contents published within hours without your involvement.

Quality Domain: The importance of having a few character-length domain can never be over emphasized. The simpler your blog name, the easier it is to retain readers. However, the domain age, backlinks, spam score & authority, are actually more important than the chosen name itself. If you want a fast growing blog, these need to be seriously researched before registering your domain. And yes, it ought to be an expired domain! Luckily, you can get this easily done for you via our blog network.

Get Custom-built: When you use a platform dedicated to blogging and customized to aid your efforts, half your work is already done. Plus unlike CMSs like WordPress that everyone is familiar with and can prolly make you vulnerable via malicious plugins etc, everything about the blog is built specifically inhouse. Only the blogger has the keys. And your blog, unlike most sites, doesn't rely on third-party resources to function correctly.

Safe & Secure: A modern blog ought to be seriously safeguarded from cyber exploitation as you want to ensure your readers don't get hesitant to add their details on your platform. From XSS, spoofing, brute force attacks to major cyber hacks, our blogging platform has been tested and protected from the disruptions. I dare say it's impregnable.

Getting started with capitalizing on today's blogging goldmine.
Let me start by tabling out the major steps in banking on this opportunity.
=> Choose a less competitive micro-niche.
=> Register an aged domain with good ranking.
=> Launch your blog based on the niche.
=> Add quality contents and optimize them for searches
=> Add monetization methods e.g Ads, affiliate products.
=> Join a quality blog network that offers residual traffic & ranking boosts.
=> Monitor your earnings & buy a big bag to withdraw them in!

Liquidation options include selling the entire blog or selling just the domain for $$$$

Choosing a good niche
A good niche is a specific topic of focus where you strategically share your insights to a targeted audience arriving organically at optimal value with as little struggles as possible.
Frankly, if you are going to write your own blog contents, then you should ensure you blog about what you are passionate about. Otherwise, you could easily feel overwhelmed and find it harder to produce quality contents. Regardless, picking a niche starts with your preferred industry.

In summary, you pick an industry, research the less competitive niches in it and choose one of the micro-niches that has a good USA (UK & other Western nations) interest. This sounds simple and it is, however, there's a lot more work needed to get the right niche. In reality, we usually use premium tools such as Alrefs, Moz etc. to determine trends, keywords search volumes and even the authority of the top ranking domains to gauge how easier it will be to break into the industry as a recognizable expert or at least a pundit in the fastest possible time.

Frankly? You shouldn't worry much about this as we will offer to do this for you for free when you join our blog network. Besides, picking a niche is not nearly as important as getting the right domain! And our goal in the network is to connect fast scaling blogs that are riding on the wave of both older domain's ranking and the residual effects of the entire network!

Getting a good domain
A good domain starts with the actual keywords within it (e.g PetKits.com which outrightly announces that it focuses on kits for pets.) but more so, the length of the domain. The shorter/simpler the domain, the easier it will be to retain users as it becomes very memorable.

But to further advance your blog and bring it at the forefront fastlane, then you ought to go for aged domains. The internet is so jam-packed with websites these days that it will take very long to get a new site indexed, recognised, and ranked. Getting to be an authority in your space might even take years. So, the best way to fast-track this process is to ride on the wave of already established domains.

And an aged domain is a domain that has been registered for a very long time. E.g 10years. These domains tend to have already acquired backlinks, DA, PA, traffic etc. So, ranking in them becomes easier as even search engines already trusts and indexes them faster. The catch here is, you have to hunt down the expired ones and bid to purchase them at registrar auctions which will costs more than a new registration.

And most importantly, you need to run additional research on the domains for issues such as search engine bans, email spam score, blacklists, AdSense ban etc. This is because the previous owner could have messed up the domain and associating your blog with it will ruin you too. Luckily, I can help you sort this out quickly!

The sweet spot, however, is finding a quality expired domain with good ranking and traffic that was dropped at auction! This means, you can just re-register it as though it's a new name but it will still have the existing backlinks, traffic etc. that will quickly get you results in $$$$ for your blog within weeks!!!!

I'm available to handle all these technical aspects for you for free!

Setup and Launch your blog. Your options are;
=> You hire a web designer to quickly setup one for you using CMS like WordPress or site builders like wix. This is usually cost-effective depending on the designer and design itself.
Major Con: CMSs are jacks of all trades that rely on tons of components to function. This can easily affect speed. Also security threats could be abundant due to global familiarity of the platform's core. Custom features will require third-party plugins which usually include additional monthly fees that can quickly drive up your blog expenditures.
Major Pro: There's a large community that can help you resolve common issues or technicians who fix your technical problems at a fee.

=> You hire a developer to build a custom blog for you. He will have to write the code from scratch and according to your specifications
Major Con: It can be quite expensive depending on the expertise of the developer and scale of development. And you will have to ensure you maintain a good relationship with that developer in case any technical issue pops up from the blog that need him/her to fix. Another developer might be able to resolve it but it's always better for the same builder to manage and update.
Major Pro: It will be fine-tuned to your taste with little to no threat of security breaches (if the developer did a good job) compared to CMSs.

=> You get on a specialized blogging platform like our blogging network. While there are some platforms that let you publish contents on your page (e.g medium) or let you create an individual blog (e.g blogger), our focus here is a modern blog platform that is specifically tailored to the niche user.
Major Con: It may be quite difficult to migrate all your blog data off some platforms. FYI, our platform made migration very easy! Comes with tons of automations too.
Major Pro: Has all the Pros of both CMSs and custom-built blogs. In most cases, you can get it up and running within minutes. Mostly comes with tech support , maintenance, updates etc. Also, very cost-effective to run.

Add quality search engine-optimised contents
While this stage can seem rather complex due to several factors such as long-tail keywords, on-page SEO etc. The major things to take into account is the length of the blog content (minimum of 2,000 words), the layout/structure (schema, headings, bullet points), visual aspects (add images, videos) and linking (both internal & external)!

But of course, keywords play a major role as remembering to target your niche audience via less competitive keywords can help you get on search engines' featured snippets and catapult your traffic. Never write for search engines though! Write to add value to the reader. A badly written content might initially rank but will eventually drop due to high bounce rate and poor user engagements. Fortunately, the aged domain you registered earlier will be fighting half the battle for you by giving you an initial ranking ahead of the competition based on your DA & backlink.

This is a broad subject that can't easily be covered without a pragmatic approach. Luckily, you don't have to go through these and risk damping your rankings when you can easily get us to research and publish the right contents for you within hours for pennies on the dollar.

Add monetization methods
Initially, people including me, only used blogs for content marketing for our brands. Hence, we only wrote persuasive posts that will help us land a new client via organic searches for our main business. However, even while running such a blog, you can still generate additional in-house revenue for the blog itself via methods like Ads (And networks like AdSense or direct banner placements), sponsored posts, affiliate products of programs within your niche or you can directly sell membership for premium exclusive contents, create a course based on the blog topic, selling an ebook, adding a donation button etc.

Nonetheless, the major monetization methods used these days are Ads and affiliate networks. And it can be singular or combination of both. Your question could then be what networks are best? Well, it depends on certain factors like your niche, location and audience. For instance, it's pointless trying to monetize your blog with Amazon associates affiliate program if you don't have an USA audience.

Whatever the case is, the only rule now is to stick to the big fours in both Ads (AdSense, MediaVine, Ezioc, raptive) and affiliate (Amazon, Thinkific, Impact, ShareASale). But before you apply, to increase your chances of approval, make sure your blog UI & UX, contents, traffic etc are all in order! Don't forget to add a privacy policy (including affiliate disclaimer), about & contact page too!

Add your blog to a blogging network
Honestly, I'm yet to find any good public blog network where bloggers can enlist their sites for residual traffic and earnings. What you will mostly find are platforms where bloggers sign up and network o platforms where bloggers list their sites to a blog directory.

Except of course you intend to build your own private blog network (and if you have the expertise to successfully run it), the only other option is for you to launch your blog (just like other Nairalanders) in my blog network which allows you to start your blog and get results within a couple of week. And you don't even have to be fully involved since our automated platform handles most of the tasks for you.

Bring in a blog network isn't mandatory as a modern blogger but the benefits are enormous. In fact, it's the resources of a blog network that will make blogging very easy and profitable now. Coupled with the numerous automations in my blogging platform, being in the blog network will seriously catapult you exponentially in growth & revenue.

Monitoring and managing your blog progress
Though not mandatory but I recommend you have some stats log for your blog to help you track your progress which should range from your visitors origin and activities, clicks and eventual earnings. These will help you gauge what you are doing right, fix issues and improve.

Those on our blogging platform can easily track these.... including individual user activities. In fact, the moment someone lands on the blog, the blog begins gathering data such as navigation, errors, submissions, duration and even device specs like screen, browser, model etc. These will also help you fully understand your audience demographics or troubleshoot issues if any should arise. Sadly, not every blog has these capabilities.

Whatever the case, consider adding third-party tools like Google Analytics, Google & Bing Search Consoles as it could also be helpful if you might want to flip the blog later. FYI, we do these for free for all those in our blog network.

Cashing out from your blog
Though it's highly unlikely that you would want to offload a successful blog with a good constant monthly revenue flow, it's still nice to know that there's a whole market built around digital assets such as your domain or entire blog at that. And there are blogs being sold for as high as $500k! But this doesn't mean the market isn't interested in blogs only valued at $1,000.

In fact, there are people buying & flipping domains at a premium sale. And there's also a few market places where you can easily & comfortably sell your blog at up to x30 income multiple valuation or more. Just build your blog to a scaling stage and you could sale and cash out if you no longer have the time to grow it bigger. Most times, you only need valid records of traffic and revenue to list in these market places (e.g flippa).

It's now time for Q&A! I will start with FAQs but the floor is basically open for your queries.

What should a modern niche blog look like?
While your blog ought to have its own unique style, there are quite a few things that has to be in place to make the blog more user friendly and keep readers coming back. As earlier stated based on our experience, a minimalist design with little or no distractions (pop ups, banners, pop unders etc) helps users focus on your content and drives more engagements.

Another universal tip is to use simple, clear and broad fonts, proper spacing and section headers! Ensuring all your contents are properly structured with bullet points where necessary. Add a table of contents, intro and summary. And remember to encourage shares. In fact, take a look at our blogging platform below to have a feel of how elegant your blog ought to be.

For instance, something as little as auto providing a shortened version of the blog post link would not only enhance social shares but will also attract third-party blog backlinks. And based on our blog link routing structure, your blog can't have a broken link as long as the domain is on our network, even if certain letters of the link was altered.

How fast can you setup this blogging goldmine?
It all depends on who is setting it up, how skilled they are, what technologies they use etc. For instance, as already highlighted above, if you are hiring a developer to build it for you, it could be rather expensive and take several weeks depending on the features and tools. Plus, building it is just one part. The remaining aspects of domain hunting, creating contents etc. will still additional hands. If you are technical enough, you could setup a blog using platforms like wix, webbly or even basic blogger but why bother with such limited and yet pricey options when we can do all the work for you for free.

That is, you can basically launch your blog in our network and get us to get you your quality domain & contents in less than 48 business hours. And what's more? You start seeing results within a couple of weeks because of our network's residual benefits.

Reading and following in silence is great but I also need some form of encouragement to continue....to be sure I'm not wasting my time here.

HustlePundit:
Let me also share this recent blogging journey of a Nairalander I just across here; absolutely unaffiliated. See result: https://www.nairaland.com/7655871/blogging-still-works-2023-see/3
And this was a new singular blog without the benefits of a blog network nor the faster scaling rate of an expired ranked domain!

Good moves

HustlePundit:
It's now time for Q&A! I will start with FAQs but the floor is basically open for your queries.

How can I monetize earnmoney.ng

McStoic:
Good moves

Imagine how fast it would grow and how much he would be making if he discovered & capitalized on the full potential of our blog network not to talk of my expertise in using ages domains, SEO contents or if he used the power of our blogging platform.

damiloladuke:
How can I monetize earnmoney.ng

Your blog needs improvement on many levels starting from the tech itself to the contents. Then, the "make money" niche is rather saturated with hardened competition. But your biggest problem is that the Nigerian market have a low purchasing power in foreign affiliate products (e.g Amazon associates), hence, monetizing via affiliate programs (top monetization) won't make you much (add it regardless if you can). Plus, foreign Ads (e.g AdSense) also pay lower for Nigerian audience.

But the good news is that you are in Nigeria so, even just a $200 (N340k) monthly paycheck could be helpful. So, yeah, monetize it via Ads and grow your traffic aggressively. Then sell your own digital products directly to your readers or create a course or premium membership plans with exclusive contents. However, the easier option after Ads for you will be to offer paid consultation or mentorship for your readers who need guidance on how to execute your "make money" tutorials or so. But you have to ensure you are already acquainted with hands-on experience on the topics you are posting.
Create and add real value and your audience will pay for more information or direction.

Make things easier for yourself by migrating to our blog platform & network.

Is there an example of such blogs on a network?
Yes! There are a few private blog networks but I'm not so sure there's an easy access to getting your blog included since they are mostly private and designed to build links for the main blog. You can however, search and contact them to build a blog for you on the network but since the networks are mostly just a series of wordpress sites that links to each other, there won't be a real benefit apart from a few backlinks.

My blog network, however, is built specifically to onboard fresh bloggers for them to easily & quickly launch their blog using my blogging platform which having to worry about any technical aspect (hosting, domain, design or the overall building of the blog). You save a lot of resources (time and money) and gain so much more such as residual traffic & earnings. Plus, you can get started with only N6k and we are ever ready to quickly handle most of the tasks for you (setting up & managing the blog, creating & publishing contents etc).

And yes! There are already some Nairalanders getting onboarded on this network. Check my signature for one of the recent ones.