HopeGying:
An expert blogger is here!

Do people actually make easy money on blogging?

Absolutely! People are making money on blogging through different monetization channels such as Ad display, banner display, affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, guest posts, etc.

Is it something you can advise me to go for?

It depends on your skills. If you're someone who loves writing, blogging is the number one method I will recommend for you to make money online.

The major reason you see many people start blogging and quit soon is because they don't have the skills. They're just after money not to offer value.

If you're willing and ready to dedicate your time to expressing your knowledge, interest or passion with others through writing, then go for blogging.

If you don't have a passion for writing, you may want to consider alternatives that align with your skills such as

- Vlogger e.g. YouTuber and TikToker (if you love talking).
-Social media manager (if you love gisting or chatting).
-Affiliate marketer (if you love marketing or influencing people).

And what are the challenges faced on blogging?

There are different challenges in blogging that can be categorized into three:

1. Time-demanding: You need to be frequently updating your blog with new content which is the whole idea of blogging. The content creation process can be time-consuming as it involves researching, writing, editing, publishing, and sharing your content. Although you can use tools and automation to save time on some of the tasks, you will still be actively involved in most of the process.

3. Traffic generation: There are two major ways you can attract traffic to your blog — organic (free) and Ads (paid). The free method allows you to explore options like SEO, social media networks, guest posts and other organic ways to generate free traffic to your blog. The popular free option is SEO. With SEO, you position your blog content to suit humans and search engines like Google. That way, when someone searches for something on Google, for example, Google will recommend your blog on the result pages (SERP). But this channel requires fundamental knowledge of SEO. Another top free method to generate traffic to your blog is social media. This has much to do with understanding social media marketing. Finally, if you want to get fast traffic to your blog without much stress, then you should run adverts on search engines or social media networks. Contacting influencers in your niche is another popular paid method for traffic generation.

3. Slow earnings: It may take 3-6 months to start generating significant income from your blog depending on your monetization methods and commitment. The easiest way to monetize your blog is through Ad display using Ad networks such as Google Adsense. But Ad display earnings are usually lower as they depend on the number of visitors your blog has. The higher the traffic the more your earnings. As a beginner blogger, it may take time to start generating significant traffic from your blog. That's why you want to diversify your blog monetization options by using affiliate marketing, sponsored posts and guest posts which can earn you quick and higher earnings than Ad display.

What are the basic tools needed to hit the ground running?

Before you hit the ground running, seek knowledge first — not tools. Visit Google or YouTube to learn "how to create a blog as a beginner." You will learn about the core blogging tools through the guides.

But generally, you only need a hosting and domain name to get started.

After that, you can connect your blog to WordPress (the easiest content management system).

From there, you will design your blog and add plugins that can help customize and improve the performance of your blog.

Other major tools you need for blogging include:

-Keyword search tool like Ahrefs (for researching what your target audience is looking for on search engines if you want to attract traffic through SEO)
-Grammarly (for grammar corrections)
Canva (for designing unique images for your blog posts)
-Google Docs: (for drafting and writing your content if you don't want to do so directly on WordPress like me).

If you want inspiration and writing ideas, you can use ChatGPT. I don't recommend using AI 100% to produce a blog post. You can get your ideas from there and write yourself or generate the entire content from AI and thoroughly edit it to give it a human tone.

My two cents!

AlexBells:

Yes creativity and niche is also important in blogging.