To be honest, when it comes to making extra cash online, I thought blogging had had its day!

Just scanning a fraction of the gazillions of blogs on the internet and it’s easy to think there’s just too much competition to make your blog even get seen, let alone have any real value.

What’s more, with so much of the world’s population using Google, YouTube, Facebook or any of the other well known social media platforms these days, I found myself asking the question ‘who reads blogs in 2022?’

Well it turns out that I do… and I’ll bet you probably do as well (… although you may not realise it)!

In fact, millions of people still regularly read blogs (… it’s estimated that over 60% of online users read them at some point) and will coninue to do so for very good reason!

You see although blogging has changed in recent years, with the increasing digitisation of the world around us, if the content is relevant, it’s STILL extremely useful to readers who are interested in the subject.

Now before we delve into why blogging today is still a great way to make some cheeky money, if you don’t know already let’s talk about what a blog actually is.

Blogging – brief (ish) description!

There are a number of type of blogs – personal, travel, business, niche, fashion, lifestyle, affiliate to name a few but fundamentally these can all be fitted into two categories!

The first is the personal blog which is basically an online journal – a sort of digital diary if you like – where people can write about their day to day activites in such a way that anyone who’s interested can read about them no matter where in the world they happen to be.

This is obviously great for travellers for example who want to let friends or families know where they are and what they’re up to or people who are starting out with a new hobby or pastime and want to share with others how they’re getting on.

It could even be for individuals who simply want to share their opinions, views or other ideas with a like-minded audience.

Sadly, while there are still plenty of these types of personal blog around, unfortunately they’re slowly dying out!

The thing is, nowadays internet users are often overloaded with information so they don’t really want to read diary-like entries about things such as ‘what I did last night’ or ‘how the rain washed away my tent’!

Instead they want to read about content that’s useful to them!

And that brings us on to the second fundamental type of blog.

The power of content marketing!

Without doubt, content marketing blogs are the future.

Every time you do a search for something on Google or any other search engine, you’ll very often be presented with information on that subject which comes straight from a content marketing blog.

For example, if you’re looking up how to stop a puppy from chewing your slippers, a blog on dog training may well show up.

If you want information on a type of lipstick, you may well be shown a fashion or beauty blog.

Or maybe you want to find out about diabetes and you end up on a health blog.

I could obviously go on with examples like this all day but I’m sure you get the picture!

The thing is, these blogs might look like ordinary websites, but at their heart, they’re very often built on platforms which were initially designed solely for blogging.

However, virtually all of them will have one thing in common…

They supply useful content that actually helps their readers!

Essentially, what’s changing in the blogging world these days is that blogs which focus on the writer are slowly dying out whereas blogs that are written with the purpose of supplying useful content to the reader are growing!

Reader orientated vs Writer orientated!

Once you get your head round this it’s easy to see why blogs are still a major tool for people who are looking to make additional cheeky money!

To blog successfully you need to firstly forget writing about ‘how long your walk was up Mount Snowdon’!

Instead focus on helping the people who’re going to read your blog and how you can solve their problems!

You can do this by creating content which is USEFUL TO THEM, not you, as well as by recommending helpful products that you’ve either developed yourself or that you’re promoting as an affiliate!

Bottom line…

People DO still read blogs, regularly in fact.

Yes they might look a little different than they did a few years ago but blog posts that are reader-focused are very much alive and kicking!

Understand this and you can easily see why blogging is still so profitable.

Give readers what they’re after, provide a solution, either free, paid or both and people will be back to see what you’ve got to offer time and time again.

Of course nowadays blog posts are often referred to as articles because traditionally articles were seen to be ‘educational’.

When you think about it that makes entire sense…

The successful blogger in the 21st century is effectively providing educational information for their readers and if they can make a little cheeky money while they’re at it, well why shouldn’t they?

Content blogging the right way

If you’re looking to start a personal blog to share whatever it is you have to offer then great, go for it.

It’s free, easy and you can be up and running in no time.

However, if you’re looking to start a blog to make some cheeky money then the content you provide must not only be useful to your readers BUT, there’s also got to be a benefit to you in providing it!

What does this mean?

Whacking out hundreds of helpful pages of content simply to make search engines find you so people can actually see your blog is all very well, but if those pages don’t bring you in any revenue, what’s the point?

Producing content takes time – time is money as they say and if the content is not making you money, then you’re wasting your time!

In other words, creating content that’s useful for your readers, but doesn’t make them click on your affiliate links, ads or products, well then you may as well not bother spending the time!

As someone who’s got an interest in earning cheeky money I see this mistake made so often in blogs that I read myself!

The ads, links or affiliate products have absolutely nothing to do with the subject of the blog post being read!

Think about it.

Why are people on the page?

Chances are they’ve searched for the topic?

If you show them an ad or product that has no relevance to them whatsoever, why on earth would they buy it?

A classic example of this is if you were say a photographer with a blog post that shows links or ads for products related to motorcycle tyres!

Ok, you might every now and then get a stray click but the chances of it converting to revenue is virtually non existant!

Another mistake that content marketing bloggers make is supplying content that they can’t provide profitable solutions for!

A typical example of this is say a florist with a blog post about wedding photography but they don’t know any wedding photographers or have any wedding photography products to promote!

Yes of course the article may well be useful, but it’s not going to help the blogging florist bring in any extra revenue is it?!

Increasing the chance of your blog post being read increases the chance of cheeky money!

The more people read your posts, the more likely you’ll get the benefit from them.

And how do we get people to read them?

Well, think about reader engagement!

A number of things encourage your reader to become engaged but there are few that are really important.

Firstly you need to build rapport.

This is a great subject (… maybe one for another post that I’ll get round to writing) but one so often overlooked by people who write on the web.

I call building rapport the nodding head syndrome!

When there’s good rapport your readers will very often start nodding in agreement as they’re reading.

When this happens it’s extremely powerful as it helps build trust and that’s when they’re much more likely to buy the products or services you recommend!

How do you build rapport?

Well that comes down to the user experience.

This is so often overlooked by web designers, copywriters, new bloggers, in fact many content providers on the net.

The user experience of your articles is crucial if you want to build rapport.

Here are a few things that help with the user experience…

• Site loading speed – it’s been shown that people will click away if your pages take too long to show up in their browsers.

• Readabitilty – people will just switch off if they’re confronted with long paragraphs of endless text. Make sure there’s plenty of white space around your paragraphs and keep the paragraphs short – three to four sentences max!

• Make sure punctuation and spelling is correct – perfect grammar isn’t necessarily essential because a coversational tone is more readable (… how many of us use perfect grammar when we’re speaking?) but poor punctuation and spelling sticks out like a sore thumb and can make people disengage immediately!

• Limit the menu – too many navigation options can cause confusion and too many choices will often make readers give up and go elsewhere!

• Make sure the site is optimised for mobile – all of the above can help out with this.

There are many ways to build rapport and this list is by no means exhaustive. But understand these things and get them right and it’ll give you a great kick forward!

You can always add a video!

One of the reasons I’d previously thought that blogging had had its day was because of the massive growth of YouTube over the last decade or so.

It seemed to me that the future of blogging was blogging via video, or vlogging as it’s known!

It’s certainly been said that video is the future of content marketing but ultimately it’s still essentially blogging by a different platform.

Clearly making videos for your blog or starting up a YouTube channel is a good idea but for many the thought alone of making interesting videos is a no goer!

If that’s the case with you, no problem because there are plenty of ways round it.

For a start you can outsource the video creation relatively cheaply to places like Fiverr.

There are also countless tutorials on YouTube itself showing you how to easily create simple videos using other people’s content!

You can even put other YouTubers videos on your website if you want to and as long as you acknowledge them, they’ll be more than happy for you to do this because ultimately it gets them traffic and allows them to promote their own stuff!

Basically video will…

• Encourage more people to engage, especially with people who are visual and prefer to watch or listen.

• If you use YouTube it’ll increase traffic and more traffic equals more cheeky money.

• It’ll increase the amount of time readers spend on your post which is one of the things Google uses to rank the ‘authority’ of websites.

• And if you appear in the videos yourself, your viewers will get to know you. It then stands to reason that they’re more likely to buy products that you’re recommending because ultimately it’s much easier to take advice from someone you know rather than a perfect stranger!

So as for the future of blogging…

As I said at the start of this post, I previously thought that blogging had had its day but clearly I was wrong!

Some people might say that the future is all about video and not the written word but I disagree.

Even video content makers tend to sell their goods by pointing you to ‘a link in the description’ where it’s words that will tell you all about them!

And it’s words that make people buy!

The future of blogging is how you give your audience what they want.

Why?

Because they want content to deal with their own issues.

Solve their problems with decent content marketing and you’ve got a winning formula.

Blogging is still a great way to do this!