Can Blogging Create Passive Income?

Written by Melanie Kissell on May 25, 2009 11:40 am

To answer this question, first of all, we must understand the purpose of blogging.

Blogging is a traffic generation strategy, similar to 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 piece of digital dust.

When the gurus tell you that you can make money from blogging, what they're 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? That depends.

Blogging Myth

Many years back, when the idea of internet marketing first started, there was a myth that said “Build it and traffic will come”. ‘it’ refers to a website.

People started building different kinds of websites, only to realize that their websites were only visited by ghosts.

Years later, history repeats itself.

The concept of blogging was introduced and everyone got on the blogging bandwagon. The myth then became “Blog and traffic will come”.

People started to blog about everything under the sun, only to realize that they were just talking to themselves.

So can blogging create passive income? 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.

Here is what you can do:

1) Sell Advertising Space

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.

2) Sell Affiliate Products

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.

3) Sell Your Own Products

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.

4) Position Your Blog As A Brand

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 they are familiar with.

Once your blog becomes a brand by itself, things begin to fall into place. Your traffic will increase dramatically. Advertisers will be contacting 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.

MELANIE KISSELL

Blog On! Get Your Message Out