Find Long Tail Keywords With Low SEO Difficulty

To find long tail keywords with low SEO difficulty, use Google’s free tool: the keyword planner. There’s other tools you can use, but Google’s free tool is a good place to start. You can also use tools like SEMRush but they require a subscription to access them.

This site is built on finding long tail keywords which offer less competition than most. The domain name too “autopilot money making software” was found using the long tail keyword strategy I’ve going to describe here. Low competition long tail keywords offer an opportunity to get free traffic by ranking on Google for them. But it’s not easy, you need to put some effort in first before you’re even in with a chance of getting any free traffic.

Find Long Tail Keywords With Low SEO Difficulty

To find long tail keywords with low SEO difficulty, open up Google’s keyword planner and type in your “Seed keyword”. This should be a keyword which relates to your business or niche. Click on the monthly searches tab and look for those keywords which get fewer searches every month. The reason for this is that the most competitive terms will have a lot of searches. But they will also have a high SEO difficulty.

To go for the “low hanging fruit” you’ll need to look at the terms which also get fewer searches.

Find Long Tail Keywords With Low SEO Difficulty

Browse through the search terms and look for something which stands out as slightly unusual. Here’s one I found while searching for a title to this article. I was looking under “long tail keywords”. This one gets 90 searches a month. The competition tab doesn’t represent the SEO difficulty, but the paid marketing competition so don’t use it as a guide to your ability to rank content.

Next take your search term and type it into Google’s search bar. You should see a number comes up if you’re using a laptop or desk top computer.

Find Long Tail Keywords With Low SEO Difficulty

This number represents the amount of competing websites which use this term. As you can see with this term, the number is 1,470,000. Anything less than 10 million (10,000,000) means you’re in with a chance! Obviously the lower this number is the better it is for you. less than 2 million means I might have a chance of ranking this article on Google for free! I’m not holding my breath though, but there’s a chance.

Find Long Tail Keywords With Low SEO Difficulty – Next Step

So now you’ve done a “sniff” test you can look closer at the competition for this keyword more closely by doing a “phrase” match. This means typing the term into Google again as before only this time using quotes around the phrase. This tells Google to show the number of websites which specifically have this term in their content. See the results below.

find long tail keywords with low seo difficulty

As you can see in the image, the number below the search box is 11,100. Again, the lower this number is, the more chance you have of getting a place on the first page of Google, where you’ll get some free traffic. Anything less than 20,000 is pretty good. If you can find something less than 10,000 that’s even better. Remember though that this isn’t an exact science and whether you get a ranking or not will also depend on your content and back link profile. But if you get this part right, it will save you a lot of work later.

Build Your Content And/Or Site

As you can see, this site has been built on the strategy of long tail keywords phrases. So you can use this strategy to build a complete website. You can read about how this site was built in my article create free website and earn money.

Once you’ve found your keyword phrase which you’d like to use, start as that for your article title. Make sure you use an SEO plugin to help you write. I use Yoast SEO which helps you get the keywords in the titles, subtitles and within the copy. It also reminds you to use pictures and put your keywords in the image alt tags.

long tail keywords for seo

The longer your article is, the more easily you can optimise it for your keywords. So it’s a good idea to write at least 1000 words for your article. You can also look at the top Google result for some inspiration and to see what your competition is like. Try to do a better article which is longer and more valuable that the top ranking result when you begin.

Google Ranking Factors

There’s thousands of ranking factors Google (and other search engines) use to rank or not rank your content. These are just a few to keep in mind while writing your content:

  • Domain authority – how Google sees your site
  • Back links to your content
  • Where the back links are from (are they from similar content sites and what is their domain authority?)
  • Time of visitors on your content
  • The click away rate – do visitors respond well or badly to your content?
  • Social media presence
  • Your site speed
  • The user experience
  • Your website set up – does it comply with GDPR for example (privacy policy, about page, contact page, cookie notice, disclaimers etc)

These are things to consider but most of all you want to create quality content which will stand the test of time. Provide value and give your visitors a good user experience. If you content is good, visitors will naturally share your content (use a social share plugin). If not, they won’t! Google will look at your natural link profile over time too. This means you want people to naturally share and link to your content and this will only happen if it’s good!

Share Your Content

Sharing your content can give it the traffic it needs for Google to see more about how people interact with it. You’ll also get people to it which is of course the goal anyway. Once people are on your content, they can sign up to your offers and you can make more sales. To help you share content use an automated syndication tool. I use a plugin by Nextscripts: social network auto-poster. This plugin takes some setting up but will help you get more traction on your content. Once you’ve set it up it’ll share all the content you publish from then on.

You can also use postplanner to share old content which you’ve already published. Using these tools and a social share plugin on your site can all help you gain the traction you need from your content. Although when you find long tail keywords with low SEO difficulty it can get you free traffic from Google, you shouldn’t sit back and rely completely on that for your business!

find long tail keywords

Clickbank Alternatives

There’s many Clickbank alternatives and although Clickbank seems to be the “go-to” resource for newbie affiliates, there’s others too! Clickbank tends to be the first stop shop for new affiliates for a few of reasons:

  • Digital products can pay out more than physical ones – typically 40% commissions on sales.
  • Clickbank is easy to use and free
  • Beginners can start selling without much administration
  • There’s lots of products on there.
clickbank alternatives

Plus, Clickbank has been around for a while and was founded in 1998 in a garage in San Diego California. Hence there’s plenty of people who promote it to newbie affiliates. But this doesn’t mean it’s the best platform to use for beginners. Many new affiliates get it wrong, as I did. They don’t know how to promote the products and create a sustainable business from it.

However great a product might be, an affiliate’s success comes down to their ability to promote it, not just the product. Plus, as you’ll see in this article, there’s better products which will pay you more over the longer term.

Clickbank Alternatives

There’s also the price point of many Clickbank products which is around $100. A $100 product can leave you little choice in the way of promoting it. When I started promoting Clickbank products back in the early 2000’s, I used a free strategy I share in my article Clickbank Trick.

But free strategies take time and are not guaranteed to work either. So you can spend a lot of time struggling trying to sell Clickbank products, without getting anywhere. This was basically my experience when I first started learning affiliate marketing. I did make sales, but after a lot of struggle and failure.

Later on I learned about recurring commission affiliate programs. Clickbank does have some products which pay recurring commissions too – you can find them using cbengine.com (see below).

Clickbank Alternatives – Best Products To Promote

Some of the best products to promote are those which offer huge value to their customers. Unfortunately many Clickbank products don’t do this! Products which offer a lifetime value to customers are good because if you refer the customer, you can earn commissions for a lifetime. Software and training products needed for online business owners are some of the best to promote. They offer huge value and businesses can’t run without them:

  • Aweber – autoresponders are used by online business owners to run email marketing campaigns and connect with potential customers and buying customers
  • Semrush – Business tools and data collection for online businesses and affiliate marketers
  • Hostgator (hosting provider) – You can’t run a website without your own hosting. Most business owners have websites or intend to get one.
  • Online business training courses – gives people the skills, tools, software and support to build their own online businesses.
clickbank alternatives

Clickbank Alternatives – Start With You

When I first started using Clickbank, I started with the product first. I built many websites around keyword targeted domain names based on the product. It’s a strategy which can still work. See Clickbank Trick for more on this strategy.

But there’s a problem with this strategy and it’s longevity. Building content is now necessary in order to get any traction from a niche website. Unless you’re prepared to build out your site, it’s going to get overtaken by other people who are willing to go the extra mile. So your site can fall off the search results quite quickly.

The other problem is that it’s much harder to create content around a topic you know nothing about or don’t even have an interest in. It’s also hard to stick to a path you’re not suited to.

Starting with “you” means finding out what makes you tick and build your affiliate business around that. Most people start with the money and work backwards. Instead, it can work better to start with your interests and your “ikigai” and work forwards.

Ikigai means “reason for being” and is a Japanese term. If you can identify your ikigai you’ll have a much greater chance of success with your affiliate marketing business.

High Ticket Products

Clickbank doesn’t have any high ticket products you can sell as an affiliate. I came across high ticket items much later in my affiliate career, after a huge number of failures! With high ticket products your scope for marketing on the internet open up much wider. With low value products like you’d find on Clickbank you only have $40 to play with in your marketing budget on a $100 product. With products which pay out $1000 commissions, there’s much more scope for practicing and experimenting with paid marketing.

clickbank alternatives

If you’re trying to sell a $100 product to earn a $40 commission, it means you’ll need to spend less than $40 before selling a product to make a small profit. Larger value items make this a much more viable alternative. And since paid marketing is the fastest and most scalable solution to earning affiliate commissions online, it’s definitely the way to go.

High payout affiliate programs offer high ticket and subscription products, together with a number of other advantages over Clickbank products:

  • A range of up-sells – “Up-sells” are products you can earn from when your referrals purchase another product from a range.
  • A built in sales team – Most affiliate products don’t have a team of people closing sales on your behalf
  • Multi-tier commissions – earn commissions based on sales made by your referrals.

Access a range of products to promote through this training platform.

Affiliate Practices

Clickbank does tend to attract beginners when it comes to affiliate marketing. And it’s a good place to start because you can easily access the platform, you don’t have to purchase the products yourself and there’s good commissions to be made!

But there’s a couple of problems this “ease” can lead to. One is that you can promote products you don’t have to buy yourself. So you could recommend a product you haven’t even purchased! There’s an obvious ethics flaw here for affiliate marketing. You can see my affiliates get such a bad rap if they are promoting a product they know nothing about!

clickbank alternatives

The easily accessible platform is good in one way but bad in another. Many affiliate programs are a little more careful as to who they allow to promote their products. There’s a good reason for this too. Some affiliate vendors only want affiliates who will maintain their standards and properly represent their company and brand. Bad affiliate practices can get companies in trouble with legal aspects of their business.

As a newbie affiliate I just wanted the money and this led me to try almost anything I could think of to make the sale. But this has a bad knock-on effect for the end user, the product owner and of course your reputation as an affiliate. Ultimately it leads to trouble for the affiliate too. Google doesn’t like spammy content and desperate affiliates will more likely create it and fall into the trap of going for fast strategies over good ones.

Focusing On Training

This is why getting the proper training, education and understanding from the get-go, is pretty important for affiliates starting out. All of your actions are determined by your knowledge. If that knowledge is flawed, you’ll take the wrong action steps and create a lot of problems for yourself. Of all the Clickbank alternatives I’ve tried over the years, this is my top recommendation.

Access an online training and mentorship program which has everything you’ll need to build your own online business from scratch. Click on the banner below to get started.

clickbank alternatives

Free Traffic Sources For Clickbank

When I first started learning affiliate marketing I looked for free traffic sources for Clickbank products.

Clickbank is the “go-to” place for digital products which affiliates can use to earn money online. Digital products too, tend to pay much more than physical products like you’d find on Amazon, for example. Amazon pays around 3-11% commissions on products that affiliates refer to them. Clickbank products tend to pay more than this – usually around 40%.

However, it’s much easier to sell a physical product from Amazon. Most people are comfortable buying from Amazon too and less comfortable buying some digital course from a site they don’t know. Still, this is how I started out and if you can make 40% commission on a product and get free traffic, it’s all good! The question is “how”?

free traffic sources for clickbank

Free Traffic Sources For Clickbank

One of the first free traffic courses for Clickbank I used was Google. Google is a monster now but back in the early 2000’s it was much easier to get free Google traffic.

You can still use the same techniques I used back then. But you’ll need to do a better job of it because there’s so much more competition now and Google is far better at ‘weeding’ out poor quality affiliate websites which offer no value. So you’ll need to create some value.

Here’s the strategy I also share in my article Clickbank Trick in more depth.

Free Traffic Sources For Clickbank – A Niche Website

Yes a niche website is a website built around a very specific idea. If you also use a very specific keyword in your domain name, it can help you gain some more authority in Google’s eyes, although it doesn’t count for as much as it used to. I’ve used the keyword domain strategy a number of times for website clients, my own affiliate sites and for my own kung fu school! Each time I can definitely say it’s helped.

free traffic sources for clickbank

One photographer friend of mine landed a top placing in Google after I built a site for him, much to the dismay of the other longer-serving photographers in the area!

So keyword domains do work, but it also depends on your relative competition and of course the content on your site too. Since I’ve discussed this topic in my article Clickbank Trick, I’ll move on to the next strategy.

Free Traffic Sources For Clickbank – Building Your Site

Once you’ve got your niche website up and running, you’ll need some content for it. Using Google’s free keyword planner, you can type in your main “seed” keyword. This should give you a bunch of longer tail keywords within your niche. By scrolling to the least searched for items, and back to the most competitive ones, you should be able to find some long tail keywords which are relatively uncompetitive.

Write articles for as many of these as you can using the strategy I talk about in my ebook “Niche Blogging For Profit”.

free traffic sources for clickbank

Basically this involves finding the keywords in your niche which are less competitive than the others. With a keyword domain name, and some long tail keywords which are generated from the same keyword, your site should start ranking for one or two of these keywords.

I built this website around the keywords autopilot money making software. Read about the strategy I used in my article create free website and make money. It includes a variety of strategies you should implement on your niche website which will help you build free traffic sources for Clickbank products, should you choose the Clickbank route. Here’s a few of them:

  • Build your niche website
  • Create keyword targeted articles on it
  • Use anchor text linking to your keyword targeted articles (as above)
  • Put social share buttons on your site to encourage shares
  • Use a social media autopost plugin to automatically share your content when you publish it
  • Use post planner to share older articles on social media
  • Blog comment linking back to your content
  • Write articles off-site using hubpages and ezinearticles.com and link back to yours
  • Guest post on similar websites to your own

A Lot Of Work – Alternative Strategy?

This all sounds like a lot of work right? Yep it is! But we’re after free traffic and it’s worth putting in the work to get it because it can mean free sales. If you want to do it faster, paid traffic is the way to go. However, with paid traffic you take a larger risk of your capital. Especially with low value items like you’ll find on Clickbank it’s much harder to recoup your marketing budget and make a profit.

See PPC affiliate marketing for beginners for more on this strategy. Right now, we’ve got some more free traffic sources for Clickbank to get to!

YouTube – Yes Of Course

YouTube is the second largest search engine on the internet next to Google. It’s also less competitive than Google too. So it makes sense to use it if you’re a marketer selling Clickbank products.

A lot of people prefer YouTube to Google and do their research there instead of reading an article too. YouTube is competitive too but if you’re looking for free traffic sources for Clickbank products, you should definitely be on YouTube. YouTube can be used in a similar way to Google. You can create content and target long tail keywords in your video titles.

A good way to find your keywords is to start typing your “seed” keyword into the YouTube search bar. So if you’re Clickbank product was a fitness related one, for example, type “fitness videos” into the search bar. You should see a number of search ideas which are already popular underneath your search bar.

Another Example

Of course this is a massively competitive topic, so you’ll get a lot of competition. Let’s look at another example. Here’s a product I found on Clickbank which will be less competitive than a fitness product. This is a tool which coverts text into realistic speech.

Ideally, find a product which you can relate to and get behind. To get free traffic from YouTube, you’ll need to create a lot of content. So pick something you have an interest in so this step is easier for you.

Next head over to YouTube again and type in the main keywords. You should see something like this.

If you head to YouTube and type in these keywords, you’ll also see a few videos which have been created using the tool itself. So this can be a clever way to use the product to sell it too!

Free Traffic From Quora

Yes Quora can be a great little traffic source too and you can answer questions relating to your product, linking to your website content.

This takes some time and dedication and many people won’t purchase your product. But if you keep at it, you should see some traffic to your site and sales if you target the right questions.

Affiliate marketing on Quora is something to be approached carefully and you can’t link directly to your Clickbank or other affiliate products. But if you have created a niche website and some useful content, you can link to your content if you provide some useful content in your answer and the link is another resource which helps answer the question.

Like I said though this should be done with care. Read their terms and conditions and don’t spam the site or you’ll just lose your account and your answers will be deleted.

Facebook Free Traffic

Here’s another little strategy I’ve used to get free traffic from Facebook.

Set up your profile so you have an obvious image of your product in your profile which links to either your website, an email capture page or directly to your product. Here’s one I’ve used in my featured profile picture. It leads to a landing page (click image to see).

free traffic sources for clickbank

Once you’ve done this, find groups on Facebook which you can join and interact with people who are interested in your particular topic. So if you’re promoting a product to do with stamp collecting, search for groups which are a good match. Use the search bar at the top of Facebook to find the groups and join them.

free traffic sources for clickbank

Again, you need to abide by the rules of each group and you can’t go spamming your affiliate link or you’ll get banned by most. But you can interact and find other people with similar interests. Join in the chat and make friends, help people with problems and get busy in the groups. Again this is a slow strategy at first but over time you should see some traction if you take it seriously and work at it.

See also get traffic to your website free!

Clickbank Autopilot

There’s a couple of main strategies you can use to create a “Clickbank autopilot” system:

  • One is through using paid marketing: set up banner adverts and/or use PPC (pay per click) marketing campaigns
  • and the other is through organic marketing.

One of the first strategies I used (and got one of my first online sales from) was from a niche website. Building a niche website is much more time consuming than using paid marketing however. There’s no guarantee it will work and it will take some time! Sounds tempting right! Read about this strategy in my article “Clickbank Trick“.

clickbank autopilot

If you’re successful with this strategy you’ll get free traffic from Google and the other search engines. It takes time to build up your site and for it to rank too. Plus you will need to create a website and put some content up on it. All of this takes time and it’s a slow process.

Clickbank Autopilot

Paid marketing on the other hand is much quicker. You can place an advert and start getting traffic almost immediately. There’s lot of paid marketing platforms you can use such as:

  • Google Adwords
  • Bing
  • Facebook
  • YouTube

Some of these can be rather expensive however so it’s a good idea to use the cheaper platforms like Bing and Adwords. Another good tip is to choose recurring commission affiliate products rather than those which only pay you once. With a recurring income product you can make a greater return and therefore there’s more advertising scope available to you.

Another strategy is to use banner adverts on popular websites within your niche. Use a site called buysellads.com and find a suitable category which matches that of your products.

clickbank autopilot

Once you’ve found a website or two which are a good match for your Clickbank product/s, place a banner advert on it. Banners cost between $10-$20 for a month and can be placed on high traffic websites. Test and measure your results and make sure you track each banner individually so you can determine which adverts work the best.

Clickbank Autopilot Paid Advertising

There’s a limitation with using paid advertising with Clickbank too. Many Clickbank products pay out only once and are priced at around $100. This leaves you a very small margin for a return on your investment. If you make $40 on a sale, you’ll need to spend less than that to turn a profit. Hence why I mentioned earlier that using recurring commission products is a good idea.

To find these head over to Clickbank Engine. Scroll down the left hand margin and you’ll see listed those products on Clickbank which pay out recurring commissions.

See below at the bottom left of the image where it says “CB Recurring”.

clickbank autopilot

Placing Multiple Adverts

The job of an affiliate is to find ways to sell products by testing and measuring different strategies. The fastest way to do this, and ultimately automate your Clickbank sales, is to use paid marketing. Banner adverts are a cheap way to start with this. You can also use solo ads too.

Solo ad sellers are email list owners who sell you the ability to promote to their lists of subscribers. With a solo advert you can reach a large database of subscribers quickly and cheaply. However, not all of your campaigns will result in sales. It’s up to you to test different strategies and find out which ones work the best.

This often costs more money in the first instance, as you test out different methods. Over time though if you stick with it, you can find the lucrative strategies and just leave them running while building new ones. This is when you have attained the “Clickbank autopilot” goal and you can simply rinse and repeat the strategy over and over.

Using High Value Products

The main problem with selling Clickbank products is the ROI (return on investment) is usually pretty low. So you’ll need to find a number of low cost marketing strategies which work before you break the bank. This can be tricky and it’s expensive to test and measure paid advertising.

With a product range and a number of high value digital products this can be less of a challenge. You can also use high ticket recurring income products too which give you a much higher return on your investment. This makes it easier and quicker to run paid advertising and return a profit.

Of course these kinds of products are more expensive than Clickbank products. With Clickbank you can sell products which you don’t even buy. This is a double edged sword though and affiliates have given themselves a bad rap due to spammy and “slack” practices with only the sale in mind. It’s always good practice if you’re venturing into affiliate marketing to lead with value and have a good moral compass.

For more training on affiliate marketing and other online business ventures, click on the banner below to access a free webinar.

clickbank autopilot

Clickbank Trick

Here’s a little Clickbank trick which anyone can use to sell their products on Clickbank almost for free. In involves targeting long tail keywords and building niche websites. One of my first sales came from Clickbank and it was a keyword targeted domain which allowed me to make an almost free sale (bar the domain and hosting cost).

First find a product which you want to promote on Clickbank. You can also use other affiliate products too. Ideally it would be something in an area you have an interest or some knowledge in, but it’s not absolutely necessary. I chose shed plans and went for a “build your own shed” niche.

You can also start out with your keywords first but it’s a good idea to find a product which is already selling. See Clickbank for dummies for more on using Clickbank.

Clickbank Trick – Choosing A Keyword For Your Website

Once you have chosen a product from Clickbank, head over to Google’s free keyword planner and type in your “seed” keywords. This should be two or more keywords which best describe your product, or the niche it is in.

Click on the arrow to the left of the average (Avg.) monthly searches box above the numbers.

clickbank trick

You should then get the less searched for monthly terms which offer much less competition on Google for your keyword. They usually are also the long tail keywords. Scroll through them and pick out something which you can build your site around.

clickbank affiliate marketing trick

These long tail keywords can be articles you can put on your niche website but you can also use these to choose a keyword to target in your domain name. The domain I bought for this keyword was tedssheds.net and I managed to float it to the top of Google and make sales from the site. Ideally choose a keyword targeted domain which encompasses many of the other keywords you’ll find when doing your research. “Shed Plans” for example would be a good keyword to build the site around, using this example. A quick search on Google though shows this keyword to be too competitive.

clickbank trick

So you might keep searching until you find a keyword which is much less competitive. Here’s one which is far less competitive.

clickbank affiliate marketing trick

Clickbank Trick – Purchase Domain

Choosing your keyword is the most difficult part of this process so it’s worth taking some time over it. Ideally you want a keyword which covers a broad range of your topic and which makes a good fit for your product. So if Clickbank offers a 12×9 shed plans product, this might work. If not, back to the keyword planner to look for another one.

clickbank products

Here’s another keyword in the same area with more scope and potential: “outdoor shed blueprints”. This might be better since it is less specific than 12×9 shed plans which doesn’t allow for more posts in related areas.

Once you have found your keyword it’s time to head over to Namecheap and purchase your domain name.

purchase domain name
buy domain name

Outdoorshedblueprints.com is available so this might be a good one to purchase.

Build Your Niche Website

You can see how to build your website in my article create free website and make money. Once you have chosen your keyword and purchased your domain you’ll need to set up a hosting account. I use Hostgator to do this which only costs a small amount every month.

Once you are set up with your WordPress website, you’re ready to start creating some content. What do you write about? Take a look at the keyword planner again which will give you a bunch of content ideas for your site. Ideally choose the long tail keywords with the least competition and which relate most closely to your product. See about finding low competition long tail keywords.

Showcase Your Product

You really want to showcase your product to every visitor who hits your website. You can do this with a pop up or put it on the header of all your pages. You also want to capture your visitors emails with an email capture page. Find something you can offer them for free (like an ebook or free plans) so you can get their details.

Once you have their email you can send them updates and showcase your product over a longer duration. It’s much more difficult to sell a product in the short time someone visits your website. Once you get their email you can extend the time period with which they can make a buying decision.

Are You Serious About Making Money Online?

I started out using a Clickbank trick like this to sell Clickbank products. I later learned about selling recurring commission affiliate products and high ticket products. It made all the different and things changed rapidly. Google is a tough nut to crack and there’s no guarantees with it. There are far faster ways to get traction with your affiliate marketing or online business. Access a free webinar (click banner below) and find out how you can make your first 10K online.

clickbank trick

Why Blogging Is A Waste Of Time

There’s a few reasons why blogging is a waste of time. On the whole, most people don’t get the traction they really want from a blog and there’s a few reasons for that. Mostly they just don’t keep going long enough, they give up too easily or they don’t write for their audience or share their content to the right people.

Blogging is tough too and it’s a long term strategy. Some blog for fun but many blog as a business lead generating tool for their existing businesses. If you’re blogging to make money online through affiliate marketing, you’ll have a lot of competition out there. There’s many niches out there too for blogging. Depending on what individual niche you go for, the level of difficulty will vary. But there’s other things at play too, and many of them passed me by for years.

Is Blogging A Waste Of Time – Why Blog?

If you’re blogging for fun it’s never a waste of time because you enjoy it. But if you’re planning on making money from a blog, you can spend a huge amount of time blogging and not get very far. Anyone can build a blog and that’s part of the problem. There’s literally millions of blogs out there in all kinds of subject areas. To make money from a blog you need to blog in a certain way.

I blogged for a long, long time and nothing happened. That’s because I was writing for myself and not my audience. I didn’t get my posts in front of the right people. It was part for myself that I wrote a blog and part to learn how to blog too. But ultimately I wanted to make money from my blog and this proved difficult for a long time.

why blogging is a waste of time

The main problem when you are a beginner in blogging is that you don’t know what you don’t know. I thought naively that I could post an article and people would see it immediately! I sat back, folded my arms behind my head and waited for the money to come rolling in. But nothing happened. No one could see my posts because I didn’t promote them.

I assumed Google was going to rank my posts because (in my eyes) they were so awesome! But whenever you hand over responsibility for something, nothing happens. You know what they say about assume too – it makes an “ass” out of you and me!

Why Blogging Is A Waste Of Time – It Isn’t

Blogging isn’t a waste of time. No it’s most definitely not. Checkout some blog statistics here. But it can be a very frustrating experience, especially if you don’t do it in a certain way. When I started writing blogs I wrote for me and not my audience. I didn’t know who my audience was even and just assumed they were me. So I wrote for the “me” who hadn’t yet learned what I had.

The problem was I didn’t get ranked on Google and I didn’t share my content. Partly because I didn’t know how to share it, or where, but also I was a little shy about putting myself out there. So I just wrote content and posted it off to the abyss of internet cyberspace.

why blogging is a waste of time

After months of blogging and no real traffic or sales to show for it, it’s easy to give up! But I was curious about blogging and after all I enjoyed it and it seemed like a cheap way to generate sales online. But it wasn’t cheap because it had already cost me hundreds of hours with no results!

No, the main problem for me was that I didn’t know how to write a blog that got traction. You don’t know what you don’t know. So I carried on for months without changing my strategy and paid for my naivety in the cost of time.

Why Blogging Is A Waste Of Time – Get More Traction From Your Blogging

Of course it all starts with quality. Without quality in your writing, you’re not going to get people to read your content. They won’t like and share it (get social media plugins for this), and they will click away if they even find your content. This adds another signal to Google who will mark it down in the SERPS – search engine results page.

With a quality post which helps your target audience, people will read and share it. They may even subscribe to your email list, if you have one. This is a good signal for Google who will give your content more credit when it comes to the search engines.

Why Blogging Is A Waste Of Time If You Don’t Share Your Posts

I used to just publish post after post without thinking of sharing them. I lacked confidence too which was partly why I wanted to hide away. But after a long time of not getting anywhere with blogging I started building an audience through email marketing and sharing my posts there.

You can also find groups on Facebook in your subject area and share to the groups. Use article marketing sites like Ezinearticles.com to write more content and link back to your existing content. I used Ezinearticles, Hubpages and other free blog sites to link back to my content.

I now use an article sharing plugin which automatically shares my posts throughout my social media accounts. Social share buttons also help make it easy for others to share you content too. Postplanner is another software I use and that lets you queue up old content and post it regularly on social media accounts.

Keyword Targeted Niche Websites

I worked for a long time on my main site here. For some reason I definitely got penalised by Google and couldn’t find my site for even my name! Despite putting several years into blogging on this site, (on and off), it just wasn’t getting anywhere! So I started a new blog site and built a site around specific keywords in the hope they would help me rank the site.

You can read about the building of this site in my article Create Free Website and Earn Money. This is also a good strategy (that link); “deep link” to your older article titles through your new content. It’s a signal to Google about keyword relevancy and what you want those titles to rank for on Google. Deep linking just means linking in your own content to your other content with a keyword focused backlink.

Affiliate Links In Your Blog Posts

Google’s not a fan of affiliate links. The Google SERP’s (search engine results page) have thousands of criteria for ranking content on it’s results page. No-one knows exactly how they do it. For a long time, you could write an article and get a listing on the first page back when there was little or no competition. But times have changed and now there’s thousands of pages of content for nearly every topic you can think of. Plus, Google has massively improved their search algorithms over the years.

why blogging is a waste of time

So throwing up a small website with one page on it is near impossible to have any effect on the search results nowadays. You can’t “trick” Google either so don’t bother to try. Instead give Google what they want – quality content. Write for people not the search “bots”.

Use Links Sparingly

Affiliate links are ok to put in your posts. However, Google knows when you do this and it has a bearing on how it perceives your content. For a long time I was in a rush. I was in a rush to make money through blogging. So I would throw up a post and stick a load of affiliate links in it. It wasn’t complete crap but it was close. I was just learning really but I suspect this had a bearing on why my site disappeared for a while.

So when I built this site, I used affiliate links much more sparingly. For a good while I didn’t use them at all. I just created content I thought would be useful to people. Before long this site was getting more traffic than my old site which had hundreds of posts on it.

Of course there’s many factors at play here too. But I’m sure this one thing is pretty powerful. If you write with the intention to sell something, Google knows it. If you write with the intention of helping people, they know it too! So write quality posts and focus on giving not getting, because Google is watching!

Start With Why – Why Start A Blog

Some people blog for fun. Others use it to generate free traffic to their business. Still, others use it as the sole source of traffic for an online business – to make money. If your intention is to make money from a blog, it’s easy to put the cart before the horse. The main problem here is if money is the main intention, why would people visit your blog? Does the content you offer them draw them in or put them off? Are you genuinely trying to help them, or just link to affiliate products. Be honest. Is your blog offering any real value to anyone?

I like to use the example of Martin Lewis’s website Moneysavingexpert.com. This is an extremely successful website which works because it helps people genuinely with their problems. It’s also an affiliate website.

Check Your Intention For Each Post And Write For Your Audience Not For Yourself

It’s nice writing a blog because you’re in charge. I suspect many bloggers waste time writing blog posts and don’t get the readership they deserve or would like because of this fact. Blogging can be a tool to get your thoughts out. Not everyone writes a blog to make money or even to build a huge following. Some just write because they enjoy it.

This is a good thing but if you want to also make money from the thing you enjoy, you’ll need to focus on your audience and not yourself. WIIFM? What’s in it for me? People have busy lives so why would they spend half an hour reading your blog post? They have a problem they want to solve and your blog posts should solve problems for people. If they are nothing than a cathartic exercise, or an ego trip, they will do nothing for your audience and you’ll never get the traction you need to make sales from it.

Why blogging is a waste of time? Blogging can be a waste of time when you’re doing it with the intention of selling affiliate products – solely for self interest. There’s lots of ways to find people for your products other than blogging, so why blog? To make your blog posts serve you and acquire leads and make sales, focus on the people you want to help with your products.

The “Avatar” Of Your Perfect Customer

Maybe you’ve heard of the term customer avatar. I always ignored this massively important concept but it cost me dearly. I wrote what I wanted and about the topics I was interested in. What I forgot to do was to think about my customer avatar.

The customer “avatar” is your perfect customer. It’s the person who’s problems you’re going to solve both with your content and your affiliate products. This isn’t “you” anymore because you’ve moved on since you were that person. If you’ve built a successful business, for example, after finding online coaching programs to help you; you’ve solved a major pain and problem in your life.

Your problem might have been not having a second source of income, or working in a job you hate. But now you’re working on your blog and promoting programs or courses which can help people. The only trouble is you’re talking about things they don’t understand in your blog, like customer avatar!

Blogging And Ikigi

why blogging is a waste of time

Ikigai is a Japanese term which means “reason for being”. I didn’t know my Ikigai when I started blogging. I was just wanting an income so I could pursue other avenues. But that was all backwards. I should have been pursuing what I loved within my blogging!

One of my mistakes/learnings was creating a blog about a topic I had zero interest in just for the money. I found a keyword which had a number of monthly views and little competition. So I built a blog around that keyword. It was “When To Harvest Mushrooms”. My site did at one point rank at the very top of Google for this keyword. Whoop de do! It made zero money and was pretty difficult to monetise. I had to work doubly hard on all my posts because I knew nothing about the topic. Each article I wrote was a massive chose as I had to research everything.

Eventually I ran out of steam because I was so uninterested in the topic. Another (better) blog took over top place and mine fell down the rankings eventually to page 2 of Google. I dropped the site eventually but it taught me a lesson – don’t pursue a blog you have no interest in. See also best micro niche for blogging.

Blogging Is Slow – PPC Is Fast

If you’re thinking of starting a blog, but really want an online business, pay per click advertising is far faster. See PPC affiliate marketing for beginners. If you don’t have the patience for blogging there’s many other ways to generate traction with an online business besides a blog. Many people who are new to affiliate marketing don’t want to blog. So what are the alternatives?

  • PPC – Direct Response – is fast but more expensive than blogging
  • Social media marketing – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Linkedin etc. can all be used for marketing purposes
  • YouTube is a less competitive platform than Google SERPS – but still has a massive following

The trouble with paid advertising is it is expensive and you’re going to have to spend money while learning. I think of blogging in the same way only it’s your time which you’re spending not your money. So if you’re time poor use PPC and if your money poor or time rich, use blogging or other free strategies.

See also top ways to generate website traffic for free.

BackLinking To Your Blog Posts

Of the many signals Google uses to rate your blog and rank it, (or not), in the search engines, links are up there. Quality should be the primary goal when you write a blog post. If you write quality posts they should stand the test of time. People will naturally share and like them and you should get a natural link profile over time as other bloggers link to your content.

Linking is something I never really did, again to my detriment. It involved countless hours of guest writing, blog commenting, forum posting and writing more articles on article marketing sites. I did a little of it, but just didn’t have the patience for it. As time went on and I built a few blogs, I was able to link to my older content in my newer posts.

Links tell Google something about your content – who is linking to you, the keywords they use to link and the time over which your link profile is built. You domain age is of course a factor too. A new site can’t usually rank as highly as one which has lots more links is older, and has more authority for the same keywords. But saying that all content will drop off over time, however good it is.

Blogging – A Waste Of Time?

If you’re frustrated with your blog, perhaps it’s worth reevaluating your marketing strategy. Use some PPC or shift to something else. But do blogging too! Blogging is a slow burner for a business but it isn’t a waste of time. It can take months or even years to generate traction with a blog. But once it starts working you’ll want to go back to it. Free traffic leads and sales means you’re making 100% profit on your products and not spending a penny on advertising.

At the start it can be super frustrating. But keep going and just do something little every day. Over time you’ll have a heap of content and if you stick long enough free traffic too.

Blogging is definitely not a waste of time. But it is a long term strategy. If you’re hoping to get fast results and you’re impatient, I wouldn’t recommend it. Do something else instead!

is blogging a waste of time

Promote Clickbank Products For Free

You can promote Clickbank products for free in a few different ways. I discussed previously Clickbank in my article Clickbank for dummies where I mentioned using subscription or recurring commission product.

Recurring commission affiliate products are a game changer when it comes to affiliate programs. With free marketing strategies they are definitely recommended because free strategies tend to take longer and are easily less scalable than paid marketing strategies.

In this article I’m going to discuss some simple strategies you can use to promote Clickbank products for free. You can of course apply these strategies to other affiliate products too!

Promote Clickbank Products For Free – A Niche Website

The first strategy I’m going to mention is niche website building. Building a niche website is a great way to get some traction in your affiliate business. I’ve discussed niche website building in depth in my article create free website and make money.

The main strategy I’ve used involves building a niche website around certain topic or keyword phrase. Before you start, it’s a good idea to find a product you can get behind. Don’t skip this important step because it can cost you later.

escape 9 to 5

Make sure the product you choose has some longevity because you’ll be building your site around it. The last thing you want is your program to fold after spending months building a website or channel around it.

Also choose a product which you can align with somehow. You need to know a little about it too in order to build content around it. Choose a niche which you are interested in or have a passion for. See best micro niche for blogging for some help. You can build a micro niche website around a specific keyword, which can help it gain some traction. As you can see, this site has been built around specific keywords which helps it rank on Google. Free traffic is your ultimately goal with a niche website and this can be tricky.

Promote Clickbank Products For Free – Blogging

Whether you opt for a niche website or not, blogging can be a great free strategy to promote your Clickbank products. You can build a cheap niche website for very little and it’s well worth doing so. Although not completely free, it’s far better than using free blog sites. Google will be much more likely to give your website credit in the search engines if you own the domain.

You can of course go the completely free route if money is very tight. This involves choosing a free blogging platform such as Blogger.com or Hubpages.com. Then, build out your content and share it via social media as much as possible. The more content you can create and get people to, the more likely you will be to sell your products through your content.

Promote Clickbank Products For Free – Targeting

It’s very easy to create a bunch of content, not see any results and give up! Blogging is a slow, laborious process and it takes time to build up your content and get it seen. Once you have built a lot of content, that content is an asset and can be used to generate traffic and sales. If you stick at it you should see a slow steady increase in your traffic and sales. But there’s a few ways you can speed up this process:

  • Build a List – An email list can increase your sales dramatically
  • Target your content at the right people – Ideally they already want your product before they find you
  • Put a call to action on each blog post – Link to your product many times
  • Create authority – When you are seen as an authority in your niche, people are more likely to trust your opinion and buy from your site.
  • Focus on the benefits not features of your products – People care about WIIFM – “what’s in it for me?” Don’t lose them by talking about features and stick to benefit driven call to actions on your site.

List Building

List building is a must for affiliate marketers. You can get free autoresponders (list building software) but I recommend paying something for one because the free ones tend to be more troublesome. Here’s the one I use.

promote clickbank products for free

If you’re determined to succeed as an affiliate marketer, it’s probably the best investment you can make. However much content you build your visitors can always just leave and never return. So on your blog, they only have a small window of opportunity to click on your affiliate link and make a purchase. Once gone they are gone forever.

By building an email list of subscribers you extend this time period dramatically. You can keep in touch with your subscribers for months, weeks and even years and decades.

Targeting Your Content At The Right People

Your content should be very focused content which targets the right “buyer” traffic. “Buyer” traffic is the kind of traffic which coverts into sales.

A review site, for example makes for a very targeted site because people look for reviews just before buying something. Your content should attract the right kind of people to your website. If it doesn’t you’re unlikely to make many sales. See why is target market important.

With a blog or niche website, you’ll be creating a lot of content around your chosen topic, which is reflected by the product you choose. So choose a product which you would buy yourself. That way your content will be easier to create and you are more likely to attract your kind of people to your content.

Links (Or Call To Action) On Each Blog Post

An easy way to do this is by placing a banner advert on each post you write. You can also link within your text to the product from Clickbank which you choose to promote. Ideally do this throughout your content. Some people will only see a certain post and not look through the others. So a clear call to action at the bottom of each article you write is a good idea.

Give your readers every opportunity to find the product you are promoting.

Create Authority + List Build + Benefits Not Features

A good way to create authority and build a list is by creating your own ebook. People like to download things from a website so they can read them at a more suitable time. So use an ebook you have created to create some authority on your site and also lead people into your email list at the same time.

promote clickbank products for free

In your posts, it can be easy to talk about the features of your products. “This products has so many videos, there’s lots of members, etc.” Stick to the point in your copy since most people are too busy to read all this.

All they want to know is what’s in it for them? What can your product do for them? These are the benefits NOT the features. A good product should need you to do much actual “selling” anyway. You just need to create the content around it and let your visitors find the sales pages and checkout pages which are usually already done for you.

Create A YouTube Channel To Sell Your Clickbank Products

A YouTube channel is one of the best ways to sell a Clickbank (or any affiliate products) for free. However, it does take time and effort like all free strategies. Ideally choose a product you can create some videos around somehow. You should be able to create many videos over several months.

Ideally one every day over a long period of time. initially, this is slow much like blogging. But if you stick at it and create some useful content regularly, you should see visitors and clicks slowly increasing over time.
As you get better at it, you should start asking your visitors to subscribe to your channel. That way they’ll be notified of any videos you post.

You can recommend products directly through your videos or have links within your channel. Your products must in some way relate to your videos. Again, much like blogging this is a long term project. YouTube has millions of channels and videos so you’re got a lot of competition. However, it is still less competitive than blogging so if you’re prepared to put the work in it can be a winner!

Facebook

Facebook can be used to generate traffic to a website or YouTube channel. Or you can just send people directly to your affiliate product on Clickbank. To use Facebook for free to generate leads takes a little more preparation than using the paid platform. But it’s free!

First, set up your profile so that it’s easy for people to see your offer. Place your ebook cover or marketing banner on your profile feature image. I have my ebook here so people can access it when they browse my profile. Also clean your profile up so it looks fairly straight forward and professional.

promote clickbank products for free

Join Groups Through Facebook

Facebook has a number of groups in all kinds of topics and niches. Join many groups in your particular niche. Think about who would be interested in your topic or products and find groups which are suitable.

promote clickbank products for free

Don’t spam these groups with your links, but connect with other people and spend some time in the groups getting to know the rules. Genuinely try and help people with their problems and comment and be useful. Facebook has strict rules about spamming and you’ll get kicked out if you do it. So take a little time and get to know what’s what in each group. Eventually you should connect, make friends and be able to use Messenger to talk to people in the groups.

People will visit your profile and find your product. Again, as with all of these “promote Clickbank products for free” strategies, this takes time, patience and effort.

Clickbank For Dummies

Here’s a “Clickbank for dummies” overview of the Clickbank marketplace and a couple of ways to promote Clickbank products. See also Clickbank autopilot money making software for more on this topic.

You can also download this article in PDF format here.

Clickbank is a great place for affiliate marketers to start out. If you choose a good program, ideally with recurring income built in, and a good marketing strategy, you can get some traction.

For starters you’ll need a Clickbank account which you can join for free. Head over to Clickbank and open an account.

clickbank for dummies

Clickbank For Dummies

Once you’ve opened an account you should choose a product to promote. You can do this by heading over to the the Clickbank marketplace. You should find the marketplace tab at the very top of your Clickbank dashboard when you log in to your account. You can see in the image below “marketplace” is the third in from the left. Click on that tab and it’ll take you there.

clickbank for dummies

Once in the marketplace you can browse through many products. Ideally choose a product which you have an interest in. You can also browse products by using categories on the left hand side of the page. (see image below).

clickbank for dummies

Once you’ve chosen a category you can sort the products by “gravity”. “Gravity” is the number of products which are being sold every week. SO the higher the number the more of that particular product is selling.

With a low gravity of less than 20, for example, the product may be unproven, so it’s more of a risk to attempt to sell it. With a popular product with a gravity of 400+, you’ll likely have a lot of competition in terms of content generation, if that’s how you choose to promote your product. More on this later. Ideally, choose a gravity somewhere between 50 and 250+ to give you the most chance of making sales.

clickbank for dummies

Clickbank For Dummies – Clickbank Engine

Clickbank engine is a website which you can use to help you find good products to promote on Clickbank. It can help you sort out which products to chose based on topic (niche) and a number of other relevant categories such as gravity and recurring commissions. Recurring commission affiliate programs are far better than regular ones because you can earn an income much more quickly from them. They pay you over and over again from membership sales. So you’ll receive a monthly recurring income from sales rather than a single commission.

clickbank engine

Clickbank For Dummies – Promote Clickbank Products For Free

There’s several ways you can promote Clickbank products as an affiliate marketer. Two simple strategies are through using a blog or creating a YouTube channel. You can also build a niche website around your topic too. Create content around the products you have chosen and post it on YouTube or on your website.

This is why it’s important to choose products which you align with. If you choose a product you are not interested in, it’s far more difficult to create content around your niche. See also micro niche affiliate marketing.

One of my favourite ways of promoting affiliate products online is through building a niche website by targeting specific keywords. See how to create a free website and make money using this strategy.

Creating A Blog To Sell Your Products

Having a blog is one of the simplest and cheapest ways to promote affiliate products. With a blog, your goal is to draw traffic (visitors) to you via your content and then offer your Clickbank or other affiliate products through your content. You can do this by using affiliate links within your content, placing banners on your site and building an email list and getting your visitors to subscribe to it.

niche blogging for profit

A blog only works though if you create good content and get eyes on it. You also need to carefully align your content with the products you are promoting. So your content should be a good match for customers of your product. A good way to do this is with a review website. If you look on Google for your affiliate product, you’ll probably see a number of reviews for it – particularly with Clickbank. If you can find a product with less competition, you can more easily get your content to rank highly for its main keywords.

Reviews are great because they usually draw in potential customers looking to purchase something. The key is to write some great content and get Google to rank it at the top of the search engine. You can also promote your content through social media and other channels too. But ultimately you want it to rank on Google so you get free traffic.

Creating A Channel On YouTube

YouTube is another great way to generate content and lead people to your affiliate products. Once you’ve created a YouTube account, you can post videos which you have made and lead people through your links to affiliate products. Again you need to gain the attention of potential customers, not just random people. So you’ll need to create useful content around your chosen topic or niche.

Use the search bar in YouTube to find keyword variations which match your particular niche. Type into the search bar the first few keywords which relate to your products or niche. You’ll see a bunch of keyword ideas which relate to popular searches already being made on the site. Create YouTube videos and target these keywords within your titles and descriptions. (see example in image below).

youtube search queries

For more information on making money over the internet checkout this free webinar and book your place today. Click on the banner below to start:

Legal Loopholes To Make Money

Are there any legal loopholes to make money? After a number of dead end jobs I asked this question. I knew there had to be a way to earn money legally from the internet, without having to trade time for money continuously in low paid jobs.

I tried a number of online earning strategies including:

  • eBay – buying and selling
  • Forex marketing
  • Selling my own digital products
  • Affiliate marketing

After a lot of disappointment with working various strategies and taking a number of online courses, I eventually found a business model that worked.

Legal Loopholes To Make Money – Affiliate Marketing

Out of the many “legal loopholes to make money” which I found working online, affiliate marketing was the best. The more money you have, the more opportunities you have. Forex marketing is a challenge when you have nothing! There’s a saying in trading “scared money is lost money”.

This means if you’re trading with money you can’t afford to lose, you’re much more likely to lose it because you’re emotionally attached to it and nervous about losing it. This affects your trading decisions and you can no longer make good decisions. This was definitely the case for me too. So I switched gears and decided to opt out of Forex trading and look for something else.

legal loopholes to make money

After trying a number of strategies and attempting to sell my own ebooks online, I found affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing you can promote and sell other people’s products over the internet. You don’t need to own any products or even handle products or customers personally. You’re simply a third party referrer of customers to products online. Of the many “legal loopholes to make money” I’d found, this was the one I stuck with.

Affiliate Marketing – Business Models

legal loopholes to make money

But before you rush off and learn affiliate marketing, a word of caution. There’s many different affiliate marketing products and services which you can choose from. I made plenty of mistakes in affiliate marketing before finding a strategy which worked. Getting the right education and help is definitely up there with the top priorities I would suggest to people now. I went it alone for years and got lost down various rabbit holes. Here’s a few simple mistakes to avoid:

  • Shiny object syndrome – jumping from course to course looking for the “easiest” solution with the biggest promises
  • Being a busy fool – Working hard on the wrong activities which don’t move your business forwards or choosing your favourite activities
  • Getting caught in learning mode – spending all your time learning and no taking appropriate action steps to move your business forwards
  • Overwhelm – information overload can easily put you off and overwhelm you. As a result productivity ceases and procrastination sets in.

It’s also worth noting the rates of commissions paid by the various affiliate programs. Some products, typically physical products pay far less than digital products. So the same amount of work can amount to far more reward depending on the products you choose. Digital products for example pay out 40%+ to affiliates. Whereas physical products tend to pay out far less: 1-11% typically.

Have a look at the image below which shows rates from Amazon’s partner program

How Is Affiliate Marketing A Legal Loophole?

Affiliate marketing is a legal loophole for anyone wanting to learn how not to trade time for money. For many, making money is an arduous task which takes more than it gives. In a typical job, when you stop working, you stop getting paid. But affiliate marketing is different because you can benefit from the use of automation and a global audience to generate an income.

You don’t need your own products or even need to speak to customers. The main thing you do need to do is learn the strategies for making sales online. At first affiliate marketing can seem quite tough. But if you stick with it, you’ll be able to automate the sales you can generate and create more time and financial freedom, without working any harder for it.

It does take time and effort to earn from affiliate marketing, but eventually it can completely replace your existing income.

You can access a free webinar to learn more by clicking the banner below.

legal loopholes to make money

Autopilot Blogging

Autopilot blogging suggests some automated crawl and paste “bot” which creates content for you while you do nothing. While you can automate building out a blog post by getting in guest writers, I didn’t do that myself. You can also throw up content which has been shared on article writing sites such as EzineArticles.com.

There’s also software which lets you “spin” articles and re-hash them. However, as Google gets better at spotting these kinds of “spun” articles, they become worth less and less over time. I never wanted this kind of stuff on my website. I wanted to learn how to blog and for my blogs to eventually work for me, because I did the hard work already!

Autopilot Blogging – Blogging Should Be Fun

Blogging is hard work. It takes a long time for Google to reward you for blogging and give you some placement in the search rankings. When this happens, it can be glorious.

It’s still a work in progress for me, as it is for everyone I believe. When you stop creating content, Google notices. Your content slowly slides down the search rankings and eventually you disappear!

autopilot blogging

I’ve experienced this happen many times. It’s far easier to give up at this point rather than look at it as a learning exercise.

One site I built was around the mushroom harvesting niche! I knew nothing about mushrooms or harvesting them when I came up with this idea for a niche website. But I was keen to make money from a blog somehow and I had found a keyword which I thought was easy to rank a site for, and had enough search traffic to make it worth my while. See create free website earn money for more on this strategy.

When Blogging Works

Autopilot blogging works best after you’ve spent months and years creating content and sharing it to your audience. Google knows who puts in the work and who doesn’t. So I personally don’t recommend outsourcing your writing content. If you don’t want to write, why use blogging as a platform? There’s plenty of other strategies available to earn money online.

Ideally blog around your passions not to make money. Focusing on the money first is like putting the card before the horse. Let me explain. I used to focus on how great it would be making money online. My blogging reflected this and I made no money. When I turned my attention to the aspects of online business/self development which I truly loved, the money came. The reason I believe is because working on something you love is easy. Working entirely for the monetary gain is hard work and unsustainable.

Autopilot Blogging – Ikigai

I’ve mentioned Ikigai in my post on the best micro niche for blogging. It means “reason for being” and can be summed up as the intersection of your passions, interests and vocation – how you make money.

Going back to my blog on mushroom harvesting for a second; I failed with it because I had no interest in mushroom harvesting. I put the cart before the horse and focused on making money.

I built the site but it was terribly labour intensive. I couldn’t sustain my interest past 6 months or so of blogging. Each post I wrote had to be thoroughly researched since I didn’t know the subject. Eventually I fell off the rankings and another more passionate blogger took first place.

It was hard to let that site go but I had to drop it eventually. It taught me a valuable lesson: blogging shouldn’t be such hard work. I realised I should choose topics which I loved to write about. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to sustain my interest for long enough.

Monetising A Blog

Once a blog has plenty of content and visitors on it, you should be able to monetise it with Google Adsense or affiliate products. I use affiliate products because Adsense didn’t really take off for me. I didn’t get enough traffic for Adsense when I started out and my bigger successes came from selling other people’s products (affiliate marketing).

autopilot blogging

To monetise a blog, offer a giveaway product on your site and collect your subscribers email. Then follow up with a series of email messages offering value and promoting products which may be of value to your subscribers.

As your audience grows over time, you should see more and more people opting into your email list, on autopilot. To get to this stage takes time. At first you may not see any opt ins. Only about 1-3% of your visitors will opt in and it will also depend on how targeted your audience is and how well you have optimised your opt-in offer. See how to increase opt in rate on your e-commerce website.

When Your Blog Makes Money

When your blog starts making money it’s a wonderful experience. This doesn’t happen straight away. At least it didn’t for me. My sales were always very sporadic and it took time for my blog to generate any money. I went through times where I nearly gave up too. But a blog is always there to come back to if you keep at it. Rest; don’t give up!

If you keep at it for long enough, and find a good product which suits your writing style and subject matter, Google will eventually reward you and give you a ranking. Don’t wait for this to happen though. Get busy sharing your content and creating new content. It can take years for Google to rank your content, so don’t hold your breath!

But when you see someone opting it to your email list, and purchasing a product, it all become clear why you kept at it for so long. Blog income is 100% profit! At least once you’ve considered your hosting and your domain purchase etc.; a blog is a pretty cheap way to advertise.

Blogging Versus Paid Marketing

Blogging is definitely a long term marketing strategy. If you have the money, I’d suggest using paid marketing as well or instead if you don’t want to use a blog. With paid marketing you can set it up and leave it running. Paid marketing is better if you don’t have time, but have income. Blogging is better if you enjoy it and you have the time to do it.

With paid marketing you can get instant traffic. However, you’ll probably fail a number of times with it too. A marketing mindset though knows that money spent on marketing is never waster so long as you track all your adverts. Once you learn which strategies work and which don’t, you can focus you budget more effectively.

Blogging is similar only with time rather than money. You can spend a lot of time blogging and much of you content might come to nothing. But over time you’ll find what you enjoy writing about and how to promote your content for the best outcome.

The paid marketer burns through cash learning a strategy to scale up. A blogger spends time crafting content which they can leverage to generate leads and sales. The strategy you choose will determine how long it takes to make money with affiliate marketing.

Autopilot Blogging – What It Should Mean

Autopilot blogging might refer to automating content generation on a blog. However, I don’t recommend using automation or even paying a writer to create a blog for you. If you’re not into blogging, find another strategy to make money online.

Blogging is a long term strategy and if you spend money and time on it that you don’t enjoy, it will often be reflected in your content. “Autopilot blogging” for me means finding subjects which I’m passionate about and can write about easily and frequently. That way, it doesn’t seem like hard work and is fun to do. When blogging is fun, you don’t want to stop. You’re more likely to succeed because you simply enjoy the process and aren’t chasing the end result.