Students often look for ways to earn money online since they may not have the flexibility to work outside. Blogging has become one of the most popular sources of income for students because it requires minimal investment and can be done from home.
Students can start it as a passive income alongside their studies, which can help them pay for study costs. After studying, you can easily turn the blog into a business if you want. Blogging offers unlimited growth potential.
Since it’s such a popular way to make money, there are many fake stories on the internet that create unrealistic expectations. Here you will get the reality of blogging and understand why, as a student, you should and should not choose blogging to earn money.
Pros & Cons of Choosing Blogging to Earn Money as a Student
Everything has its own advantages and disadvantages. While many people are earning lakhs from blogging within one year, there are even more people who did not find success with it. Here are some pros and cons:
Advantages of Blogging to Earn Money as a Student
- You can work from home online.
- Create a blog with very low investment.
- You’ll have enough time to study and can make a proper routine to balance both.
- It helps improve website-building skills and knowledge.
- Improve writing skills and learn how to create user-friendly content.
- You’ll learn what personal branding is and how to promote it.
- Gain knowledge about search engine optimization.
- Become independent by earning money.
- You can create your own business in the future through blogging.
- Create your working schedule according to your convenience. Be your own boss.
Disadvantages of Blogging for Students Who Want to Make Money from It
- You need to keep patience to start making money from it. There is no time limit on when you’ll start earning.
- You have to learn how to maintain it and everything about website theme design, which takes time.
- Creating content is an important task; sometimes, you can’t take holidays if you need to create it.
- For students who can’t be consistent with it, there is a very low possibility of becoming successful.
- If you think blogging is a great passive income source and you only need to put in a few hours, this may not work in the initial stages. You need to give it more time to understand and learn it.
If you are determined to become successful at it and are ready to be consistent, then blogging will be the best decision of your life.
Step-by-Step Process to Start Blogging as a Student
- Choose a blog niche
- Create the blog
- Start publishing content
Some steps are important to know before starting a blog. Here, you can learn all the important factors and steps to become a successful blogger.
How to Choose a Blog Niche and How It Affects Earning
Here are important tips for choosing a blog niche that a beginner should know:
- Choose a niche you are interested in or have knowledge about.
- Analyze all the ways to make money from the niche.
- Visit other websites in the same niche to see how they are earning money.
- Choose a macro niche and a related micro niche to start posting content in the initial stages.
- Choose a niche that doesn’t have large websites dominating it, which increases the chance of becoming successful.
- Avoid choosing a finance or medical-related niche if you don’t have expertise in it.
Detailed Explanation of the Tips with Reasons:
Here are the top 7 tips to create an effective blog:
1. Choose a Niche You Have Knowledge and Interest In
If you choose a topic that interests you, you can easily gain more knowledge about it and read more posts on it. A topic of your interest and knowledge will help you create informative content easily.
2. Niche Should Be Profitable
At the end, you have to earn money, and without earning, you can’t continue your journey, even if there is a lot of traffic. Some topics like Instagram caption ideas, WhatsApp status quotes, etc., have very little earning potential, while gardening, motivational, and job vacancy-related blogs have medium earning potential. In contrast, software development and finance-related sites have high earning potential.
3. Analyze the Ways of Earning in the Niche
Analyze how you can make money from the site once you start getting traffic. For example, if you create a dog-related site with AdSense, you can do affiliate marketing for dog-related products, promote other related brands, and make money. Every niche has multiple ways to earn.
4. Visit Other Websites in the Same Niche to Understand How They’re Earning
You can visit websites in the same niche to see how they are earning. Are they selling something through their blogs, promoting affiliate products, selling digital products, or offering subscription plans? This can give you an idea of how profitable the niche is.
5. Choose a Macro Niche and Start Posting on a Related Micro Niche
You should have a clear vision of how many topics you want to cover on your site. Always choose a macro niche so that you have room to expand, but in the initial stage, start posting on a single topic or micro niche to grow faster.
6. Choose a Niche Where You Don’t Find Huge Websites Ranking
If no big websites are ranking on a topic, that means there is a high chance of growing quickly by writing content. It is difficult to rank if there are already many big websites on the topic.
7. Do Not Choose Finance or Medical-Related Topics
According to Google’s guidelines, you can’t share knowledge on topics that directly affect someone’s health or finances if you don’t have enough expertise in them. Google does not promote these types of websites.
Create the Blog
You can set up your blog with just 3 simple steps:
1. Select a Blogging Platform
There are many blogging platforms available that offer various themes and easy options for posting media like images, videos, GIFs, and audio, making it simple to manage your blog.
Read: Details on the Best Blogging Platform
2. Purchase a Blog Domain
Purchase a domain that has the potential to scale up and build a business in the future. Purchasing a domain name is essential for building personal branding. There are many companies that sell domain names; the most popular are:
- Hostinger
- Namecheap
- GoDaddy
3. Start Publishing High-Quality Content
Content is everything that determines whether you will be successful or not. You need to create content that is user-friendly and helpful to visitors. Here are some quick points to make your content engaging:
- Use media like images, videos, GIFs, audio, etc., to make the content interesting.
- Provide information that users are searching for.
- Write only what users want to know, without elaborating on unnecessary details.
- Use internal links.
Different Ways to Earn Money from Blogging
Most students think AdSense is the only way to earn money, as people create hype around it on the internet. AdSense helps you earn money in the initial stages, but there are many other ways by which you can earn even 10x more than AdSense.
1. Display Ads on Website to Make Money
By displaying ads on your site, you can earn money. You may notice that many websites have ads displayed. You can also show ads on your site once your blog starts getting traffic. Even before getting traffic, you can seek ad approval, but we suggest running ads once you start getting traffic.
Many companies provide ads to show on your site; the most popular of them are:
- AdSense
- Ezoic
- Media.net
2. Earn Money with Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is also a popular way to make money, and it can earn more than AdSense. Even with low traffic, you can make a huge amount of money using this method. It is an easy and effective money-making method for websites.
You can affiliate with physical or digital products. The most popular affiliate service provider is Amazon.
3. Earn Money by Posting Sponsored Content
When you post content that promotes a particular site, service, or product, it is called sponsored content. Once your site starts getting a good amount of traffic, many companies will contact you to promote them through your content.
4. Earn Money by Selling Your Own Products Through Your Blog
You can earn money by selling your own products. The best part is you can sell digital products too, which can make money without any delivery or storage problems, making it convenient for a student.
In the future, you can build your own business by creating your own e-commerce brand.
5. Selling Your Own Online Courses on Your Blog
You can sell any skills that you have through your website. There are many sites that earn money solely by selling their courses.
How to Balance Study and Blogging as a Student
As a student, you need to be punctual if you start blogging for side income while maintaining your studies properly. Once you complete your studies, you will start generating your own income. Here are some tips on how you can manage both:
- Make a Weekly or Monthly Schedule: To balance your academic studies and blogging, you must create a routine by dividing time for each.
- Create a Blog Content Calendar: Make a chart of all the topics you need to write posts on each week, including their keywords, dates, etc., so that you can create content quickly.
- Use Tools That Can Save You Time: You can use MS Word to create a content calendar and Ahrefs keyword research tool to find keywords and content topic ideas. Only use tools that you need; using too many tools can waste your time.
Problems That New Bloggers Face & How to Overcome Them
Before starting blogging, you should have the mindset that you can give it time to grow and start earning. Constantly thinking about earning will prevent you from creating user-friendly, helpful content. Here are the problems that most beginners face, which is normal, and you should not give up or feel demotivated by seeing them:
- Not Getting Traffic
- Confusion About Blog Niche
- Facing Difficulty with Website Design
- Facing Technical Issues
- Having Less Knowledge About Content Writing
New bloggers often fail to succeed because of their earning mindset. Choose blogging as a passion to stay motivated and keep creating better content. You should know that not getting traffic and facing these problems in the initial stages is normal. Keep learning how to overcome them and implement what you learn to become successful.