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While everyone can easily become a blogger, not everyone can be a profit-making-blogger. Yes, there is such a thing as a profit-making-blogger, a successful blogger.

With the resources available, creating a blog is as simple as creating a new social media profile, quick and easy. You can probably have a blog up and running before you even complete the sentence – I’m going to start blogging. Well, almost.

The real challenge though begins later. It lies in driving traffic to the blog, making it thrive or as we call it in the blogging world – engagement. 

Monetising your blog takes work, a lot of work in fact. It doesn’t happen overnight. Here’s an inside scoop from someone for whom blogging is a way of life, it takes dedicated and constant hard work to make the journey from a blogger to an established blogger. Having said that, it’s not impossible either. Nothing ever is.

So, what does it take to create a profitable blog? What do you need to do and remember to become a successful, respected and money making blogger?

Well, you just need to remember the 4 Cs of blogging. Yes, just 4 Cs.

Let’s see what those are then, shall we?

Content

A blog is only as good as its content. Therefore, before you even create a blog, you need to have a clear and concise answer to these questions – What should I blog about? What topic would interest my readers? What can I bring to the table that others can’t? What should my content be like?

I have seen many blogs come up and vanish in the course of my life as a blogger. The initial noise was huge, excitement palpable but they fizzled out in no time. These blogs were like short term relationships with no future. The problem being those behind these blogs started without even knowing what they wanted to write about and how.

Of course, a blog, like everything else, grows and changes with time but there still needs to be an initial idea, a rough sketch on which a successful blog can be built. But that’s not the only thing about content that you should take care of.

Once you know what you want to write on, it needs to be authentic and be an extension of yourself. Unless, your content is original, has your stamp all over it, gives something extra to your readers, it will be hard for your blog to thrive.

So, the first C you need to focus on is content.

Content at a glance

• What to write about
• Originality
• Presentation
• Theme
• Language
• SEO

Consistency

A consistent schedule is as important to a blog as sunlight is to the plants in your garden. You need to figure out your posting frequency, how many times per week you would be publishing a new post. It is important because readers don’t have as much of an attention span as you would like, what with millions of blogs to choose from. Out of sight, out of mind is how it works here as well.

You need to make sure that your content is posted with regularity and in a familiar fashion. Often sticking to the same days in a week helps because that creates a pattern which is easy for a visitor to remember.

A lot of bloggers, including me, believe that Mondays are the best to publish a new post. Perhaps after a weekend people come back to reading with a renewed vigour. But that’s essentially up to you. The key is to decide your schedule and stick to it.

Consistency at a glance

• Schedule
• Recurring Theme
• Pre-planning posts

Communications

Nobody who blogs can say that he or she doesn’t like to be read. You put it out there so that your post is read, shared and commented upon. And this being the age of social media, the best way to publicise your blog is through social media. Every time a blogger hits the publish button, it is with the hope of the post going viral.

You need to remember a few keys points to get this right.

• Read to be read.
• Share and comment on posts by others to have the same done to your post.
• Engage with readers who drop comments on your posts.
• Use your social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest etc to promote your posts.
• Set up a profile for your blog on each of the networks.
• Set up sharing buttons on your blog tagged to your social media handles.
• Use proper hashtags while sharing.
• Set up auto-sharing of your posts through services like Buffer to keep your posts floating in the social media throughout the week.
• Share your posts with relevant profiles to gain some new readers.
• Go ahead and form a blogging community to grow together

Once you do these, the communication aspect of your blog will be well and truly taken care of.

Commitment

Like everything else in life, you cannot be a successful blogger if you are not committed to it. Whether it’s a marketing blog or a personal blog; a fashion blog or a travel blog, it cannot thrive unless you are committed to seeing it succeed.

You need to have the urgency and the will to go the distance. Remember without this one particular C none of the other Cs matter.

Commitment is just commitment at a glance.

Those were the 4 Cs of becoming a successful blogger. So, tell me, are you ready to be one?