There are three main ingredients needed to make money blogging: content, traffic, and a monetization strategy. All 3 ingredients are necessary. Even if you have good content, it means nothing if no one sees it. And even if you have a ton of visitors, you won’t make a dime unless you are doing something to make money – whether it’s through advertising, selling your own product, or having a premium content section, you need traffic to earn money with a blog. The more people viewing your site, the more valuable your site is to advertisers.

So how do you get those visitors to stick around and explore your blog? How do you get them to subscribe to your newsletter and RSS feed? You write good content. As they say, “Content is King”. True success boils down to good content.

Writers block, however, can sometimes get in the way. Here are some content ideas to keep your bloggers interested and coming back:

Write How-To Pieces

How-tos are simple to write and incredibly valued by readers. If a reader can come on your site and easily find a post explaining how to do something – how to make ratatouille, how to sew a sweater, how to do something – then they’ll be happy. And happy readers are returning readers.

Break a News Story

Staying ahead of the news is great way to get some search engine traffic, but it’s also important to readers because it shows that your information is topical and up to date. When you do post the news, be sure to include your own thoughts on the events and encourage your readers to post their own comments as well.  You can use Feeds to follow the news and break a story, so you can always stay on top of what’s going on.

Be Controversial

People love controversy. Write a controversial headline, and you’ll be sure to catch the readers’ eyes and get them to stick around for just a little while longer. It’s also good for getting your post shared and getting traffic through Social Media. Plus, other bloggers might link back to for your unique opinion. Controversy is great for getting traffic to your blog!

These are just a few ideas you can use to write a blog post.  Try making a content web of everything you know about a topic.  Start with your main subject, whether it’s cooking, or travelling, or sports.  Then draw lines branching off from that with subcategories.  For example, for sports you could split that into different types of sports, like basketball, soccer, or fencing.  You could also branch it off into professional, college, and high school.  You could do another branch for entertainment, for training tips, to equipment reviews.  As you go along, you’ll probably find yourself leading to more and more specific topics, which can give you ideas for what to post about.  You could also read this article for ideas for blog inspiration.

Other Posting Suggestions

Use Other Media

Don’t just post long winded articles – that won’t appeal to everyone. Make video blogs and post pictures as well. Opening yourself up to a variety of different media can help you reach more viewers who might not like to read.

Vary Your Topics

Mix up the topics you post about and mix up the type or format of posts. For example, let’s say you write a travel blog and update three times a week. Your blog typically covers trips you take around the world, activities you can do while travelling, and how to find good deals, how to plan your trip, how to book a hotel, etc. Don’t write all 3 posts in one week about a trip to Spain. In the same token, don’t do three posts that are all about how to find good deals. Mix them up through out the week – write about your trip to Spain on Monday, then write about how to find good deals for hotels in Europe on Wednesday, and about fun family activities in Orlando on Friday. The variety will appeal to different readers throughout the week.

Of course, there is one exception to this rule: If you are doing a Series of posts.

Write a Series

If you have a lot to say about one subject, then a good idea is to break that up into different posts. This keeps you organized, but it also helps you to encourage your readers to keep checking back to your site every day.  Sometimes people just don’t want to read 1 long post that goes on forever.  If you find  yourself writing a lot about one subject, then breaking up into smaller posts can help you become more focused, and thus more clear.  It gives you an opportunity to explore a subject more thoroughly, which is a good way to provide relevant information to your readers.  The more thorough you are, the more credibility you will develop too, which help you increase your traffic.

To earn money blogging, remember this: Good content leads to more traffic, more traffic leads to more money. These are only a few tips for writing content. Also remember that you need to post regularly. Having good content helps you increase your traffic, but in the beginning it also helps to promote your blog, so be sure to network with other bloggers as well.