The REAL Way New Nigerian Bloggers Can Make Money

Do you want to make money while being your own boss? Do you have passion and an interest in making money from running your own blog? Then this is something you need to read.
Pretty much every Nigerian that uses the internet today knows about Linda Ikeji, or Bella Naija.
These are Nigerian super bloggers that have built a massive audience, and command very high rates through adverts that are placed on their blogs.
Needless to say, their success has inspired many Nigerians to start blogging with the aim of building something that can serve as a good source of income. However, generally, new Nigerian bloggers are going about this the wrong way.
You're different from the super bloggers
One of the fastest tracks to success in life is looking at people who are achieving the kind of success you want and replicating what they are doing.
Unfortunately, this isn't always effective when it comes to blogging.
Most would-be professional Nigerian bloggers fail because they are using the same business model as the highly successful bloggers when their reality is entirely different.
Examples:
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The fact that these 2 blogs, that many new Nigerian bloggers try to model their blogs after, gets millions of views monthly makes it easy for them to command high rates just from adverts on their blog.
For the average Nigerian blogger, though, the reality is different; the average Nigerian blogger finds it difficult to publish 3 articles to her blog on a weekly basis, and the average blogger can hardly get a thousand views to her blog on a monthly basis.
When you consider the above fact, it becomes instantly clear that chasing income from blogging solely by displaying ads on your blog is a pipe dream.

In fact, many have been sold the dream of making money blogging while they sleep; I've interacted with several Nigerians who have been told that they just have to set up a blog, post on it and they'll be making money each and every time some visits their blog. That's not just untrue, it is simply impossible.
A faster, reliable and proven way to make money blogging in Nigeria
While the "advertising revenue generation model" is what majority of Nigeria's super blogs, including Linda Ikeji and Bella Naija, use, it won't be very effective for you unless you have a blog that generates hundreds of thousands of views monthly. And let's face this, only a fraction of Nigerian blogs can get this much attention.
So the question is, what is the most effective way for the average Nigerian blogger to make money from a blog?
It is by embracing the "service income model".
So, instead of waiting to build a blog that gets 100,000 visits on a monthly basis so that you can make a few thousands of dollars monthly, you will focus mainly on building a blog around a service you offer, and will easily earn the same amount or more from a fraction of the same number of visitors to your blog.
So how do I know this? Because it's my main business model, and in the past 4 years alone I have made hundreds of thousands of dollars from blogging through this model alone, something that would have been entirely impossible if I were to rely on advertising to generate income from my blog.
5 steps to make money from your blog by offering your services
I'll be sharing 5 steps towards building a service business that generates significant revenue through your blog, and I'll be giving you a free blog checklist that will help ensure you are actually implementing these suggestions.
Look out for the checklist at the end of this article.
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Can you write? Can you code? Maybe you are tech savvy and can help people build their websites? Maybe you have farming experience, and a very good track record, that you can share your knowledge with others to help them grow? Maybe you have a certain business talent that you can use to help others?
These are all things you can convert into a form of service aimed at helping people get a kind of result.
A writer can work as a freelance writer. A programmer can work as a freelance programmer. Someone who is tech savvy can help people build their websites. A farmer can consult with people to setup their farms and get specific results from it. A marketer can consult with people to help them refine and effectively position their brand.
No matter your experience, there's a service you can offer to people from all over the world.
Decide on what this service is, and make sure you clearly note it down before proceeding to the next step.
The aim of your blog is ultimately to attract people who value and are in need of your service, and who will pay you for offering this service to them.
Most likely, you do not have the resources and manpower to build a blog that covers everything, and there are so many blogs doing this already in Nigeria that you wouldn't want to set yourself up to compete with.
So, focus on creating a blog that complements your services; if you want to offer farming consulting to people, you'll be better off starting an Agric blog. If you want to offer freelance programming services to people, you'll be better of starting a programming blog. For writers, you want to zero in on the kind of clients you want to attract, and start a blog in "their" niche; you don't want to start "a blog for writers", since other writers are most likely not your potential clients.
When someone is potentially interested in hiring you, you need to make sure that they have enough details to make that decision.
Just setting up a blog without a page explaining the services you offer and how it can help potential clients will ensure you get no clients; this page is called a "hire me" page, or a "services" page.
Here's an article that shares 7 actionable steps to help you create such a page:
It is very important to understand that by its very nature and definition, a blog has to be updated on a consistent basis.
If you just setup a site and leave it for months and years without anything being posted on it, you can't really call it a blog. A blog needs to be frequently updated, and with the right kind of articles too.

So, after your blog is properly setup, the next step is to develop a schedule aimed at helping you update it regularly.
I recommend updating it at least 2 - 3 times a week. I also recommend mainly publishing the following types of articles:
Carefully blend the above 4 types of articles into your content schedule, and ensure they appear regularly on your blog; these are the types of articles people read regularly, so you'll get more people to read your blog by posting them.
Once you have fulfilled steps 1 - 4 above, and you are able to stick to the content schedule you devised for your blog. The next step is to start promoting it.
The promotion approach I recommend is called "guest blogging" and it is basically the art of promoting your blog by writing for other websites, like I'm doing here now, and you'll be getting a bio at the end of your article that links back to your website.
Look for relevant blogs with a lot of readers in your industry, and start contributing quality articles to them with a link back to your blog, and occasionally your services page. Do this on a regular basis; try to write at least 5 to 10 guest posts for popular blogs in your niche on a monthly basis.
By doing this, not only will your blog start to grow naturally, but you'll also start to have people contact you who are interested in hiring you for a service you offer.
The Blogging Checklist I Mentioned Earlier
So there you have it. The above 5 steps process are the steps you can use to build a blog around a services business; by following this approach, you're building your blog around a real business and you only need a fraction of the visits/page views the super bloggers get to make money as a result of your blog.
I also mentioned giving you a checklist to help you ensure you're properly implementing the above suggestions. You can download it on this page.