Health blogs are an interesting source of health information these days. They provide curious health freaks like me with a wealth of information about their health conditions while also trying to provide them with pre-digested and readily consumable and practicable solutions to their nagging health problems.
There is a plethora of health blogs out there, each providing information about their specific areas of expertise. These health blogs are run not only by regular people like you and me but also by knowledgeable people in the healthcare industry like doctors, nurses, allied healthcare professionals and biological scientists.
Why does a health blog prosper?
The main reason a health blog prospers is that people are looking for easy to digest solutions to their health problems without having to navigate the nuances of medical jargon.
People need knowledgeable professionals in the know about how their body works, how it responds to certain illnesses and what we can do to prevent those illnesses. They need experts to break it down for them into something they can understand and relate to, without being overwhelmed by medical jargon.
There are millions, if not billions of health-related searches on the internet on a daily basis, and scores more of searches for solutions that solve regular health issues. If a health blog can provide authentic answers to the problems faced by people across the globe, it will prosper.
The “Earn while you learn” Principle
Like blogging for every other industry, health blogging could be the real deal if you wish to “earn while you learn”. While most would suggest that you should invest not only your time but invest some money to earn some money, it is possible to earn with minimal to no investment at all.
While you can earn some money without investment at all with free blogging tools, it may be wise to invest in some useful tools to get your money churner up and running. The simple reason is that free tools get you in but will limit your possibilities of expansion and are not that flexible. Using free blogging tools are often tough to monetise with numerous restrictions.
You can definitely “earn while you learn” in the health niche. If you are a budding health professional and struggling to pay off your college or university fees, you could easily blog on the side and earn a quick buck, while attending to your academic requirements. Having learnt about health during their professional studies, health professionals are more qualified to blog about health and health issues as they are quite familiar with how the body works and responds to various illnesses.
The only issue with health professionals blogging is that they often assume that their audience, the common man, understands medical jargon. This often creates a gap between the blogger and the audience. The “earn while you learn” principle only works if you are willing to understand the topic of discussion and then dumb it down for your target audience.
The 5 Easy Ways to Earn with a Health Blog
People often ask me how I earn with a health blog. The answer to them is often, “Simply look at the money trail.” Most health bloggers make money by focusing on their audience’s need.
Here are the top 5 ways to earn with a health blog.
- Direct Selling: Find an audience that is interested in your niche. Sell what you know resonates with your audience. Often enough, your audience will tell you what they need and are willing to buy. You just need to be alert and pick up the subtle cues in your interactions with the audience, through the comments on your blog or through queries in your contact form. Some examples of resources you can sell are subject-specific ebooks or workbooks fulfilling a particular need of your audience, an online course that teaches a particular skill or simply custom-made physical goods specific to your niche.
- Email Marketing: It is often emphasised by seasoned marketers that “The Money is in the List”. With Email marketing, you can offer something of value as a free gift in exchange for your reader’s email. This provides the fodder on which to gain the trust of your audience. And then, once the bait is set and you have a sizeable email list, you can promote your own products or affiliate offers for commissions. There are hundreds of affiliate marketing platforms out there, but digital products provide easy access to affiliate resources, sell well and give you a pretty good affiliate commission. Some of the digital products on ClickBank pay even up to 100% commission to their affiliates. Besides, an email list is basically the best way to have a cult following, and ultimately to sell your own products to an audience that knows and loves your work.
- Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate marketing simply means to offer bargains to your audience for a commission. While your audience may get the deal at a bargain or at the same selling price, you will get a commission for every sale that you drive through your affiliate links. You can promote not only products from well-known affiliate markets, but selling niche products to a particular audience can be highly rewarding as well. Most affiliate commissions start at about 3–4% of the total revenue but may inch up to 100% in some cases where the seller is seeking to increase their buyer list and then hard-sell high-end products after gaining an interested audience. This can be pretty lucrative both for the vendor as well as the affiliate marketer.
- Advertisements: Ads are an integral part of publishing, whether it is hard copy or soft press. There are thousands of advertisers willing to pay top dollar to get their ads displayed to your audience. A blog with plenty of great content and a decent following will be eligible for ad placements. Besides Google AdSense which pays you based on CPM, there are other advertisers who may be interested in placing banner or text ads on your website for a recurring fee. This can pay your recurring bills in the long-run. But remember that this might not be feasible for blogs with a smaller audience. Highly specific niche blogs can profit from products or affiliate marketing better than display ads.
- Sponsored posts: Although sponsored posts are a bit controversial, they can be a good source of income for niche bloggers with a small, specific audience. The sponsors who might be interested are usually just looking for authority links to their websites from within the sponsored posts on your blog. You should remember that website authority in Google’s eyes is determined by the number of authority links to your website. Higher the number of quality links to the sponsor’s website coupled with great quality content will catapult their website up in Google’s ranking algorithm. Sponsored posts can fetch you anywhere from $5-$200 depending on the authority of your blog and your niche.
The Final Word on Earning with your Health Blog
Setting up your health blog may be the easiest or the toughest part of your blogging journey, depending on how much you already know about blogging.
While blogging on “free” blogging platforms can be tempting, investing in a self-hosted blogging platform is the way to go when it comes to serious blogging.
Not only are the “free” platforms like blogger.com or wordpress.com very self-limiting, it becomes harder to move elsewhere by the time you understand their limitations, and their paid options are way too expensive, especially in the long run. If you are just starting out building your health blog, it is highly recommended that you go the self-hosted way. You will definitely understand this recommendation if you are already a seasoned blogger.
It is true that you can earn money through your health blog without spending a dime, but it will take a long while without spending on various resources.
Investing on a good email marketing tool can be daunting but it is what helps you earn the big bucks. Also, a good web hosting provider can be like a faithful wife that provides you with the confidence to tackle the real business of health blogging without being worried about your website crashing.
Finally, the only way to get your health blog up and running is by getting your feet wet, putting it out and putting in the effort. Consistent and quality content production and proficient distribution will get you to your blogging goals soon enough.
If you have questions about health blogging or blogging in general, feel free to share them in the comments below.
