Quora is just one of many places to have your blogging questions answered. If you hang out on Quora, like I do, than you already understand the value of the mission based resource. It was co-founded in 2009 by two former C-Level Facebook employees, Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever. Initially used mostly in Silicon Valley, Quora began to grow exponentially. Today, Quora boasts over 100 million monthly visits.

Quora’s mission is to share and grow the world’s knowledge. A vast amount of the knowledge that would be valuable to many people is currently only available to a few — either locked in people’s heads, or only accessible to select groups. We want to connect the people who have knowledge to the people who need it, to bring together people with different perspectives so they can understand each other better, and to empower everyone to share their knowledge for the benefit of the rest of the world.

Their mission is awesome and I use Quora to help others, to practice writing, and to bounce ideas off others. Recently, I have answered several blogging questions on Quora. I selected the top 5 questions and answers to share with you here.

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1. If Bloggers are Really Earning $1,000s of Dollars, What is a Step By Step to Make Just $100?

I hear this blogging questions a lot. With the growing popularity of blogger income reports, it seems there is a widening gap between the haves and have nots in blogging.

You are asking for step-by-step, which is challenging to give because there are several different revenue models for a blog. Here is the quick and easy version:

Model 1: Affiliate

The best course that I have found to teach beginners how to earn affiliate revenue with their blogs is the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course.

1.Basically, you start a blog in an identified niche.

2. Enroll in affiliate programs that are appealing to your niche.

3. Post useful, high quality content with targeted keywords and include the affiliate links.

4. Promote your website through social media, email marketing, etc.

It is a numbers game. The more high quality traffic you generate, the more people will click and sign up for your affiliate products, the more commission you will earn.

Model 2: Sponsored Ads/Posts

With this model, you will have to build traffic to your website first. I do not recommend this model unless you already have a minimum of 10,000 unique visits per month.

1. Join networks that match bloggers with companies that pay bloggers to post ads or content. Or, create a media kit and sale space on your blog.
2. Post the sponsored posts and promote them according to your agreement.
3. Ad sponsored ads to content and side bars according to your agreement.
4. Send a bill at the end of each month.

Model 3: Review Model

Some blogs are designed to provide product reviews within a well defined niche.

1. Create long form product review content within a specific niche.
2. Join Amazon affiliates program or other such affiliate network. (Sears, Target, etc)
3. Ad affiliate links to your product reviews.

Model 4: Create and Sell a Digital Product

Many bloggers build an audience, survey their audience to determine what information they need and how much they are willing to spend on that information and create a digital product. These products include ebooks, webinars, courses, etc.

1. Decide on your content and get busy creating it.
2. Decide on a presentation format. (webinar, ebook, course, etc)
3. Create the digital product.
4. Launch a marketing campaign to sell it to your audience.
5. Create an affiliate program so that others can sell the product for you.

As with most things, the amount of effort you invest and the level of skill you possess will determine your end result.

Here is the link to the original Quora question.

2. What are the Best Topics for Blogger Posts?

This is a great blogging question because certain posts are known, in general, to attract more traffic.

The actual topics you write about will depend on the niche you have chosen for your blog.

But, there are specific blog formats that typically generate more traffic.

Here are 3 of my favorites. For a list of the top 10 blog post types, visit Creating a Buzz: Top 10 Blog Post Types.

1. Interview Post

Don’t be shy. You will be surprised by how many high profile influencers and industry experts are willing to be interviewed. A few ways to approach someone you would like to interview are:

• Send a message through LinkedIn
• Send an email
• Reach out through a Facebook group
• Pick up the phone

Some people prefer the interview to be in written form and some prefer a quick phone call. Make it easy for the person you are interviewing and ask great, open ended questions.

When you sit down to write the post, introduce the topic and expert. Be sure to link to the expert’s website. Format each interview question as a subheading, followed by the response. If you want to be real fancy and you recorded the interview, post an audio.

Most importantly, send the expert a message with the link to the blog post. If they love the interview, they will help promote it to their audience.

2. Case Study

If you own a business, you are a scientist. Let me explain. You try something, gauge the results, evaluate, make changes, and try again. Whether the “something” is product development, customer service, or marketing, we are always testing. The next time you test something that is valuable to others, take notes and publish it in the form of a case study. Here are a few ideas:

• Post a lead magnet in 3 different places on your website and track which one generates more leads.
• Develop three different emails and run some A/B testing. Write about which one was the most successful and why.
• Create five different Facebook ads for the same product and record which ad converts better.

Including case studies in your blog allows your audience to learn from your failures and successes. Your readers will thank you.

3. Content Aggregator

Content aggregator blog posts are ideal for new websites that are struggling to add content quickly. Use a tool like SEMrush or Buzzsumo to discover trending topics and aggregate them into one blog post. With this blog post type, most of your time will be spend on finding the perfect topic. Think about these things when deciding on a topic:

• What is trending?
• What are the buzz words in your niche?
• How can the viral content of others benefit your audience?

Focus on writing your headline, introducing your topic and wrapping it all up with a neat conclusion. The rest of the content is snippets of other people’s articles. Include links to the aggregated content.

Here is the link to the original Quora question.

3. A Blog with 10,000 Subscribers is Supposedly a 6-Figure Business. How?

When you say “a 6-figure business” I will assume that you mean that it generates 6 figures each year gross. Six figures may not be the actual profit. And if a blog is selling for 6 figures, it may only be making $50,000/year, because it is customary for a blog to be priced at 2×3 times its yearly gross.

For purposes of this response, I will assume that you want to know if it is possible for a blog with only 10,000 subscribers to generate a 6 figure income.

I have seen blogs with 10,000 subscribers or less easily make a six figure income. I am sure that there are several niches and business models where this is possible, but here is an example of one with which I have first hand experience.

Example: Sidney decided to start a website from scratch and focus on hardcore camping/hiking equipment. The website had 12 pieces of long form content (2000–4000 words) that reviewed camping/hiking equipment. In the content, he used his affiliate links when he discussed the products he was reviewing. In addition, he included affiliate links to “must have” high priced products in the side bar of his blog. He never collected email addresses, so he had no subscribers. His revenue came from searches and repeat visits of the site, as his was one of very few resources for this niche. His numbers looked like this:

1st month: $50

2nd month: $225

3rd month: $450

4th month: $1650

5th month: $2400

6th month: $5200

7th month: $8250

8th month: $12875

9th month: $14750

10th month: $15250

11th month: $15125

12th month: $15650

Total: $91,875

Since the revenue began to level off, he figured that he had reached his peak and he sold the blog for $275,000 in month 13 with no email list or social media. He spent only $300/month on Google Adwords, but since his content was narrowly keyword focused to a specific niche ready to buy,

I have seen a similar growth and revenue pattern for a discount coupon blog started by a colleague.

The takeaway is that investing extensive time in market research and crafting high quality content before launching your blog will determine the speed of its growth.

Here is the original link to the Quora question.

4. Can I Make Money Using a Free Blog? How?

When I first started my blog, www.allaboutselfemployment.com, I had many decisions to make. I knew that I wanted to start my blog with as little upfront cost as possible.

I decided on Bluehost for my hosting and they provide a free domain name. Bluehost is only about $3/month and I have been very happy with them.

Then, I linked Bluehost to WordPress.org, which is free. I selected a free template, made some very minor customizations and launched it. No one believes that it is a free template.

I designed my logo and graphics for free with Canva.com.

I wrote my own content.

I applied as an affiliate with products that I love and use in business and included them in my blog posts and on my Recommendations page.

I also created free social media accounts and made sure that they matched the branding from my website.

I created a free Mailchimp account and began collecting emails for marketing my blog.

Within my first 30 days, I had made nearly $300 from my blog. My second month, I earned another $250.

The blog costs me $3/month for hosting.

So, YES, if you work hard and have some technical skills, you can make money using a free blog.

Here is the link to the original Quora question.

5. Is Writing Quality Content Good Enough to Bring Organic Traffic to My Blog?

I disagree with the other answers. The answer is YES, quality content with perfect SEO is enough to bring organic traffic to your blog. However, it will not happen quickly. Some of the other responses included paid advertising and social media marketing. Those are the best ways to grow traffic quickly.

I own an ecommerce store and I drive over 3000 new people to the website each month with blogs that are discovered in search engine searches. The high quality blogs targeted toward my desired audience are my biggest traffic producer.

Here is a screenshot of traffic from only one blog:

It doesn’t happen overnight. But it is possible.

Here is the original link to the Quora question.