How to Make Money Blogging in 2024 (New Trends)

Update: 2024-04-03

Description

Today I want to talk about how to look up from your own blog with fresh eyes to see the changing landscape and new trends. And then I want to share the best ways to pivot I recommend you start implementing now to grow your blog income.

The Changing World of Blogging

Is Blogging Dead?

The first question I get asked is “Is blogging dead?” And I’m going to say no, it’s not dead but the blogging world is changing.

Drop in Google Traffic

As you know I talk to professional bloggers all the time, in all different niches, and recently I talked to four who all lost between 70-90% of their site traffic during these March Google updates.

Now we all know that when Google pushes out updates we shouldn’t change anything for about a month to see where the dust settles, but I don’t think any of these bloggers have seen such big swings before. So to be honest they were all a bit shell-shocked.

Show Notes:

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Google's Influence and SEO

Shifts in Search Results

So the first trend I expect to see is a decrease in overall traffic from Google for publishers or bloggers who are creating valuable content using best practices. Will we all be losing 70-90% of our traffic, my gut says no. In my experience, when Google makes changes they typically don’t reverse course.

For example, when we launched Catch My Party, a lot of our users were Etsy sellers so we used their API and imported their products to our site, each product got a separate page. We did this for ease. We weren’t monetizing it. Google wasn’t seeing these pages as duplicate content so if people were searching for these products they could end up on our site. We were making really good affiliate income, the Etsy sellers were happy because of all the exposure they were getting, it was growing our traffic, and then one day it all went away. Google de-indexed those pages and that traffic and income were gone.

My point is that Google changes usually move in one direction. And what is Google facing right now? Existential threats. Remember, all they care about is people coming to Google in need information and end up finding it and having a good experience.

Recently though, the overall feel is the search experience has been deteriorating so Google has been making changes. Showing more results from Reddit and Quora. This is because they want answers from “real people.” Google has found that sites have been gaming SEO to make money with affiliate marketing, for example, and Google has been cracking down.

The Introduction of AI in Search

Plus how is google going to implement AI in search. They are calling this the Google Search Generative Experience or SGE. Google is working on what this is going to look like, but one thing Google has said is their SGE will quickly provide users with the answers they need and not necessarily direct users to other sites or content.

If their AI, Gemini, can give you better results on their GSE page than sending you off to a site they don’t control, you better believe they will do that. In fact, I think it’s already happening in the travel space.

Plus for successful bloggers monetizing with display ads, as 3rd party cookies get phased out, advertisers not being able to track visitors, there will probably be downward pressure on ad revenue.

Adapting to New Realities

I was on a call with a food blogger this past week and I started painting this new picture for her and she couldn’t believe what I was saying. She’s an old school blogger. She doesn’t really use AI in her and feels like her readers could definitely tell the difference.

When I told her it’s all about her prompts and she could prompt her AI to sound like her, she got really upset. I told her she should start getting serious about learning how to use ChatGPT, she was shocked.

When I told her that some people will be using AI for recipes and not going to blogs she didn’t believe me. She said, “Who’s going to get their recipe from a machine?” That's not high-quality content. Then over the next two days I heard of two people who get their recipes from ChatGPT and think it’s so easy.

Do I believe everyone will be getting their recipes from AI, no. But it will become more common.

I don’t mean to be painting a bleak picture for bloggers and they should not abandon creating great blog content. I just mean to point out that change is a foot and the more willing you are to embrace it, the more success you’ll have.

What this really means is opening the aperture of how we see our business, our target audience, and our opportunities to serve them.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the goal of cranking out blog posts, and getting them to rank in Google so you can make a full-time income from ad networks MediaVine or Raptive will shrink in the long run.

So I have 3 recommendations:

1. Diversify Your Traffic Sources

Start investing in Pinterest again if you had given up on it in the past. It might take a couple of months to see ROI on it, but Pinterest static pins still drive traffic. I’ve heard of people going back to Facebook and using it to drive page views. I think this is especially true and platforms like Facebook are deprioritizing news. If you can build engagement with what you post on Facebook, you can drive traffic. I’ve even heard that people are starting to see traffic coming from other search engines like Bing. Bing is growing in search.

So Google should not be your only play.

And another place to invest in is growing your email list. Besides your blog, your email list is one of your most valuable assets. Because you own your email list. And all these people have said yes, to you showing up in their inbox. Think of that as them inviting you into their living room, so use it wisely. Give them value and le