This post was most recently updated on June 28th, 2023

[This article was originally published in November 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.]

One of the main goals for bloggers is to make a full-time income from blogging. Three years ago, one thing I learned a lot about blogging was how to make money blogging. Blogging is widely seen as the easiest method to become rich online, however, this is not the reality for a large number of people. If you’re trying to turn your blog into a full-time career, then the most important thing now is to build a trusting audience.

Blogging has long been a passion of mine, and it is something I look forward to doing every day, aside from my work as a translator. Blogging has turned into a side hustle that I treat as a business. At the same time, blogging is a personal experience for me.

Build A Trusting Audience

Blog traffic will help you get more eyes and potential clients but if you aren’t using proper strategies to turn them into loyal audiences, then you’re not on the right path. That’s why it’s important to build a trusting audience who want to purchase what you are selling.

Here in Merry of August (MOA), I have covered topics related to personal growth, business and career, self-care, and building a profitable blog from scratch. In this post, I will share with you how to build a trusting audience.

Be Personal

If you want to build a trusting audience, you need to break down your walls and build connections with your audience. Honestly, I don’t really know myself but when someone needs my advice, I will definitely help by sharing my own experience.

I’d rather my audience see me as a fellow blogger friend than as a professional one. When joining the blogging community, I’ve seen many bloggers out there who take a different approach and keep it strictly business professional. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to look as professional.

But, I’m not going to be so uptight when I’m not. I make mistakes, I don’t get everything perfect on the first try launching my blog, and I definitely have bad and frustrating moments when researching, writing, and planning blog content.

So, here’s the thing. Be You. Be Real. Don’t try to be perfect – this word is non-existent in life. Even the successful bloggers claim they make $10,000 a month, they are still learning and making mistakes too.

Provide Quality Content

Your content is what matters the most, regardless of how fast your site is or how beautiful it looks. Without meaningful and helpful content, your blog is like a person with a bad heart, because content is the heart of your blog. So, do your best to provide quality content that is free.

If you’ve been blogging for years, you might need to update old posts to improve them and keep the information current and useful. Always include a link to another website when writing a blog post. This means that if you gathered information or images from another source, you should include a link to the original source. This can help you maintain your news/post authentic while also earning SEO benefits.

I have visited many websites where bloggers have only paid courses and no other valuable information. You might exit out altogether. If you plan to have a course to sell, you better provide some freebies. Your audience needs to know and learn who you are and how valuable your information really is.

My tip for you is to start with your email list management. What you can do is create a new page in your blog where you put all your freebies there and use a password, so only subscribers can access it. Most people will subscribe when you offer them valuable content that is free. Then at the end of your email, you can provide them with a link to the product you are selling.

Prove Yourself

This one can be a bit sensitive but don’t get me wrong, it’s so easy for bloggers to lie. You probably see there are so many bloggers who claim they make $5,000 or more a month and they receive 5,000 or 10,000 pageviews, but do you really trust that? How do you know?

The only way is to build trust with your audience to prove that you are telling the truth, don’t be afraid to show stats. The fact is there are bloggers out there that will ‘spice’ up their story to make you purchase. I know not all bloggers like that. But I believe in stats, not just written numbers.

Let’s be a bit reasonable. That would be great to make $5,000 money from blogging – even in your first years is a bit crazy! Is it possible to make that much in a month? Anything is possible, dear! But how realistic is it to happen right away? … That would be a lot of hard work, time, and dedication. Daily.

But, back again, everyone has different experiences. I’m not saying that bloggers are all lying, but just be realistic with yourself and with your audience. Show the proof and tell the truth!

If you are able to make $500 a month then show the proof to back up your content. The more proof you show, the more your audience will actually believe you.

Take screenshots of your analytics or your blogging progress then show to your audiences or clients that you are able to prove your quality. In the end, don’t lie to your audience, they will catch on.

Engage With Your Audience

Engaging is not only about sharing your blog posts on your social media. Sometimes it can get tough trying to make sure you respond back to every comment, mention, e-mail, message, etc. But, if you take the time to acknowledge your audience, you will build a trusting audience. They will continue to come back to you because they feel valued.

You should also keep an eye on the types of comments that surface on your site. If your blog has low-quality comments, it will attract more low-quality comments. But, if you have significant and engaging comments, it is considerably more likely that your readers will respond in kind.

As of one year ago, I have stopped accepting comments like:

• “Amazing post”
• “Nice/helpful post, thanks for sharing”
• Any comments which are not meaningful or do not add to the discussion of the topic at hand.

In my experience, taking this measure has had a direct impact on the quality of comments that Merry of August is currently receiving. Remember that 20 quality comments are always preferable to 200 meaningless comments.

As the administrator of a blog, you must make judgments that are beneficial to both you and your audience. You do not need to blindly follow the policies of other blogs; nonetheless, you must find a balance of policies that suit your personality and help the growth of your blog.

Have A Professional Appearance On Your Site

Honesty, when reading stories on an online platform, I enjoy it more if their writing is neat, breaks down the stories into short paragraphs, and uses punctuation properly. Overall, those are the ones that are attractive to my eyes, not only about the story’s plot.

So, other than providing quality content, the one that I check when visiting someone’s blog is their blog’s appearance. If their blogs look messy, not attractive to the eyes, and hard to navigate, I probably won’t want to purchase because I might be afraid that the value isn’t there.

If you are trying to sell a product, you might need to create a site with value, meaning you need to invest in your site. Most businesses don’t grow without investing!

Here are my tips to make yourself look professional:

• Self-hosted and have your own domain name. This will make people take you more seriously with your own domain.
• Have a clean or organized theme that isn’t overwhelming to look at. You need to show your personality and look professional at the same time!

Consistency

I know I always mention this on my blog. This is the last tip to build a trusting audience, but the most important tip of all.

Blogging is about consistency. How will you build trust with your audience if you aren’t consistent? For instance, you disappear and stop posting every other week. I understand, sometimes life can slow you down.

It’s okay to take breaks. But if you are taking breaks so often and you are consistently not showing up and failing to prove quality content, your audience might begin to lose trust in you. I find that the more consistent I am, the more people will pay attention to my content and social media!

Those above are my tips to build a trusting audience. If you are a new blogger, the beginning is always the hardest but once you get a few loyal audiences, the rest will follow!