Blogging is a force that has taken the ecommerce world by storm. Thousands of hopefuls begin a blog each month, praying that all their hard work, hopes, and dreams will come true. It’s easy enough to start a blog today with web hosting and templates, but making it big is a different matter.

Surveys show that there are hundreds of thousands of bloggers online, but very few rich ones. The majority (63 percent) make less than $100 per month, with 38 percent of those bloggers making less than $10 in a given month.

That being said, starting a monetizing blog isn’t impossible. Four percent of bloggers make more than $10,000 per month and another 16 percent make between $500 and $9,999. The top 20 percent in the blogging sphere are few, but their massive earnings are enough to encourage the amateur blogger.

If you want to make money from your blog, you have to be willing to put in the work and approach it in the right way. Here are some things all new bloggers must do if they want a glimpse of success.

  1. Be passionate about your topic

Most importantly, you need to grow a passion for your blogging topic that will be a constant presence in your writing. It will drive your desire to write and keep you generating content. When bloggers are passionate about a topic, it shows in their writing. Without that passion, you’ll blend in with the other bloggers who make virtually nothing on their blog each month.

  1. Understand your competition

As Neil Patel says in an article all about starting a blog, “You might feel like the only 23-year-old who’s obsessed with knitting. But there are others out there. Do a quick Google search, and you’ll find 539,000 results about people just like you.”

Know who these people are and understand what makes you different. It’s your differences that will allow you to stand out and make the impression you want to leave.

  1. Choose a domain name that’s simple, but memorable

This is key, and it’s all part of essential branding. If people can’t remember your blog’s name, they’ll have a very hard time finding it again and recommending it to their friends. The same thing goes if they can’t spell it. These are detrimental roadblocks to your blog’s success.

  1. Sell it

These two words are simple, but the concept behind them is oh-so-complex. It’s hard to make money on words alone. Seth Godin explained it perfectly when he said, “If you love writing or making music or blogging or any sort of performing art, then do it. Do it with everything you’ve got. Just don’t plan on using it as a shortcut to making a living.”

Blogging for money usually involves more than just writing high quality content, though this is the vehicle in which you’ll market your monetization. Most bloggers pursue other forms of money making through their blog, such as selling products, running advertisement, and doing affiliate marketing. If you want to make money, you’ll need to use one or all of these methods.

  1. Write quality content all the time

This doesn’t mean every one of your posts will go viral. That’s pretty much impossible, but it does mean that you’ll invest the time and effort to feel proud of the content you produce. There’s no sub par content on a successful blogger’s platform. Everything is carefully planned and held to a standard that your audience will come to expect.

“There are tons of different factors that go into ranking well, but the biggest is high-quality content,” says David Sinick, and this is an important factor for ranking well in search engines. Being seen and making money is all about boosting your search engine optimization, and quality content will take you there.

  1. Get to know your readers

The importance of this simple sentence cannot be stressed enough. Successful bloggers are thus because they know how to connect with their readers. Every blog post, social interaction, and email is designed to have something in common with the reader because that’s how you make connections and relationships that last.

One of the best pieces of advice any new blogger can follow is this piece of wisdom from Brian Clark: “Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.” It’s your readers that will make you successful, and crafting your blog around them will lead you to a better outcome than anything else.