Blog is an online platform which displays series of information for online users consumption. However, there are stages through which you have to pass through for you to achieve your dreams as a successful blogger.  Meanwhile, there are certain knowledge you have to be acquainted for projection of your blog reputation and popularity. And those knowledge may include the following:-
Passion: blogging becomes successful if you have the passion or zeal. You don't have to expect QUICK money as you start blogging because you have to build your audience, design your blog to tantamount or reflect your blog purpose. Determination matters alot in blogging, if you are not determined, you can not flourish as a blogger because it do take time for you to start seeing what you are expecting from blogging.
The reason why people might develop passion for blogging may range from individual's perception on success, popular, worth and image of known bloggers. However, in Nigeria, there are successful bloggers who started without having the knowledge that they would go this far. Successful Nigerian bloggers are bellanaija.com , Lindaikejiblog.com  , jaguda.com , music212.com , nairaland.com , 9jaflaver.com , naijaloaded.com , Ogbonjele.com , www.irokotv.com formerly known as iroking.com , TooXclusive.com , pulseng.com , Saharareporters.com , tribuneonline.com ,  waptrick.com , 360nobs.com , vanguardngr.com , Waploaded.com , etc. Then, there are other unpopular  bloggers who make enough profits from there blogs like adaigbo.com , 360nobsdegrees.com , Anything9ja.com , naijaflavour.com , warritatafo.com , 042coded.com , Naijakit, enjoy9ja, Naijaextra,  IgberetvIGTV , bonanaija,  etc. Successful non-Nigerian bloggers are shoutmeloud , theminimalists.com , coschedule.com ,
mhthemes.com , wealthresult.com , positivityblog
If you come to this, you don't need to be told that these people blog with passion from the first day and that is what brought them to this height of success.
On the same course, you must bear in mind that blogging is a long term investment which demands not immediate profits because at first, what you invest will or may highly surpass your profits (or you may not earn profits at all ).
As a matter of psychological fact, many people drop the idea of blogging or many people lost interest in blogging because they didn't get what they expected and thus, their zeal diminishes and that's all.
There is a saying that success knows not a lazy man. Success involves hard work and strategic protocols. Anything you do in life without passion or zeal will surely fail one way or the other.
Choose niche: involves blog specialization of your choice and also you have to bear in mind that blog niche do effect operation of your blog (including monetization). Choosing a blog most come along with suitable template for the niche. Like news niche demands news template or theme/template.
Blog niche also effects monetization of blog. Because some ads programmes (like google adsence) have certain difference CPC for categories. For instance, tech, health, education,  blog has high CPC than entertainment, sports blog (though advertisers bid also effects the CPC).
Also before choosing a desired niche, you must learn everything or you must be acquainted with operations associated with your blog niche. Atleast to enable you maximize the effectiveness of your blog. What you are expected to learn about your proposed niche may include the following :-
How successful are other bloggers of a particular niche?  :- though it doesn't necessarily mean that you must look at their level of success because individual's fate differs from one another. You may start your own blog of the same niche and become successful. So what you have to look at it how to get started.
Mentorship is necessary:- you must have a teacher or educator about blogging, a mentor will primarily serve as a guider to you and lead you to the rightful way.  However, some people may demands money to mentor and sometimes it is usually unaffordable for some people. While some mentors allows whatever you have feel to give according to your financial status.
Surf Online:- you must navigate online for indept knowledge of what you are searching for. You must always carryout research online and use a method called 'trial and error',  you don't have to depend on your mentor or on people to get the knowledge of blogging issues. There is a saying that experience is the best teacher and, undoubtedly, experience will guide you to achieve your aim as a blogger.
How can I monetize my blog if I use this niche? Indeed monetization of blog is every blog-newbies dream. Monetizing your blog means that you are profiting from your blog. And blog niche sometimes determines how you monetize your blog. For instance, a potforio blog monetize through sponsored post, creativity, sponsored ads, etc. While news blog (news publishers) monetize their blog mainly through adverts banner placement, affliate marketing, sponsored post and selling of ones products.  However, some ads programmes (like adsence) gives has Cost Per Click rate according to blog niche, Eg health Blog, tech blog, education blog has high CPC than news blog (because I think it may be conditional rare of those niche or most-important or priority ) and another factor that effects CPC is  advertisers bid (agreement).
Choose blog platform:- are those blogging platforms which you can start a blog with. There are many web companies that offers blogging platform which they are blogspot , WordPress, joomla , weebly, nabble etc. But the most widely used platform by popular Bloggers is WordPress followed by blogspot, then joomla, others. However, for newbies or amateur bloggers, blogspot is the best or suitable platform to be chosen because of its flexibility or simpleness, blogspot uses HTMl markup language and offers good user interface. Like this blog ultimatetimestv is platformed on blogspot. Many people opinionated that blogger blogs suffers hitches on ranking and SEO but, it's a lie,  SEO matters not on blog platform but the rich nature of your content and fulfilling the principles and rules of SEO.
WordPress is good because it offers many features which can be easily achieved using plugins. WordPress also offers more professional websites and are good also in SEO if rules and regulations of SEO is maintained. WordPress also offers free sub-domain Eg   www.myblog.wordpress.com but as of me, I will tell you to go to full domain name Eg www.myblog.com which make your blog more professional.
Joomla is also a good website making which has recently said to be better than controversial WordPress.
Choose a domain name:- domain name is a unique name which identifies a blog. There are many domain registrars or domain name providers such as godaddy.com , tfhost.com , domainking.com , abollyhost.com ,   namecheap.com ,  easyname , name.com , etc. Your domain name must relate with your blog niche e.g education niche should look like scholardomain.com , learningstate.com etc and also there are certain premium unique domain names that directly defines what this blog is all about, like   .edu or    .edu.com,  .space,   .eu etc. There are also certain domain names that signifies country of operation or country where the blog is operating and we have  .ng (Nigeria)  ,   .gh (Ghana) , .co.uk (united Kingdom), etc.
Choose host:- hosting your blog means housing or harbouring your blog data. There are many companies that offers hosting services like the bluehost, tfhost, godaddy, WordPress , etc. But if you don't have enough fund for starting up your blog, however, you can use blogspot google freehosting (if you are using blogger because, google owns blogspot (blogger platform).
Creativity matters :- you must learn how to improvise or birth fascinating ideas that would catapult your project. However,  It’s not necessary that every blogger should be a creative person, but it’s certainly an advantage for you. Creativity is one the most important part of writing. Creative articles always attract the attention of readers. It helps you to stand out from the rest.
Building your audience:- before you start blogging you must ask yourself what type of audience do I need? What will my audience need or expect? How I'm I going to meet up with their expectations? and for you to achieve all these things, you must learn how to use QUESTION to ANSWER method of writing, you must learn how to help people resolve their problems by dishing out quality, ideas, and optimized content and also do review other blogs of similar niche to see how it is optimized successfully and also you should consult bloggers of the same niche to share helpful ideas.
Creating and designing your blog: There are various blogging platforms such as WordPress, blogger, wix etc. But the most widely used is WordPress and Blogger. Choose a well designed template (even though some blogger platform provide a means for template customization), make sure that you design or a web developer designed the template to suit with your niche.
Join Bloggers Forum: Bloggers always like to be engaged with new ideas so they needs a forum where they can share helpful ideas that would collectively solve challenges of blogging successfully. Joining this forum which could be facebook, whatsapp etc will help immense help to you and it also provides a medium through which you can socialize with people.
Always update your blog:- updating your blog regularly will help your blog in many ways especially on aspect of SEO because whenever you update your blog, the crawler recraws your updated pages and also updating your blog will also invite more visitors to your blog. You can schedule your posts offline, write them carefully, well paragraphed, do not jampack your content, always separate the contents by creating subheading by bolding it or italizing it, or bolding or italizing words that contains idea.
Use social media as a tool:- Always share your blog to social media like facebook, whatsapp, instagram, reddit, etc. This method also is used to drive (inorganic) traffic to your blog and increase it popularity.
Comment on forums:- always comment on forums by sharing ideas or answering questions and afterwards leaving your blog URL also do help to drive organic traffic and increase your search engine workability.
Check SEO:- search engine optimization is the main way of running your blog because without it, your blog is almost useless and also you may find it difficult monetizing your blog. For you to achieve your SEO. If you are using WordPress, you have to install yoast plugin (check version) or you use google search console, google analytics, or googlewebmasters to track your blog. As for blogger, google owns the platform so you may find it more easier using google search console. Also write a quality content with quality keywords (eg how to or why or what etc ) that is friendly to search engine and avoid copy and paste practice.
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE ELIGIBLE FOR GOOGLE ADSENCE/ADS.
Google adsence is one of the most widely used by bloggers to monetize their blog which is based on pay per click (PPC) and impressions and we still have other platform that pays based on CPA, etc.
For you sign up for google adsence, you must have atleast 2000 traffic all through history and make your blog have necessary pages which defines the credibility such as Advertise with us, Contact us, about us, and privacy policy.
Then your template should be well optimized for advertising because there are some old templates that do not have suitable face for ads placement. However, do not share your blog URL to websites, or blog that has been banned previously by google adsence (eg nairaland ) but you may share it after you must have been approved by google adsence, and your ads is showing.
Signing up for ads placement:-
Sign up to place ads on your blog. Placing ads is an excellent means of monetizing your blog. With “pay per click” (PPC) ads, you get paid when visitors click on ads on your blog. You usually need to already have a strong high visitor counts for ad buyers to be interested in your blog. Below are examples of websites that offer pay per click
1. Google’s AdSense program is the most widely used PPC program because it has the power of Google Search behind it. Google will read your article and find "ads that are relevant" to it and display them next to or within the article.
It will also use your readers’ cookies to display ads that are relevant to their recently visited websites on your blog. You can also sign up for “cost per impressions” (CPM) ads. These function similarly to PPC, but they pay is based on units of “impressions” (views) the ad gets, even if the visitor doesn’t click on the link. Usually, the units are sets of 1,000 impressions to reach payment threshold.
 If you don’t have about 10,000 unique visitors to your site every month, you aren’t likely to make much money from ads. That’s why it’s crucial to build up your readership through marketing and quality content.
2. Sign up for affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a very popular way of monetizing a blog because it capitalizes on your readers’ trust of you. If your posts always deliver quality content, then your audience is more likely to trust product or service you  recommended. You can provide links or recommendations to relevant products and get a commission from any sales driven by your blog.
a. Amazon Associates lets you place a banner on your website with products targeted at your audience, such as phone accessories for a tech website or art supplies for a creative website. You earn a small commission when people buy something through your blog link. Amazon pays a commission ranging from 4% to 15% (recently not verified).
Amazon is the giant in the affiliate industry, but it’s also a good idea to reach out to small companies and even individuals who make products or services that colerated to your blog. For instance, if you have a popular electronic blog, you might contact small BBQ sauce companies to see if they’d be interested in setting up an affiliate marketing program with you. You earn a portion of the sale through your blog, and they get free marketing.
You can also check out other affiliate programs at big clearing house sites such as Commission Junction, LinkShare, and ShareASale. These sites offer huge lists of programs, from which you can choose the ones relevant to your blog.
An affiliate aggregate service, such as VigLink, automatically will  insert monetized affiliate links into posts for you. They keep a higher percentage of the commission than other services, but the convenience may make up for it.
3. Write sponsored posts. If have a high visitor count, you may be able to get other companies to pay you to “sponsor” a post. The advertiser may contact you directly, or you can check out online “sponsorship marketplaces” such as "themidgame".
But be careful about sponsors who want you to place an article to increase their own page rank. This violates Google’s policy and could hurt your AdSense revenue.
However, you also can check out websites such as Blogsvertise, Social Spark, and Review Me for listings of paid or sponsored posts.
  
CAUTION: Do not allow sponsored posts to overtake or Surpass your own content. Remember: your readers visit your blog to read your content.
   
Make sure that you only post sponsored posts that still benefit your readers in some way. You don’t want your blog to seem like a corporate shill.
4. Work directly with a brand or company. Working directly with a company to assist with a promotional campaign can be a better  way to boost traffic and revenue for your blog. Many companies, particularly ones like publishers, are delighted to pay you to participate in things like Twitter parties, blog-based “book tours,” and giveaways.
 For example, if you run a popular blog where you review tech articles, contact various tech publishers to see if they’re interested in paying you for a review or other promotional event, like an author interview.
 Signing up with third-party connecting agencies can be helpful. Blog Friendly PR, Blog Insiders, and Brandfluential are popular networks.
5. Use your blog as a portfolio or to showcase your skills. You may be able to use your blog to create freelance as source of income by using it to showcase your work or talent. Your blog can not only be use to sell products, but having a “portfolio” section on your blog  can let readers see what you’re good at.
For instance, if you manage a photography blog, keep a portfolio of your very best photographs and market yourself as a freelance photographer. However, this will make readers know exactly what they’re getting because they can see your passion and good works.
7. Create paid content. Once you have a loyal followers and have demonstrated your trustworthiness, you can consider adding “paid content” to your blog. For example, you could host a special podcast or write an e-book and charge visitors a small fee to access it.
Among others are paid courses, consulting services, and advice are other popular types of products and services you can use the reputation you’ve established to sell.
You can also use a service such as Zazzle or CafePress to create branded items like t-shirts and tote bags for sale.
The Bloggess creates new items weekly, usually playing on a humorous post from the week before.
Also Consider memberships, where you charge a small monthly fee for users to gain access to exclusive content, video content, or possibly direct access to you through Q&A or live events.
WordPress has many plugins/features to help you include membership services to your blog.
Consider “bonus content.” For example, if you run a podcast on your blog, you might consider having the standard episode available for free but a longer version or additional content for a small token.
   
Remember:- anything you can offer that’s valuable to your readers might be worth them paying for. Just don’t let your blog become so paid-content-heavy that it doesn’t seem like a good value to your audience anymore.
In summary, if I talk about monetization of blog with products and services which most bloggers do combine the option with adsence/ads. You can as well write 'helpful e-book' and charge your readers small fee.
You can also monetize or make from your blog by physically advertising your blog in campuses, universities and colleges by creating and pasting posters in strategic places. The poster should contain services you'd offer suchlike 'guide to writing school projects' or you can charge interested clients to take already written topics.
Also you can include the service of solving or writing assignment or homework for interested clients. You can also offer academic guidance to them. E.g 'How to write examination successfully' or 'How to avoid failure in Examination' etc.
I hope this article helps you?. Please comment below