How to Turn Your Blog into a Business
You have been blogging for a few months and the viewership for your new blogs is finally starting to reach into hundreds, or even thousands. And now, you are thinking, "how soon can I quit my job and make this a full time job?”
The good news is that you can turn your blog into a money making machine and live off the income that it produces.
However, it is going to take a lot more work than simply getting a few hundred visitors to the website. In order to make money from your blog, you need followers who you can turn into long term buyers of your products and services.
Building followers will start by writing content that your audience is looking to for. Then, once they are on the blog, you should persuade them to subscribe to your email list, click links, or buy products that you offer on your blog.
Easy Ways To Make Money Blogging:
1. Setting Up Ads
Ads receive a lot of negative publicity because of their low pay. However, in 2017, ads remain the most effective and reliable way of earning money online. The key to success with ads is not to use too many of them on your website. Nobody wants to see a site that is clustered with tens of blinking ads.
Instead of filling your site with ads, set up your AdSense account to show ads about products and services that your users might be interested in. For instance, if you are a health and fitness blog, you can show relevant ads on the topic of fitness, body building, and nutrition, instead of an ad about the latest phone.
2. Make Money Through Affiliate Links
You can never go wrong with affiliate marketing. Even the biggest bloggers on the internet rely on affiliate marketing to make money. The good thing with affiliate marketer is that you do not need to partner with influencers to find affiliate opportunities. The internet is full of businesses and blogs that are willing to pay you top dollars to refer people to their websites or products.
One of the most popular affiliate is amazon associates. And, the good thing with amazon is that you do not go through an approval process like Google AdSense. You simply sign up, get referral links, display ads, or offer an Amazon-based shopping cart for your readers. You then get a small commission every time someone uses the link to buy a product from amazon.
3. Merchandising
Selling branded merchandise is a good way to make money from your blog. If you are not already doing it, consider selling t-shirts, mugs, and mouse pads with your logo printed on them.
Not only is it satisfying to see people walking around with merchandise with your brand on them, but also, branded merchandize is a cheap way to get free exposure and publicity.
You can get branded t-shirts from a local t-shirt shop or by ordering them online from on-demand branding service like Branders.
4. Ad Networks
Advertising networks have been on the internet since the beginning. Services like Adknowledge, Bidvertiser, and Clicksor all allow you to place contextual advertising links in your content.
Other Methods of Earning Money Online
Apart from the methods above, you can also earn from your blog by:
- Selling other products or services directly from a blog
- Soliciting donations from readers
- Offering premium content on your blog using a subscription or paid membership model
- Creating videos for YouTube and using your blog to popularize them.
- Writing high quality content for other websites that are willing to pay for your services.
- Developing software that will solve a problem within your industry and charge users for using it.