The most important decision you can ever make when you turn your blog into a business is what to offer to your readers to actually earn money.
There are so many options when it comes to monetizing a blog and I’m pretty sure that you’re aware with all of them.
The question is: How would you know what to offer?
Because if you want sustainable income from your blog, I think you will agree that you can’t just “follow the next hot trend” or what other people are doing or try to do all the things at once.
1. You have to get really clear on your expectations with your blog
If you set unrealistic expectations, you should be aware that you are setting yourself up for major frustration.
Are you trying to be an influencer in next 3 months?
Be the next thought leader?
Build a profitable business full time?
Or, just make a few hundred dollars on the side?
This goes on to…
2. How much money do you need to make each month?
Is it $500? $1,000? $5,000? more than $10,000?
You need to shoot for a number that you can hit.
3. Do you have a strategy in place to grow your audience?
You cannot sell to an empty theatre.
There’s no business without a customer.
You should prioritize getting people in your email list and nurturing them to build the know, like and trust factor so they are all warmed up to buy from you.
4. Do you know what’s working well for you now?
- What blogpost/s are getting the most traffic?
- What products are selling easily?
- What services are getting booked faster?
- What results have you gotten from surveys and research?
If you don’t have any idea on what products to create, I want you to pay close attention to what your audience are asking from you and what type of content gets higher engagement.
Don’t underestimate what your analytics are showing you, especially if you want to earn!
5. Should you choose to create your own products, pitch your services or be an affiliate to someone else’s product?
You have to choose one source of income first. Trying to have everything working all in one place is just overwhelming (believe me, I’ve tried it!)
No experience in creating your own products or have no idea on what services to pitch?
Then you can choose to be an affiliate or partner to someone else’s business where you can earn a commission ranging from 5% – 30%.
Let’s say you want to know more about your audience’s pain points and love to work with people 1:1, then crafting your services package is the way to go!
If you want to build passive income streams which we talked a lot in our Blog To Business Guide you may want to explore the idea of creating your own products, it could be digital downloables, online courses or physical materials that you ship to your customer’s address.
We’ll explore more about all the possibilities on Part 5 of this series.
Write down your comments and tell me:
- What are your struggles with monetizing your blog and creating offers?