We’ve all been told we should be writing a blog. You’ll get some leads, maybe new customers, and it will help build your brand. Those are all great reasons to have a blog for your business. But what if you turned your blog into it’s own profit stream?
If you’re already spending time blogging, it makes sense to try to make money at the same time. Here’s a few ridiculously easy ways you can start making money from your blog today.
#1. Become an Affiliate Marketer
Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to create a passive income. If you’re not familiar with affiliate marketing, it’s a simple concept. A business will pay you to send customers and leads to their sales pages. If someone makes a sale from your affiliate link, you get a percentage.
There are tons of businesses who offer an affiliate marketing program. The key is to find a business that isn’t a direct competitor, but compliments your business. For example, if you own a dog kennel, you can become an affiliate marketer for a dog obedience program. If you’re writing about the benefits of owning a dog, mention the importance of an obedience program. Then link that text to the sales page using a special affiliate link.
You don’t have to spend time searching for affiliate programs. Clickbank is a great resource for affiliate marketing programs, and many of their programs also have special marketing support. Adding a few affiliate programs is a fast, easy, and passive way to create a recurring income from your blog.
#2. Sell Advertising Space
Many blogs offer advertising space, either on the side or as recommendations. Google’s Adsense is a possibility, but many people don’t like how the Google ads look on their site. Selling valuable property space on your blog gives you more control than Adsense.
Start by putting together an advertising page, with your blog’s metrics on them. Showing your blog’s traffic and rankings illustrates the value of your advertising real estate. Do a quick reader survey to find out basic demographic information. Then add in your advertising rates on either your advertising page, or a PDF. Try including an irresistible offer, like advertising for 30 days free. If they’re getting traffic from your site, they’ll most likely stick with the offer.
#3. Sell Products from Your Blog
Your blog readers are already interested in your brand, so they are a great audience for your products. Of course, they’re not interested in reading a sales pitch. Think of your products as an extension to your blog, as premium content.
Traditionally the simple solution for bloggers would have been to add a PayPal buy button to their blog. Now there are other better alternatives. If using WordPress you can choose one of the many shopping cart plugins or use WooCommerce. Set up is something most bloggers can do themselves.
You will need to choose a payment gateway, like PayPal or Authorize.net to process the payments. This does mean hosting it on your own site, so you will need to think about site security ( SSL certificates) and performance. 57% of customers will abandon a web page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. 80% of them will never return. Site performance is really important and you can’t afford to ignore it. It might also impact your hosting plan if selling large files.
Another option, would be to use a hosted solution like Selz to add a buy button or to embed a store directly on any page on your blog. It’s a simple copy and paste. It’s a perfect solution for bloggers looking to sell digital products like ebooks or tutorials. Selz takes care of the file hosting, automated delivery, and processing payments. It can be linked to MailChimp or AWeber. If wanting to sell more than a few products you can also use them to create an online store that is linked to your blog. It free to get started and easy to use.
If You’re Not Monetizing Your Blog, You’re Wasting a Profit Stream
Maybe you’re using your blog in your content marketing strategy. Or maybe your goal is to build your brand’s image, or engage your customer base. Whatever your blogs goal, it has the potential to be a new profit stream for your business.
If you choose one of these easy options, it doesn’t have to be complicated or complex. Just remember, if you’re not trying to monetize your blog in some form, you’re wasting the potential to gain valuable new customers. If you try one of these simple examples, you might discover your blog has actually been a gold mine all along.
Images: ”Word Blog on the background of one hundred dollar bills/ Shutterstock.com“
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