How To Monetize Your Blog From Day One
The Glorious Company Team
Monetizing a blog is no easy task. But with proper research and planning, it is possible to create a blog you enjoy writing on for years and make it a sustainable business you're proud of.
No matter where your interests lie, there is an audience out there seeking the knowledge and passion that only you can share.
Let's look into how to monetize your blog from day one. Try these proven ways to turn your blog into a properly monetized business.
Find a Profitable Blogging Niche
The starting point is to consider your hobbies, experiences, and areas where you have in-depth knowledge.
Can you see yourself writing and sharing content on a particular topic for years to come? This is just as important as your monetization strategy. After all, to run a blog like a business and earn income from it, you must choose a topic or niche you feel comfortable with to ensure your blog is sustainable.
Creating engaging and high-quality content will help retain readers, grow your audience, and attract partners, advertisers, and sponsors.
Step 1. Become an Affiliate Marketer
Chances are, if you have read or browsed around any blog, you have encountered affiliate links or sponsored content.
Becoming an affiliate marketer is a great way to earn consistent revenue from your blog. It is as simple as including some product links in your articles. When those links are clicked, and a purchase is made on the other end, you earn a commission.
Affiliate programs are not all created equal, though. Some massive platforms like Amazon Affiliates provide an average commission rate between 2% and 7%. Others will offer affiliates that join their program a much higher commission rate, sometimes as high as 40% or even 50%.
Every niche is different, but finding good affiliate programs to join is as easy as a quick Google search. You can look into products or services that you actually use too. Some of them might offer affiliate programs you can join.
The key to success with affiliate marketing is diversification. In other words, don't put all your eggs in the same basket. Some affiliate programs might earn you more than others.
One of the most interesting aspects of affiliate marketing is that you do not need to create products yourself. You get paid based on how many sales you can drive to the affiliate website. There is no overhead, no need to develop a product, and nothing to purchase.
The key to success with affiliate marketing is to always be hyper-relevant. If you have a photography blog, don't link to a page selling pots and pans. It might seem obvious, but it bears repeating; context and relevance are crucial in affiliate marketing.
Step 2. Start Consulting
Running a blog is a wonderful way to attract clients. Over the years, I've seen many blogs turn into consulting businesses after a few years.
For many, starting a consulting business can be a natural evolution from blogging. After all, you are writing and sharing your expertise on a specific topic. Why not go all in and offer your services—for a fee.
This is, in fact, how I personally got started in the world of product design and user experience. I'm a designer by trade. After running a design blog for a while, I started getting inquiries from potential clients looking for my services.
It only made sense for me to turn my blog into a consulting business. For me, this was just the next step in my career. Of course, I kept blogging to attract more clients. Still, my monetization strategy changed drastically from looking for advertisers and affiliate programs to catering my content to potential clients.
Step 3. Sell Ebooks
Managing a blog means a lot of writing. It's writing new content daily, finding ideas, researching keywords, optimizing, marketing your content, etc.
The process of writing an ebook is akin to writing a blog article, only in much more detail.
In fact, creating and selling an ebook is one of my preferred ways to monetize a blog. You already have an audience interested in your content. Chances are a good portion of them might be willing to part with a few dollars to gain expert knowledge from your ebook.
Remember we talked about affiliate marketing above? Once you have an ebook to sell, nothing stops you from recruiting affiliates to promote it. Of course, you pay your affiliates a commission on every sale, but your volume has the potential to increase significantly. The sky is literally the limit here.
Some people can be reluctant to "give away" a portion of their profits to affiliates since they get a smaller piece of the pie. Still, with an army of affiliates, you might be looking at a very large pie. And there's literally no expense on your end. An ebook is a digital file that can be resold repeatedly.
Step 4. Make Money With Google Adsense
When I think about how to monetize your blog from day one, Google Adsense comes to mind immediately. There are no traffic requirements to qualify, so you can literally get started as soon as you launch your blog.
Showing ads on your blog is a very effective way to earn some income. Google Adsense and similar programs are free to join, making it very easy to start sprinkling ads on your blog.
A word of advice, though, don't sprinkle too much, or you risk annoying your existing readers and repelling potential new ones.
A tasteful and targeted ad placement can earn as much, if not more, as a series of generic advertisements plastered all over your blog.
A great thing about Google Adsense is that it also allows monetizing YouTube videos. Suppose you have a YouTube channel where you publish content. In that case, you can enable monetization (once you've reached a certain number of hours watched and subscribers), which can add to your income.
Step 5. Attract Sponsors to Your Blog
No matter your blog niche, there are companies out there looking to reach your audience to help them get more eyeballs in front of what they're offering.
Attracting sponsors to your blog is a fantastic way to monetize your blog. You can reach out to companies operating in the same vertical as your blog. Some might have a marketing budget, and you can negotiate a sponsorship package with them.
Be prepared to be extremely transparent with your potential sponsors. Most will want you to share things like how much traffic your blog gets, how many email subscribers you have, and so on.
Depending on your niche, you can probably think of a few companies you would like to sponsor your blog. Start by making a list of all of them and also research competitors.
You can even look at other blogs in your niche and see if they have published sponsored articles, run banner ads, or have a list of past sponsors on their site. If they landed a sponsorship from a company, it's entirely possible that the same company could be interested in sponsoring your blog as well.
I've partnered with dozens of companies over the years on sponsorships, and a great way to get started is with a simple Google Spreadsheet where you list your ideal sponsors. List them out by preference first, and use some columns in the spreadsheet to indicate the date you reached out to them, the date they replied, and the outcome.
Don't despair if you don't hear back from most of them. Marketing departments are busy, budgets shift around, or maybe your blog is not (yet) what they're looking for. Some of them might also offer that you join their affiliate program if they have one—which is a win in my book.
Step 6. Sell Online Courses
Have you ever wanted to learn something online, only to find that the information you could get your hands on didn't cover the topic as in-depth as you would've liked? Maybe you even joined some online courses at some point.
Online courses are similar in some ways to ebooks—you create the content once and can sell the course indefinitely. You can even enroll affiliates to promote your online course, adding even more to your bottom line.
This is another great way to earn income from your blog. You can, of course, use your existing content on your blog to drive organic traffic to your online course landing page. If you have a newsletter, which I highly recommend, you can let your most loyal readers know about your course (maybe offer a discount code for your email subscribers).
Step 7. Offer Memberships
From a business standpoint, I love membership websites. Not only can they be extremely profitable, but membership sites are also often valued higher. If you ever decide to sell your blog, having recurring paying members will attract more buyers and yield a higher price.
Having a membership area on your blog and properly managing it is no small task. Paying subscribers expect premium content, more frequent updates, community features, and other perks only available to members. They need a reason to keep paying every month to remain a member.
Managing a membership area on your site might also require technical knowledge, setting up a payment processor, a shopping cart, and more. But, in the end, it is well worth the effort if you're looking to take your blog to the next level and earn a serious income. You can even package your ebooks, online courses, and other products into your membership platform.
Step 8. Use Crowdfunding and Donations
Have you ever heard of Kickstarter or Indiegogo? Those are crowdfunding platforms where you can post your project and offer various packages for early bird supporters.
You receive the funds and start building your product if you reach your funding goal. Once it's ready to hit the market, your early supporters get first dibs on your product (as well as some additional perks for being early supporters).
A highly successful campaign can reach between a few thousand dollars in funding and hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you have a unique and original idea, take it to Kickstarter or Indiegogo and see where it leads. You might be surprised by what comes out of it.
If you do not reach your funding goals, that is ok, you can always re-think your idea and start a new campaign once you have refined your product or idea.
Step 9. Sell Digital or Physical Products
Digital and physical products can turn your blog into a full-fledged business. Whether you go with digital or physical products is up to you, but know that physical products require more logistical know-how, too.
Digital products, like ebooks and online courses, can be created once and resold forever. Physical products need manufacturing, fulfillment, shipping, etc. Physical products often sell for a higher price point, but your margin might be lower. But people love tangible products, things they can own, touch, and feel.
From my experience selling ebooks, one of the most frequent questions I've received from potential customers was, "Do you have a paperback version?" You'd be surprised how many people will pay more to hold a physical book.
Digital and physical products can be anything, though. Don't limit yourself to just ebooks if you go the digital route. Maybe offer presets, downloadable planners, plugins, code snippets, downloadable art… the list goes on.
Physical products, while they might require more research and possibly a larger initial investment on your part (or through crowdfunding), could be developed in a matter of weeks and be a wonderful way to turn your blog into a money-making machine.
Step 10. Begin Podcasting
You already have a blog where you write articles. Why not start a podcast to go along with your written content?
There is an enormous demand for podcasts and audiobooks. It can also allow you to reach a completely new audience through channels otherwise not accessible to the average blog writer. Think iTunes, Spotify, and Audible.
Podcasts will also attract different sponsors and advertisers looking to get their product or service in front of your listeners.
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received about marketing a podcast is to always film your recordings. While the final product will be an audio file, having a video of your podcast—where you and your guest(s) are in a nice setting with comfy chairs and microphones—that you can use to publish on social media will help get your podcast in front of a lot more people than any other means.
Step 11. Write for Other Platforms
Why would you write for other blogs or platforms? You're busy enough trying to find ideas and writing on your own blog. Right?
It may be so, but try to carve out some time to create content for other blogs in your niche and other platforms like Medium.
Not only can this help you network and develop relationships with other bloggers, but it can also develop into business partnerships, guest post exchanges, backlinks, new affiliate partners, and generally more exposure for your blog.
I'm a massive fan of using other people's audiences to grow your blog. There are many blogs out there that accept guest articles from contributors. Ensure you read and abide by their requirements, and your article might get published on their blog. It is customary to have an author bio at the end of articles; this is a great way to build a collection of healthy backlinks.
Drive Organic Traffic to Your Blog
What do all of the monetization strategies mentioned above have in common?
None of them will be as successful as they can be without much search engine traffic. There are syndication platforms, social media, and a myriad of other ways you can drive visitors to your blog. But search engine traffic, despite what anyone says, is still king.
Here are some tips on attracting more visitors to your blog by ranking your content where those people are already searching for it.
Find the Right Keywords to Rank for
Finding keywords to rank for can be tricky. If you're too broad with your topics and keywords, you risk diluting the impact of your content. Too laser-focused, and you might run out of things to write about. Ideally, you need to find a balance.
However, if your blog is on a specific topic, it's ok to be laser-focused with your keywords and content. For this situation, rely on long-tail keywords in your content, which are much narrower and appeal to people who are searching for something very specific (ie, how to do a certain task properly or detailed information about a specific product type).
You can always supplement your content with other resources like links to sources (both external and internal), video content, etc. Google sees both as valuable ranking factors for your content.
You can use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to research keywords or topics for your blog. Tools like this are extremely powerful both from a discovery standpoint and also to research your competition. Using Ahrefs or Semrush, you can find out which keywords are saturated, which might be easier to rank for, and more. As a rule of thumb, identify and target keywords with lower keyword difficulty to better increase your ranking opportunities in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Keyword research tools are invaluable for anyone writing content for a blog or running any website.
Publish Unique and High-Quality Content
While researching topics and ideas for your blog, you will inevitably feel like every blog out there has already covered everything you want to write about.
It can be unnerving but fear not. You can still make your content unique and high quality—which will ultimately help your monetization strategy.
Finding your own voice and writing style can set your blog apart from the crowd. You might be writing content similar in some ways to other pieces published on other blogs, but no one else out there has your voice or style; those are unique to you.
High-quality content often equates to long-form content in the world of blogging. It isn't rare for longer and more in-depth articles to rank better than shorter pieces.
After all, would you prefer to read a detailed and well-researched article that will teach you everything you need to know on a particular topic or end up disappointed when you go through dozens of shorter pieces and never find what you're looking for?
Don't be afraid to do a deep dive on a topic. Your blog should be a place where readers come to learn about something and find exactly what they came to your blog for in the first place.
Earn Backlinks and Promote Your Content
Search engine optimization (SEO), on the surface, is quite straightforward: The more websites and other blogs link to your content, the more your blog appears popular to search engines and will likely rank higher in the search results.
While you could rely on luck and organic linking, there are things you can do to speed up the process of getting backlinks:
Research blogs and websites in your niche and scan their content for broken links. Then email the website owner and kindly ask them to link to one of your articles instead. This will save them the time to research a suitable replacement link.
Commenting and being active on forums and other online communities can also help bring attention to your blog. The most important rule here is to never spam or post links to your blog too aggressively. This is highly frowned upon. Instead, just being active in online communities, networking, making friends, etc., will show you're an active member, and some other members might also have blogs and be willing to link to yours and vice-versa.
Publishing extremely high-quality content is of utmost importance to get backlinks. Ideally, you want your content to be as evergreen as possible, too. Posting such content on your blog can establish it as an authority in your field and attract backlinks naturally.
Get Started Now to Reap the Rewards Tomorrow
I sincerely hope you found this article useful and that you learned a thing or two about how to monetize your blog from day one.
While many of the techniques I outlined worked for me, some might work better than others, depending on your niche. The key to monetizing a blog is experimenting, running tests, and trying different things. Then see what works, ditch what doesn't yield results, and keep improving on what works for you. You got this!
This is a guest post by Jon Phillips, a product designer, musician, and photographer. You can find him, as well a list of some of the projects he's working on, via his website at jonphillips.ca.
Have any questions? Keep the conversation going by leaving a comment below.
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