You’ve been blogging for a while now and love it.
You’ve cultivated a tight-knit following, and your readers can’t seem to get enough of your content.
After years of building a strong foundation, you’re beginning to crave something more. You’re eager to switch to blogging full-time, but you’ve never done something like this before.
A million thoughts flood your mind:
- “Where do I even start?”
- “How do I manage the ins and outs?”
- “What if it’s not possible to turn my blog into a profitable business?”
In your quest for answers, you stumble upon just the right guide to help you on your path to full-time blogging.
Yes — it’s this one!
In this article, we’re going to set the record straight and show you how to turn your blog into a full-time profitable business, once and for all.
Let’s get to it.
Is It Possible To Turn Your Blog Into a Full-Time Profitable Business?
Out of 600 million blogs on the internet today, less than 10% are profitable.
And while that may sound small, percentage-wise, the online world is still home to millions of profitable bloggers.
In other words, turning your blog into a full-time profitable business may not be easy, but it’s absolutely possible.
But the question remains, what sets successful bloggers apart from the rest? What makes one blog more profitable than another?
The long answer? Tenacity, strategic planning, and taking the right action steps.
The short answer? Building an empire.
We may not be able to help you on the tenacity part, but we have a few tricks up our sleeve to help you straighten out the rest.
Let’s take a look.
1. Register Your New Business
Before you can turn a profit with your business, you need to make sure it’s legal first.
You can register your business directly with the county clerk, or you can meet with a registered agent if you’re in a hurry.
If you’re not sure what kind of business entity to choose for your blog, meet with a business consultant to determine the best course of action.
2. Build a Content Strategy Based on User Intent
Getting more eyes on your content is pivotal to creating a profitable blogging business.
When you build a content strategy based on user intent, you’re telling both searchers and Google that you care about providing value.
Over time, sharing highly valuable content helps you position yourself as an industry expert. Not only does this help build your reputation as a thought leader, but it also fosters trust with your target audience.
Take Hayley and Mark from Growth Marketing Pro, for example. By focusing their content on sharing the business tactics their customers search for most, Hayley and Mark are on track to earn a million dollars in revenue by the end of 2021.
If you have no idea what we’re talking about when we say “user intent,” sit down with an SEO strategist for a complete breakdown.
3. Create an Affiliate Marketing Strategy For Your Blog
Affiliate marketing is one of the most common ways to earn money blogging.
If you haven’t heard of affiliate marketing, it just means you promote other people’s products in exchange for a possible commission. Anytime readers click on the promo codes you embed in your affiliate marketing articles and make a purchase, you get paid by the seller.
The nice thing about affiliate marketing is there’s no inventory, drop shipping, or multi-level marketing (MLM) involved.
Your only job as an affiliate marketer is creating engaging content that highlights the potential benefits your audience will have if they buy the offers you’re promoting. Or creating in-depth reviews breaking down everything your audience needs to know about the offer you’re promoting.
This review of Convertbox is a perfect example of the latter option.
In this example, Massimo Chieruzzi provides a no-nonsense review of a product called Convertbox — including the pros, cons, and everything in between.
In the end, the key to making it as an affiliate marketer is partnering with successful brands that have affiliate programs you align with.
In other words, it’s much easier to sell something when you believe in it.
Still feeling stuck on how to add affiliate marketing into the mix? We recommend studying other successful bloggers that have done it.
Check out bloggers like AdamEnfroy.com and Codeless.io, for example. We also love this article on affiliate marketing by Adam.
4. Map Out How You Plan to Weave In Products and Services
Do you think affiliate marketing is the only way to integrate offers into your blogging strategy? Think again.
The sky’s the limit when it comes to how you weave in products and services. In this step, take some time to map out how your products and services will integrate into your content strategy.
To give you a leg up, let’s take a look at some offers you can embed in your articles.
Sell Outsourced Products and/or Services
Don’t have your own products or services to sell to your audience? No problem.
There are plenty of companies you can outsource products and/or services from.
To sell outsourced products and services without becoming an affiliate, you can:
- Dropship products — no inventory required
- Buy wholesale inventory and sell it at retail prices
- Join an MLM and sell products in exchange for a commission
Sell Inhouse Products and/or Services
Alternatively, or coupled with the options above, you can sell your own products and services.
If you already sell products and services, consider updating your pricing and packages to meet industry standards — and supply and demand. Or consider adding products and services your audience has been asking about.
To sell inhouse products and services, you can:
- Sell digital products like ebooks, software apps, and online courses
- Sell physical products like skincare sets, journals, and boutique clothing
- Sell personalized services like 1:1 coaching
- Sell group services like group mastermind meetings
As always, if you’re feeling stuck on any of this, be sure to meet with a professional for help.
5. Create Strategic Workflows
Businesses thrive on efficient processes and consistency. And your business blog is no different.
In this step, consider ways to create strategic workflows that will support your business every day of the week.
Strategic workflows may sound like a mouthful, but the gist is this: You design a series of steps to follow for every part of your business.
For instance, customer onboarding will have its own series of steps. And content planning will have its own series of steps. Same with social media planning, email marketing, and the list goes on.
Creating processes like this creates predictable and trackable steps anyone can follow. This is especially important if you plan to scale your blog ambitiously or if you’ll need to hire a team in the future.
In other words, creating a workflow for each part of your business enables you — and anyone who works with you — to quickly and consistently publish content and run your business with ease.
6. Take Cybersecurity Seriously
Losing blog content is awful. But losing profitable blog content is a total nightmare.
Because if your blog gets wiped clean due to a cybersecurity flare-up, you’ll have to start a new blog from scratch. Yes, we’re serious. Go back, and read that again.
That’s why it’s essential to take cybersecurity seriously if you want to become a professional blogger.
From providing users access to your blog to running virus protection software, there are several measures you can take to protect your brand from cybersecurity threats.
Here are some other quick cybersecurity tips to keep in mind:
- Give employees free access to virtual private networks (VPNs) and virus protection software
- Consider implementing biometric security or 3-step identification measures
- Work on a virtual desktop
- Issue virtual desktops to your employees
- Issue secure equipment to your employees
- Take a cybersecurity training course
- Require all new hires to go through cybersecurity training
- Hire a cybersecurity expert to conduct a health exam on your equipment, website, and all online portals
7. Take Advantage of Collaborations, Guest Posting, and Ads
Collaborations, guest posting, and running ads are three methods that can skyrocket blog profits when done well.
Let’s take a look at all three options and how they can help you boost revenues for your business.
Collaborations
Collaborating with successful brands helps you build important business relationships and expand your audience reach.
Look for opportunities to cross-post, share networks, advertise for one another, and run contests and giveaways.
Guest Posting
Guest posting is a long-term game, but that doesn’t make it any less successful. Guest posting helps you build quality backlinks to your blog, which eventually raises your site’s authority score with Google.
Guest posting is also an effective way to build a reputation as an industry expert and thought leader.
Some sites also let guest posters promote their products and services — so be on the lookout for those.
Running Ads
Running ads isn’t perfect, and you can lose money doing it.
But, with careful testing and a strategy, running ads can put your blog in front of more people in a shorter amount of time.
If you’ve never run ads before, we recommend getting help from an ad specialist or a marketing strategist. They can help you design a solid plan, track efforts, and update you on your return on investment.
Wrap Up
Turning your blog into a profitable business sounds overwhelming at first.
But with the right steps, strategic planning, and a little tenacity, any great blogger can scale their blog.
To recap, here’s how to turn your blog into a full-time profitable business:
- 1. Register your new business
- 2. Build a content strategy based on user intent
- 3. Create an affiliate marketing strategy for your blog
- 4. Map out how you plan to weave in products and services
- 5. Create strategic workflows
- 6. Take cybersecurity seriously
- 7. Take advantage of collaborations, guest posting, and ads
This article was produced by Wealth of Geeks.
Featured Image Credit: Pexels.