Day 7 : Monetise Your Blog Business
Welcome To Day 7!
Today is the day you have been waiting for.
Let's talk about monetisation.
Many people say that blogging is dead. Instead they encourage people to create videos, and if you do not create video content you are wasting your time.
And to them, I will say Yes and No.
Yes, video is the easiest way to get your content in front of many eye balls and gain more exposure for your brand. But, the content you publish is hosted on a third party platform that you do not own. If tomorrow, that platform does not exist or loses in popularity, you lose your audience and all your hard work would have been for nothing. (RIP Vine)
No, because people are facing problems they need a solution for every single day. And the first thing anyone does is go on a search engine and type the keywords related to their problems. Some will prefer the video format and others the written format. It is just a matter of preference.
BUT here is the trick, people use videos to encourage you to complete an action. Remember the call to action at the end of your blog post? Same principle applies for videos.
And for bloggers what matter the most is to build an email list. The main advantage of having your own website is that no matter what happens tomorrow to any social media platforms, your content will still exist on your website. And by asking your audience to submit their email, you will be forever in contact with them until the day they decide to unsubscribe.
In short, your mail list is your gold mine.
Many bloggers will first focus on building an email list of at least 5,000 subscribers before monetising their blog. But you can start earning a living with less than 100 subscribers. It really depends on your offer and if your readers trust you. For the monetisation to work, you need to target the right community with the right product.
Makes sense?
Ok so now let me show you the best ways to monetise your blog.
Affiliate marketing
This is how I and many bloggers started earning an income online. That is the easiest way to make money because you do not own the product. All you have to do is promote it to people who would be interested in buying it and if they do buy it, you receive a percentage of a commission on the sale.
Now, remember, it is important to remain in good faith when promoting affiliate products.
Be transparent with your audience
Always include a disclaimer on your site
Promote products you have actually use yourself and promote the benefits you enjoyed
Join programs. Search for products you already tried and contact companies asking if they have an affiliate program you can join. They all do, and you can find their program usually in the menu at the bottom of their websites.
Do you need to learn more about affiliate marketing? Check out these blog posts I wrote
How I Started My Travel Blog And Made My First Dollar
Everything You Need To Know About Affiliate Marketing
Google Adsense
You won't earn much from it when you get started, but it will be good enough to pay for the maintenance of your blog. However, for Google Adsense to work, you will need to drive a lot of traffic, meaning, bringing as many people as possible on your website.
I personally do not use it because I find it spammy and I believe many people use ad blockers like I do when they browse internet. The purpose of my blog is to provide relevant content to my audience and build rapport with them so that they can trust me as an authority. Random ads on my website would make many people close the window of my website and never come back.
Think about the user experience.
Freelancing
You could also become a consultant. If you are an expert in a specific field, why not offer your services to people looking for advice. Offer a 1-hour consultation and earn some money from doing something that you love and helping others. Some bloggers position themselves as experts and charge between $150 to $300 per hour of consultation. I, on the other hand, always offer my first 30 minutes consultation for FREE! Maybe some people would advise not to do it for free. But to me it makes sense to get to know the person and their problems before working with them. It also happened that I refused to work with someone. That is the beauty of being your own boss. You get to pick who you want to work with!
The main goal here is to serve your audience. Think about how you could help them first before selling. If the first thing you tell them as soon as they subscribe is "hey! check out this awesome product I use for x reason", you can be sure they will unsubscribe right away and you will lose a potential customer.
There are many techniques you can use to sell. But you first need to understand the foundation of running an online business with social media.
If you want to bring your business to the next level, this Social Media Bootcamp is for you. We have broken down all our knowledge and gave it to you in videos showing you our screens, so that you can replicate our method and apply it for your own business.
If that sounds good for you, just click here to get started.
Congratulations!
You are now all set. You have a blog and a strategy for promotion and monetisation. Blogging is a lifestyle and like I told you earlier, you need to have your blog match with your lifestyle and not the other way around.
You will need to be consistent and treat it as a business if you want it to be successful.
If you need any support, do not hesitate to book your FREE Social Media Consultation with me.
If you have enjoyed this training, I would be grateful if you could write me a review by sending me an email here. Also if you know anyone who could benefit from this training, do not hesitate to share it.
Until the next one, don't forget to live your life to the fullest, life is short, create memories.
Alex
