What Are Effective Ways To Turn A Blog Into A Business?

Blogging can be a sure-shot way to make lucrative money. Tim Ferriss, Brain Clark, and Neil Patel are a few bloggers, who made a great fortune with blogging.  However, monetizing your blog and turning it into a business is not as easy as it seems. 

Passion, dedication, and hard work are the three important requisites to make a successful career in blogging. You have to be passionate about creating content, dedicated to provide value to your audience and make their lives easier, and put in hard work to create and promote your blog. 

Though everyone worth their bread has a blog nowadays, one of the most significant challenges faced by bloggers is – what are the effective ways to turn a blog into a business? 

Effective Ways To Turn a Blog Into a Business

There are two strategies to turn your blog into a business – 

1. Launch your own products/ services 
2. Promoting Other Brand’s products and services to make money 

Launch Your Own Products/ Services – 

This strategy is helpful if you already have an established blog with a considerable number of followers. To create your own products/services, the first step is to understand your audience. You have to know their daily challenges and pain points to create a product or service that helps to solve their problems. 

The product can be anything like an eBook, tutorial video, webinar, training session, or an actual gadget or service that adds value to your audience’s lives and help them to overcome their daily problems.

For example, if you are a travel blogger, you can launch an eBook on the must-visit places that are generally not included in the tourist itinerary. If you are a language specialist, you can launch training sessions to help people learn the language. 

However, it is always recommended to start with simple products that are easier to market, and gradually building up to the more complex ones. 

For example, in the above screenshot, the Influencer marketing hub is selling a course on the basics of influencer marketing. 

Promoting Other Brand’s Products And Services

If you do not want to launch your own products, the second strategy is to promote other businesses on your blog. Businesses are always on the lookout for new avenues to market their products and services. You can collaborate with these businesses and start earning instantly by promoting their products to your audience. However, you have to be transparent and inform your audience about the paid promotions and advertisements. Being honest with the audience will help you to safeguard the trust they have in you. 

There are 3 approaches to earn money on your blog by promoting others products and services- 

Advertising 

It is the easiest way to start earning from your blog. To start advertising on your blog, the first step is to sign up with an ad network. Google AdSense, AdThrive, Adversal, and Facebook’s Audience network are some of the examples of popular ad networks. Once you sign up with a network, you will be assigned a code. This code should be added to your site to start placing ads in your blog. 

However, one of the drawbacks of advertising is that ads have the potential to hurt the user experience on your blog. Moreover, most of the readers install ad blockers.  You have to be very careful while choosing the ads and in their placement. You should not go overboard with advertisements and should choose one or two ads that suit your niche. 

Another downside of advertising is the payments are very low. Unless you have a great flow of traffic daily, you will not be able to make a decent amount from this approach. 

The screenshot above is an example of placing advertisements in a blog. The advertisement is placed on top of the page, where it gets the attention of the readers. You can also notice that it is clearly mentioned that it is an advertisement.

Affiliate marketing 

Affiliate marketing helps you to earn money by recommending third-party products and services. You earn a commission whenever your blog readers click the link and buy those products. To start affiliate marketing, you have to sign up with affiliate networks. Amazon Associates, AWIN, CJ Affiliate, Rakuten Marketing, and eBay partner network are some examples of affiliate marketing networks. 

To be successful in affiliate marketing, you should have a loyal tribe of followers who believe in your advice while taking buying decisions. They must be willing to buy the products and services recommended by you. You should carve out a great reputation and build trust in your blog readers to make it big with affiliate marketing. 

 Influencer Marketing 

If you are a well-known name in your niche and have millions of followers, who are ready to follow whatever you say, you can be an influencer. Big brands collaborate with influencers to promote their products. You can tie-up with the brands in your niche and earn well from influencer marketing. 

You may have to tie up with influencer marketing agencies that connect bloggers with brands to reach out to brands that are open for influencer marketing. 

Points To Remember If You Plan To Monetize Your Blog

If you have the intention to monetize your blog now or later, here are some crucial points to remember.

• It is difficult to monetize the blog if are using a free blog hosting platform. You cannot include ads or e-commerce functionalities on these free blogging platforms. You can start on the free versions at first and shift to the paid version when you think of monetizing the blog. 
• To convert your blog readers into paying customers, it is advisable to create a mailing list. You can keep in touch with your customers by sending personalized messages. When you launch your products, it will be easier to convert them into loyal customers. 
• Before you start monetizing your blog, it is crucial to understand your audience. Create reader personas with information such as gender, age, interests, professions, etc. This will help you to develop a deeper understanding of your audience and their needs. 
• You should always prioritize content creation over earning. Creating great content that provides in-depth insights to the readers is the only way to maintain and grow your followers.
• Take risks and do not be afraid of failure. Initial failure is a great way to learn lessons and prepare yourself for success. Experiment with different strategies and choose the one that yields the best results. 

Like any other business, monetizing your blog also needs careful planning and hard work. Consistency, hard work, and a keen eye for detail will help you earn six figures from your blog.