Can You Turn Your Blog into a Small Business?


It might be one of the most frequently asked questions on the internet today:
 
Can I make money blogging?
 
Can I Turn Blog into Business?
 
Many bloggers have encouraged these inquiries, saying that yes, with a little hard work and dedication you can make money blogging. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but

You won’t make any money blogging.

Writing words and placing them on a blog will not pay your bills. Even if you produce good work, and people like your work, the act of blogging won’t make you money.

From a pure blogging standpoint, the best you can hope for is someone from a larger company noticing and hiring you.

What you can do, if you’d like to turn blogging into a career or Turn Blog into Business, is make money using your blog. To many that might seem like the same thing. Is there really a difference between making money blogging, and making money using a blog?

Absolutely. :D

It’s a distinction that can be the difference between frustration and success.

Your blog as a business

turn blog into business
When you put a post up on your blog, you are not engaging in a direct business transaction. No one pays you to publish that post. People might find it, read it, and comment on it, but you’re still not getting paid for the post itself.

From a business perspective, your blog posts are marketing apparatus. They are engines that drive people to your blog. Done well, they will attract a reader’s attention. That’s no small feat, either. Gaining attention is one of the two pillars of marketing.

What you do with that attention will determine the future of your blog. Uncultured, the attention will serve to slowly grow your traffic, with your readers spreading the word. While that’s not a poor goal, it’s not what will lead you to profitable lands. In order to make your blog into a small business, you have to cultivate that attention.

All Businesses Sell!

How do businesses make money?

By selling products or services. This can be in a direct way, or an indirect way.

Unfortunately, too many bloggers go for the indirect route. It’s the easy path, and so many walk it without thinking about alternatives. Those blogs will rarely, if ever, turn into viable businesses.

When you place CPM advertisements on your blog you are not making money directly. Advertisers are paying you not for your effort, but by the number of readers who see their ads. Worst of all, when you work with an ad network you get only a slice of that income, typically less than half. The indirect monetization method just doesn’t pay.

In order to truly transform your blog into a small business you have to sell something. Whether that’s through affiliate marketing, selling your own products, or other monetization methods, having a clear idea of what you’re selling will allow you to take that next step. The more direct the sale, the greater the profit for you, the blogger.

Can You Turn Blog into Business?  How?

So how does a blogger make the transition from merely writing words to owning a small business or Turn Blog into Business? It’s not actually that difficult if you break it down into steps. When I consult blogs wanting to take that next step, I show them a playbook that unfolds something like this:

1. Take inventory. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Being honest about these will make your growth path easier to create. You’ll want to follow paths that exploit your strongest skills, and you’ll want to brush up on those weaker skills.

2. Know what you’re selling. As mentioned above, you need to know what you’re selling — and how you’re selling it — if you plan to make any money.

3. Research, research, research. Go deep into your niche. Go deep into your monetization method. There are authoritative blogs and publications all around the net on nearly every topic you can imagine. If you plan to sell mobile phone accessories through affiliate marketing, for example, you’d want to research reviews of mobile accessories and read blogs by leading affiliate marketers.

4. Find the right tools. There is a correct tool for every job. Bloggers require one set of tools, while small business owners require another. You’ll need both. Thankfully, there are some easy ways to get a head start. QuickBooks, for instance, offers free trials for its software for starting a small business. Those are tools that will help you manage your business and cut down on day-to-day frustration.

5. Always be improving. It’s not enough to work in your business every day. You have to work on your business every day. Little improvements not only make a difference, but they lead to bigger improvements that will improve your overall business standing. Every day strive for incremental improvements, and over time you will make huge ones.

Writing words and publishing them on a blog won’t make you much money.

If you get a lot of traffic you might make some pocket change through display advertising, but that’s about it. In order to truly make money from a blog, bloggers must become small business owners. It is by thinking like a business that they can take that next step and make money online.

Did I missed any points to Turn Your Blog into a Small Business? let me know in comments!

20 thoughts on “Can You Turn Your Blog into a Small Business?”

  1. 90% People start blogging because they want to earn more. They create blogs and try to get approval of Google Adsense. There are two things they get the approval or they failed to get approval

    Google Adsense earning is indirect selling because you are using ads on your blogs other people. You don’t know who are the owner of that businesses. They doing this becuase it is easy for that.

    They don’t want to take risk and don’t want more effort to direct business

  2. I thought it was an interesting read but I have to disagree with you on one point. I know many bloggers that make money by just writing. Many companies are willing to pay for articles with links to there sites and products. I have friends that get approached by companies looking to sponsor blog posts.

  3. Depending upon the niche one can start a service in his/her blog. For example, I see many tech bloggers providing service of free wordpress set-up and earning from hosting affiliate commissions.

    Like you, I too believe that only advertisements cannot make blogging a business. Keeping this I tried to write a post on this matter sometime back: 10 Profitable Service Business Ideas To Start In Your Blog

    I hope, you and readers of ABT like the post.

    Thanks a lot for the encouraging post!

  4. In my opinion, it isn’t a secret that blogging can really bring money in case if you will pay enough attention to it and improve it all the time.
    Thanks a lot for this post

    Julia Spencer’s recent post.. Sales Pages: How to Write One to Win

  5. Really, turning a blog into small buisness is tough. I am an engineering student, and I would only love to earn atleast my pocket money through my blog. Hopefully I may achieve it, with these tips. Who knows, one day I will be a successful blogger. Yes, Only hard work and hard work is the key to success here.

  6. I was not able to make itself into a small business but what I was able to do was to get quality leads for my small business. Side by side it was making some profit that was enough to sustain initial losses from my small business.

  7. Great post joe,
    A blog is a great start-up business idea for anyone looking for a low risk investment. I often come across a lot of people not making money with their blog. Some great advice here about turning a blog into a business and selling products is a nice idea for a blog :)
    Thanks for the share

  8. This you well said on this post. Becoming a small business owner can get chance to promote own products and that can help to make money blogging directly.

  9. Joe Pawlikowski
    Thank you for sharing these great ideas.
    These tips causes gain even more courage to continue the journey to make money with blog.
    Success for you!
    Acts Joshua Mota

  10. Smart Income Detective

    Thanks for a great article.

    Blogging is a full time game, you have to keep updating content and giving your readers something new, to make money from adverts and affiliates. And a lot is about TRUST.

    I have bookmarked your blog, thanks.

    Richard Martin

  11. Right now im wondering if Hostgator and other hosting services accept unverified paypal account because I really want to move my blog to wordpress and turn it into a small business just exactly like this post had talk about.

  12. Siddharth Srivastava

    People think that blogging for quite a few weeks or months will bring them advertisements, and will make them earn some decent money. This is wrong! Don’t compare your passion for blogging with money.

  13. Currently my blog is running on Blogger and I’m planning to buy my own hosting and domain to let my blog run on WordPress. But the thing is I have the money but too young to have a credit card to buy it. :(

    1. That’s still a good sign, Tan. It just means you’re advanced beyond your years :)

      Why not write up a business plan and submit it to your parents? I’m not sure how it works where you live, but parents in America love it when their children show that kind of ambition.

  14. Daniel Van Helden

    I have a blog but it’s really difficult for me to come up with a business plan. I’ve tried ppc in the past and you’re right its not worth it unless you get a lot of traffic and you have a donate you’re car website with $100.00 ppc payout. It would be very hard to make a living with amazon too.

    This is the first time I have read one of you’re blog posts so please forgive me if I am asking something you have already covered but really what choices do I have. I’ve watched almost every affiliate summit on you tube and other videos where you don’t know if they are trying to help you make money or make hype.

    Please help me out. I feel like it’s becoming hopeless as a possible way to make money…Dan V.H.

    1. It really depends on your blog content. It looks like your site is based on information, which is difficult to monetize. Ultimately, in order to make money beyond AdSense you’re going to have to figure out what you’re going to sell.

  15. This is great, Really I always wanted to do with my blog something more than earning with Adsense and here I got new Ideas to plan what I need to do, Thank you so much Joe, I admire this post.

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