money

Can You Turn Your Blog into a Small Business?

By / Make Money Online


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!

Are You Ignoring One Rule for Making Money Blogging?

By / Blogger Tips, Make Money Online

Let’s cut to the chase: We all want making money blogging from our blogs.

Of course! ;)

During consulting sessions with bloggers it’s one of the first items we discuss. Everyone has seen the success stories, and we’d all love to be the next blogging superstar and making money blogging. But how?

When my clients ask how they can make money, I pause the conversation there and change directions. The conversation goes something like this.

Me: “So you’d like to earn money blogging?”

Client: “Yes, but I don’t know how.”

Me: “If you want to earn money for your efforts, you have to provide people with something, right?”

Client: “Yeah, sure.”

Me: “So I ask you, what do you provide to your readers that is so valuable?”

The conversation usually stops dead here. :D

I suggest that the client takes a day or two to ponder that question. Sometimes they come back with a solid idea, and we can build from there. Other times, though, they come back stumped. They’ll ask, “What do readers find valuable?” There’s a good answer to that, and it constitutes my one rule for making money from a blog.

You have to teach them something.

If you’re just re-blogging the news, or blogging your opinion on current events, you’re not teaching the reader much of anything. There’s an old saying about how everyone has opinions and how they all stink. That applies to bloggers, though you wouldn’t know it by the number of opinion-based blogs out there.

To stand out in the blogging world today, you have to be remarkable. That’s sad for opinion bloggers, because opinions are not remarkable. If you want an opinion on any subject, from the latest political news to the hot new gadget release, you can find it on any number of websites. Dozens of writers race to post updates to blogs, hoping that if they post first that readers will find them. But it’s just a shell game. There is no winner when blogging opinions.

If you ignore that rat race and focus on how you can become valuable to readers, then you might be onto something. And you might find not just one way, but many ways to make money from your blog. When you teach people something new, all sorts of opportunities start appearing.

Of course, after I tell clients about teaching through blogging, they always have a follow-up question: How can I teach people with my blog?. Here is my three-part answer.

Read Also : Want To Become A Famous Blogger? Then Read This!

How Can I teach people with blog & make money?

OK, So How can I teach people with my blog and start making money blogging? Here is my three-part answer.

1. Start with something you know

With the internet as your guide, you can learn about almost anything. Even if you’ve never known a thing about home improvement projects, you can learn plenty from instructional texts and videos on the web. But if you want to teach readers how to do something, chances are you’ll need a bit more knowledge. They’re looking for something deep and real, and your understanding based on other home improvement blogs won’t cut it.

Start by blogging about one of your passions. If you know a lot about using the internet to save money when shopping, then start a blog about that. You might not know everything there is to know, but you sure know something. You can start blogging with that knowledge. Of course, that won’t always be enough. You have to be always learning, which brings me to Part 2.

2. Dig deep, then deeper

Picking a familiar topic will help at first, but eventually you’ll have to learn even more about your subject. Why? Because if you don’t you’ll run out of material. Using the above example, if you don’t learn more about saving money online, you’ll never be able to keep up and teach your readers something new. You’ll eventually have taught them everything you know, and from there what can you do?

This goes especially for high-tech subjects. I have a buddy who installs video surveillance equipment for businesses and residences. Take a look at that link and look at all the stuff listed just on the very first page. If he didn’t keep up with those products, he’d never be able to keep up. The same goes for you and your blog. Learn it all, and then learn more.

3. Connect with readers

This goes for any blog, but it bears repeating in this instance. So many bloggers I know neglect to respond to their comments and emails*. If you’re

connect with readers

ignoring those, then how are you getting a feel for what your readers like and don’t like? It’s through these reader connections that we can help our blogs go. Unsurprisingly, this holds true even more so for blogs that teach.

* I submitted a guest post a few months ago and forgot to reply to the comments. Ammar was not happy, and I don’t blame him. Every blogger needs to respond to comments, or else why blog in the first place?

When you connect with readers you can find out your weak points. Maybe you explain certain points in an unclear way. Maybe you use too many words to describe something that needs only a few words. Whatever the reasons, your readers are able and willing to point them out. If you learn from them, as they learn from you, you’ll see enormous growth.

Read : 12 Tips For Writing Engaging Content For Readers

Why teaching works?

So many blog posts I read start with theories but never explain them. We’re just supposed to believe that this works, because the author said so. So before wrapping up, I’d just like to outline how you can make more money with a teaching blog than almost any other type of blog.

  1. Advertisers like teaching blogs. When you teach people things, they often need to buy resources that they don’t already own. That’s a perfect opportunity for an advertiser to step in. Display ads from ad networks typically don’t pay much, but on blogs with a teaching angle you can earn a higher CPM.
  2. Articles that teach people something spread on social media. If I read an article and learn something from it, you can bet I’ll share it to Twitter and Facebook. If I learned something, then maybe others in my social graph will learn something. And if they learn something, they might pass it on to their social graph. If you want to create content that spreads, try teaching people something. It’s the best form of blogging.
  3. Affiliate sales rule. Teaching blogs are tailor-made for affiliate marketing opportunities. You’ll have to be up-front about it, but it can be a big money-maker on a teaching blog. If you link people to the tools and resources they need, they’ll be more apt to buy from you. That means an opportunity to make even more money blogging.

Starting a blog that teaches, like a DIY blog, is never easy. But if you put in the time and effort you’ll find it more rewarding than any other kind of blog. You’ll be helping people do things, and you’ll be rewarded with a modest income. If you play your cards right, maybe even a high income. :)