I love blogs.
And thanks to the internet, blogging, and learning how to monetize a blog, has become a phenomenon. And everyone is jumping on board to become a part of this.
With that, however, comes the fact that you are competing with billions of other blog posts being published each and every day all over the world.
This can be overwhelming, to say the least. Your advantage, though, is that you are unique. Your message comes from you, through your own voice and perspective. You are your very own authority.
With that is the fact that your message should be shared and heard by the rest of the world.
At the same time, you don’t want to write for writing sake. Sure, writing is excellent and sharing your knowledge is a must to better the world, but you can’t keep blogging for free day after day.
Today we are going to look at how to monetize a blog in three easy ways to turn your hobby into a fantastic blog. In this way, your blog can afford you the ability to keep pumping out amazing content to your readers.
1. How to Monetize a Blog: Promote Other People’s Products with Affiliate Marketing
There are a lot of great products and services out there that many people would simply love to avail of.
Affiliate marketing is about signing up to become a partner with a website or business in which you place a particular affiliate link onto your site. If one of your visitors clicks that link and buys off of the partner website, you get yourself a commission.
Easy money, right? Well yes and no.
The trick here is not just to throw around these affiliate links blindly all over your website.
The best way to get people to pay attention and start clicking these links is to write a specific post about a particular product or service, and give an honest review of that item.
Talk about the benefits and how it’s helped you in your business.
Get a review copy of the software, for example, from the vendor. Then show off screen shots from inside about what the software looks like.
This gives your readers a deeper understanding and a bird’s eye view. You’re essentially peeling back the curtain and diving deep into what you are promoting.
The best part of all of this is that you don’t have to sell anything. Let your review do all the speaking and your audience will appreciate your honest feedback.
And from there, they will click through and make a purchase through your link. A good example of an honest review can be found right here.
2. Share with the Community through a Membership Site
As a blogger, you have a particular knowledge and understanding of a specific topic and niche.
Why not share that experience with your thriving and active community by having a membership site as well.
With a membership site, your audience can sign up to be part of your offering, and from there get access to a wide variety of information.
People can pay a monthly membership fee, and have unlimited access to the backdoor, member only privileges.
So you can hold monthly webinars for your members, and speak of specific topics only for those of this community.
As well, you can have a vast amount of videos in your playlist if you put up a library of information that only your members can have lifetime access too.
To add to this, as being part of the membership site, you can give people access to a members-only Facebook group, that way you promote the community feel and allow others to communicate with one another and ask and answer each other’s questions.
If you’d like to learn more about how to monetize a blog using this strategy, Dr. Ben Adkins has a popular, thorough course that’s available online.
In it, he shows you how to build an information-based membership site that generates monthly recurring revenue for you.
Click here to see what’s involved in building a profitable membership site.
3. Spread the Knowledge by Selling an EBook
What better way to share your knowledge as an authority expert than to put it in a book.
Selling an eBook is a great way to monetize your blog because, since it’s a digital book, people can have instant delivery of it after they buy.
See what problems your readers are having and write an eBook that solves those issues, that way you already know that people are actively searching for a solution.
From there, break up your book into specific and actionable chapters, that way the readers can digest every piece of information without getting overwhelmed by the information.
Then simply set up a payment and eBook delivery solution on your website. If you are using WordPress, you can connect Woocommerce. If you want, you could use a third party service like Ejunkie who will handle the payments and delivery for you.
Ensure you get the buyers to leave reviews about their experiences and results using the book; that social proof adds massive value, so others will be more easily convinced to buy it as well.
Conclusion
A blog is one of the best ways to show yourself as a thought leader and authority in your industry.
At the same time, monetizing your blog can not only add profit into your pocket but provide additional value to your readers.
The thing to remember is to be consistent with your blogging and your promotional efforts, nothing comes easy, especially online, but if you have the drive and the passion, you will soon enough start to reap the benefits coming from your blog.
I hope you enjoyed this article on how to monetize a blog.
Did you try any of the methods outlined above?
Let us know how you did in the comments below. 🙂
About the Author
Arash Asli is the Co-Founder and CEO of Yocale. He is honored to have been listed in the “Top Forty under 40” of business executives in Vancouver. His business blog can be found here: https://business.yocale.com. You can also connect with him here on LinkedIn.
