I don’t know about you, but if you are on this post, my guess is that you don’t only want to earn from blogging, but you want to make it a sustainable source of income. I know of bloggers who earn bits of revenue from their blogs. But we want to be able to build a blogging career that generates income consistently and grows with time.
Make blogging a business
There is a difference between a blogging business and business blogging. A blogging business (which is what I will be talking about) is when you blog and generate income from your blogging. Business blogging is when you blog to promote your business. In this case, you have an income-generating activity that is not blogging. You only need a blog to promote the activity.
For you to make blogging a solid business you can rely on; you must treat it as a real business and give it the attention that it requires. Here are some points to note.
1. Invest in yourself as a blogger
Your blog is a direct reflection of your value. As a digital entrepreneur, you must get the necessary skills that are needed to promote and run a successful online business. Reading and studying are part of the daily lives of successful business owners. Blogging is a challenging industry that grows daily. You must constantly be upgrading your skill-set to stand the challenges and increase revenue.
2. Work with a team
I have seen many bloggers struggle alone. As a solo blogger, you can still make it, but the success of your business cannot go beyond your energy. Building and working with a team will allow you to achieve more in your blogging business.
A successful blogging career does not end with creating and publishing content on your own blog. There are other areas, including content research, marketing, SEO, graphics for your text content, videos and audios, etc. With a solid team in place, the workload will be spread out and growth improved.
I know the difficulties that come with running a team for your digital enterprise. In our days of COVID19, it’s even becoming more difficult. That’s while setting up a remote team is a better option. You may need a scheduling app to effectively manage your remote team.
3. Invest in tools
There is no successful business without the right tools. In blogging, you need both hardware and software tools. From content creation to marketing, there are free tools, but these allow you to achieve very little. Investing in premium tools gives you all options to expand your business beyond limits.
If you have outdated hardware, upgrade to get the maximum. Get the necessary equipment; personal computers, digital cameras, professional microphones, etc. Working with the right tools will increase your productivity.
4. Promote your content
This is the area of your business that massively affects your income. As much as you must create content that attracts and keeps readers, you necessarily have to take the content to the consumers and drive traffic to your blog.
They share it on social media, link to it from their blogs, mention it in conferences, etc. But if your articles and campaigns lack virality, you may end up struggling with no results.
5. Collaborate with other bloggers
Connecting with like-minded marketers helps your improvement and brings new ideas. Healthy relations bring promotion, recommendations, backlinks, and more business. As you connect with other bloggers, offer to help them resolve issues. Promote their content and do to them what you expect from the community. Generally, you will always get what you give.
6. Monetize your blogging properly
The most effective way to generate income as a blogger is not to focus on the money. This is where a lot of newbie marketers miss it. Focus rather on the solutions you can offer to your audience. People are ready to spend money on solutions and answers.
Whether you are doing affiliate marketing, direct advertising, sponsored content, etc., if there is nothing in for the reader, you will definitely not make any money.
There are many more income-generating activities to make money as a blogger out of your blog. Creating content for brands and blogging for other companies are other ways to expand and increase your monthly income.
Once you are comfortable with writing, you can always apply for writing jobs on job websites like Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, Problogger Jobs, etc.
7. Be consistent in activity
Consistency in this blogging business is one of the keys to success. It will gradually build your brand, momentum, skills, and efficiency in content creation and marketing.
“I’ve learned from experience that if you work harder at it, and apply more energy and time to it, and more consistency, you get a better result. It comes from the work” Louis C. K.
Through consistency, you program your marketplace to expect from you at regular intervals. It helps them know you are still in business and will always trust the value of your materials. Have a content schedule and maintain it over time. Don’t be irregular and less frequent. The more they see you around, the more your leadership position gets established.
8. A blog post is not just about words
There are different viewpoints as to what works best online when it comes to blogging. However, one of the things that’s known to generate results is valuable content. This is content that provides solutions to the problems of readers.
It’s not just about it being long-form. Don’t just wrap up words to fill the blank spaces. Answer questions and solve problems in your writing. That’s what attracts and keeps readers.
Add videos and Infographics to your content types. Because of their visual attraction, these two formats are gaining a lot of attention in the content world. Infographics are 30 times more likely to be completely read than text content, and YouTube being the second most-visited website in the United States, tells you the inbuilt power of video.
9. Create related products for your audience
As a consistent blogger, your blogging creates an active marketplace and helps you develop other skills. One of the things I do to grow my business and income is that I create related products to take advantage of the marketplace.
Take a look around, and you will find out that many successful bloggers have become authors. They write books, create money-making platforms, create courses, offer mentorship services, etc. As your income grows from the blogging activity, re-invest in expanding your business.
You can succeed in creating a blogging product even if you have no knowledge of programming. Spencer Haws, the creator of the Longtailpro SEO keyword tool, knew little to no programming. But he created what became one of the most talked-about SEO tools.
By hiring qualified developers or experts in any domain you want to work in, you can own a product that adds more to your business. Spencer’s tool was sold out to another owner as he moved on to other businesses. Neil Patel bought Ubersuggest from its creators. That means you can also buy any product and become the new owner.
Conclusion
Blogging is both an exciting and rewarding online activity. If you do it properly, you can make a living out of it. Give it attention and treat it as a real business. It will become your strong source of income.