Running a blog means running a business and the success of a business measures in its ability to generate revenue. So, regardless of how well-written your content is, how loyal your readers are and how popular your industry is, at the end of the day, if you’re not capitalizing on all of this, you’re simply not that great of a businessman.
Here are six things that you can do in order to fix this and make your blog substantially more profitable.
1) Choosing a niche
The first thing you need to understand is that the passion about the topic is great, however, it’s also quite mandatory. Think about it, when running a blog, you’re running a business, so, is every entrepreneur out there passionate about the products they’re peddling or even a part of their own target demographic? Not necessarily. What you need is to choose something that people are really interested in, for instance how to get better with money, better with the opposite sex or how to get in shape in the record amount of time. Here, even the stingiest of people won’t have trouble spending some money.
2) Potential for products
The next thing you should consider is the potential for merchandise in the niche that you’ve just picked. For instance, if you’re entering the world of fitness, you can make a link towards an e-store where you sell supplements, workout clothes, workout equipment and similar items. Even if you don’t decide to sell these items directly or through dropshipping, you will have a much easier job finding companies you can advertise or link to. This is due to the fact that, as a member of the same industry, you’ll bring them an organic traffic.
3) Provide a ton of free content
Shameless self-promotion, even pushing for a hard-sell is acceptable if you can generate enough of free content for your audience to enjoy. If you have only money on your mind and this shows, you’ll quickly be abandoned even by some of your most loyal fans. On the other hand, if you provide five or six pieces of content that teach your audience how to solve their problems, inform them or at least entertain them, you’ll be able to slip by virtually anything the next time around.
4) Work on your blog’s rank
Another thing you need to understand is the fact that the value of your blog tends to be tightly intertwined with the amount of traffic that you receive. What we mean by this is the fact that a 1 percent conversion rate on 100 visitors and 50 percent conversion rate on 2 visitors bring you the same number of conversions. Think about how this affects your profit. This means that you need to start promoting your content on social networks more efficiently, looking for partners in the industry and even engage in DIY SEO through a specialized platform.
5) Establishing yourself as a figure of an authority
One of the things that present-day bloggers aren’t capitalizing on enough is their personal brand. For instance, if you’re a lifestyle blogger, starting a course or even a boot camp on the subject topic is always an option. However, this can only take place if your personal brand is strong enough and this is something that you need to actively work on. So, focus on establishing yourself as a figure of authority and you’ll potentially get an additional source of revenue in the nearest future.
6) Networking is invaluable
At the end of the day, you need to understand that your ability to meet new investors, generate content in sufficient volume and tend to the technical aspect of your blog in agreement with all the latest trends directly depends on who you know in the business. More acquaintances inevitably lead to more opportunities. By knowing other bloggers, you can get someone to recommend and someone to recommend you back. As for the content, an average piece takes about 3 hours and 20 minutes to write, which is why you’ll be in a desperate need for guest writers and contributors.
Conclusion
In other words, in order to maximize your profit, you need to start running your blog like a business. This means tending to its image and branding, creating more streams of revenue, networking and picking a niche with a lucrative target demographic. Most importantly, think about the future. At the moment, you may be able to handle everything on your own but, sooner or later, you’ll have to pass on the torch. This is what future-proofing your blog is all about.