According to research compiled by Social Media Today, 14% of bloggers earn a salary through blogging. Although that may not seem like a lot, since the same research found that there are over 12 million active bloggers, that means there over a million people around the world who are able to make a living from blogging.
If you currently view your blog as a hobby, you’re far from being alone. A significant number of bloggers enjoy spending just a couple of hours a week on this activity. The same is true if you consider yourself a part-time professional. Many people who start out as hobbyists realize that blogging is a great way to supplement their full-time job.
Blog Business
While it’s generally not a good idea to simply quit your day job and throw yourself into blogging with the hopes that you’ll make a living, if your blog is gaining momentum and starting to make some real money, you may be thinking about going from a hobby to part-time professional, or even part-time to full-time professional.
Although the final decision is ultimately up to you, because plenty of other bloggers have made those leaps, you can learn from their experiences. So if you’re ready to turn your blog into something that you can call a real business, here’s exactly what you need to do:
Start Networking
One of the ways to really make your blog stand out is to establish yourself as an authority and trusted source among your blogging peers. The good news is there are lots of ways to go about connecting with blogging colleagues. Using Twitter and LinkedIn can work very well. Another possibility is to subscribe to people’s blogs and leave genuinely interesting or useful comments on posts where you feel you can add value. And if you prefer to handle your correspondence by email, this post explains exactly how to use a free tool called Rapportive to find the email address of virtually anyone who’s even a little active online.
Get Serious About Promotion
Another reason it’s crucial to make networking within your section of the blogosphere a priority is because it will greatly help in terms of promoting your blog. Since one of the absolute best ways to expose your blog to new audiences is through guest blogging, you’ll find that securing guest blog spots is much easier when you have an existing relationship with another blogger prior to pitching them.
Increase Audience Loyalty
Boosting traffic is great. However, a common mistake bloggers across all niches make is getting stuck in the cycle of chasing new visitors. While hitting the main page of a site like Reddit can bring thousands of visitors in a short period of time, unless your blog is optimized to convert those visitors into readers, the majority will never return.
So, how exactly do you increase the size of your loyal audience? The best way to accomplish that goal is by using email. This can be as simple as adding a signup box to your sidebar and sending updates whenever you publish a new post. But an even better approach is to offer some type of free guide or other download in exchange for visitors submitting their email address. And instead of just sending post updates, doing something like a weekly newsletter will make your audience feel like you’re providing even more value to them.
Monetize to the Fullest
AdSense is a great way to get a taste for making money from your blog. But once you start building up more traffic, you should increase the value of the advertising clicks your blog generates. One of the best ways to do that is through affiliate marketing. By signing up for a relevant affiliate program and using Build Your Widget, you can showcase products that visitors to your blog will be very interested in. As your blog grows even more, you can take things one step further and create your own books or products to sell directly through your blog. Other options to eventually consider include launching a relevant service or hosting a conference.
Officially deciding to take your blog to the next level is a big milestone. And even though it’s normal to feel a little overwhelmed about this decision, as long as you’ve laid a solid foundation for your blog and are willing to work as hard as you need to in order to implement the steps we covered, you will be on the right path towards earning a real income from your blog!
Jay Bats
Latest posts by Jay Bats (see all)
- How to Transform Your Blog from a Hobby Into a Business - October 22, 2013
I get the idea of blogging and blog business but I am not sure how to promote my blog. I started a blog recently and am posting around 5 posts on daily basis. I am sharing posts on my social network (many of them). Still, even after 2 months, I am not getting any visits. Why is that?
Hello Atul,
To get readers it is important to actually connect with potential readers elsewhere. If you interact with them on social media and comment on related blogs you become known to readers and they are more likely to visit, share and comment.
Something else you can do is feed well known blogs into your Twitter and other social accounts. When people retweet that content they will start noticing you. How to do this is explained in https://growmap.com/how-to-use-twitterfeed.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Bloggers Hiring Bloggers: Kinds of Work You Outsource or Get Hired to Do
Thanks a lot. This was really helpful
Hi Jay, that was a useful post and clearly explained about how to build blogging networks and all. Thanks a lot for the post!
Abinav would love you to read ..How to Submit Blog or Website to Search Engines: Google & Bing
Hello Jay,
It’s really knowledgeable post.But still blogging with the mindset of just earning is not ideal as a blogger. No doubt it is encouraging for the newbies.Still nice post.
Sir, Im using Google adsense for my site and I would like to do Affiliate marketing too. So could you suggest me which affiliate program is best for monetization.?
Really nice piece of content on blogging.Whats your view on using editorial calender to schedule blog post. Should it be more beneficial or not?
Hi Steven,
Using an editorial calendar is more of an advanced blogging skill. It can greatly benefit any blog to ensure they are writing about what is most important to their business and audience, and an editorial calendar is a good way to do that. I’ll write a post about this and probably publish it Sunday evening.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Last Day to Get Holiday Gifts Shipped in Time; Gift Ideas for Bloggers
This is really a great post. Very informative and very useful. I have learned something from this post. Thank you for sharing this.
I have a Golf website that stricly acts as a hobby. I am going to focus more on creating content that talks about products I can sell as an affiliate.
Thanks for your tips!
Jordan,
Golf products would be a perfect product to sell utilizing Build Your Widget!
Hi Jordan,
A partner and I have a golf site that is populated with affiliate products. Would you be interested in collaborating?
Jay,
I’d love to know more about how build your widget works. Do you have any additional links or videos you could share?
Definitely Gail,
Here is a quick tour/video that explain exactly how it works.
buildyourwidget.com/tour/
Just take a peek at that and let me know if you have any other questions.
Hi Jay,
Watched the video and have a question. Can you source products from any ecommerce site or only Amazon?
Yes you can, Gail.
With Build Your Widget, you get to build your very own pages.
Whether you put in Amazon links or a link to a post on your own website, or not even a link at all… anything goes!
Good ideas, but I think for most people blogging has to remain a quiet hobby. It seems to be, a lot of the time, down to pure luck whether a blog takes off or not. There are so many of them, a huge amount exactly the same as yours will be, so it’s about distinguishing yourself and not rushing into it all expecting to be the solution to your career.
Good luck with your Widget making device, by the way. Very handy.
“a huge amount exactly the same as yours will be”
Well I think the key is finding a way to differientiate yourself so that you aren’t just like everyone else. Every business/blog should have a USP (unique sales proposition)
I’m at the beginning with my blog and a lot of my friends told me that i must be patience until i will have many visitors. But after that I wil follow these advices. Thanks
Nice article
Hello eliq,
If you don’t do anything to let people know your blog exists, being patient won’t help. You need to spread the word. Ways to do that include:
1) Creating social accounts and sharing your posts along with other interesting content.
2) Signing up for CommentLuv so when you comment in other CommentLuv blogs one of your latest posts is visible and can be clicked on. That brings readers back to your site.
3) Guest posting on blogs that already have readers who are interested in what you do.
I’m getting serious about promotion for sure. I’m going to go pitch my blog idea to various classes in my university. I’m very curious to see how far I can push my comfort zone.
Good article. I’ve tried monetizing with Adsense before and didnt have much success…although it was better than a couple other ad services I’ve used, but thats not saying much.
I just recently starting following Derek Halpern at Social Triggers and he talks a lot about the 80/20 rule running a blog. 80% promotion and 20% content creation. Too often people have it the other way around.
Hi Alain,
Too many have heard the advice that you must publish every day. Unless you are getting paid for impressions (selling ads based on your traffic) you DO NOT have to publish every day. Better to post 1-2 excellent pieces of content a week that 5 that aren’t worth reading.
Promotion is essential. Kristi Hines wrote a Blog Promotion Guide that is useful; read about it at https://growmap.com/kikolani-blog-post-promotion-ebook/
Learn to use sites like JustRetweet and Viral ContentBuzz; how in these posts:
https://growmap.com/justretweet/
https://growmap.com/get-stumbles-pins-tweets-likes/
Blogging is complicated, but worth doing if you love it.
Hello Jay!
Nice article. I was checking constantly this blog and I’m quite impressed! Very useful information. Great Post and very good article. Thanks for sharing
Great post Jay! There are really a lot of ways how to make a living with your blog.
Hello Jay, well said. You said that, at some point…you want to monetize with something else and mentioned Build Your Widget. I am guessing, you’d have to have a real sense for what the audience preference was to use it, yes?
Well Charles anyone that has some sort of a product to sell online can benefit from Build Your Widget.