Blogging As Business – If You Are Doing It For Free You’re Losing Out!

Let’s face it blogging is a pretty fun thing to do. Who doesn’t like to be asked their opinion on things, test new things out, or be given free gifts? But if you are doing it as just a hobby, and not for profit, then you could be losing out. That is because of it is pretty easy to monetize your blog, without having to sacrifice writing about what you are interested in. Read on to find out more.

Online shops

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One way to monetize your blog is to use it to direct traffic to your own products. That means you are using the content that you write about to get people to notice the things that you are selling.

You can do this by having your own online shop. They are cheap because you don’t have to pay for all the overheads on a physical place. They are also pretty easy to set up in their basic format. You can get website template with shops that you just add your own information and pictures too, for a very reasonable price.

Of course, if you want something a bit more bespoke, you will have to engage a web designer to make this for you and it will cost a little extra. Although many businesses find that is worth the investment to get a slick and user-friendly site, once they have become established.

Another option when monetizing your blog is to use online storefronts powered by companies like Facebook, eBay, and Etsy. This is where you use their platform to load up and display your good. They will take a percent of your profit for the service, but it bypasses the need for you to run it all independently, which can be more convenient for blogger just starting out.

Online advertising

Another fantastic way of earning from blogging is to allow advertising on your site. That is when companies pay for advert banners to appear to your readers when they are reading your blog posts.

You do need to bear in mind that ads for your website need to be mobile friendly, though. So the adverts show up no matter what platform the viewer is accessing your blog from.

They also need to be unblockable. That means they will show even if the reader has an ad-blocker enabled on their computer on phone. Meaning the company’s message always gets through and you get paid for spreading it.

Influencers

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Once you have a strong following for your blog you can become know as an influencer. This a is a great way of getting your blog to pay because companies are much more likely to be interested in rewarding you for product reviews.

Companies often send certain products like makeup, food or baby supplies to a blogger to get their opinion on them. They are expected to write about the goods they receive for free, to help the company establish a positive vibe around the items. It is worth noting that if you choose to do this, you need to make a disclosure on your page about it. Just so you retain the trust of your readership.

Guest / Sponsored Posts

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Guest posts are another way that your blogging can earn you some serious money. This is when you are asked to publish posts that someone else has written.

These usually contain links to a website that they want to be promoted. It’s all to do with SEO, as the more times something is mentioned in a certain way, the higher up the natural ranking in the search engines it goes. That means when someone searches for that keyword, that company will be on the first page, so they are much more like to get the business from the customer.

The good thing is, is that you can either mark it as a guest post or publish them under your name. You can also personalize them with photos of your choice, so they match the tone of your blog well.

A service business

Another great way to earn money from blogging is to use it as a platform to demonstrate specific skills that you have. Many people do this in the hope of gaining interest in their brand and showing what they can do.

For example, a graphic designer will have a well-designed website that showcases their work. Then their potential client can see exactly what to expect if they employ them to do a job. The same goes for writers, who have their own websites with samples of the content and styles that they can provide.

Newsletter

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For those of you that are writing purely informational blogs, there are plenty of ways to monetize them too. The first is that you can ask for payment for creating exclusive content that is only available if the reader signs up. If they are coming to your for advice on certain issues like, parenting, or DIY, you can offer them extra content if they become a member of your site.

One to ones

Something else that you can do if your site is information based is to offer one to ones and workshops. You can set a variety of price for different lengths of sessions. Then ask you readership if they would like to benefit from your knowledge and experience in this field.

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If you are choosing to do this is a help to have established experience in the field that you pick like qualification or work history. Although sometimes it can work if you have an outlandish skill to teach or a novel approach to a problem.

Lesson

Lastly, if you are super amazing at something like building models out of polymer clay or playing the saxophone you can use it to gain money from your blog. To do this create some videos of you taking the viewer through the project that you are doing.

This can help your earn from blogging in two ways. First, directly, by asking for money to allow people to watch them. Or indirectly, as they should drive more traffic to your site making your advertising and influencer ratings go up.