7 Things to Do to Ensure the Profitability of Your Blog
Blogs are among the most common forms of web properties, with there being an estimate of around 600 million active blogs today. Both casual bloggers and those who blog to support or even run a business rely on their chosen blogging platforms to release text entries, photos, and embedded multimedia, all towards sharing posts that afford a unique perspective or experience, just like I do.
It’s quite easy to start blogging, and many free platforms out there will allow you to set up a blog in just a few clicks. A smart blogger will also be able to monetise their posts through arrangements like affiliate linking, or draw in a large readership that could translate into support for a particular product or service down the line.
If you’re interested in the latter, how exactly can you achieve and sustain profitability for your blogging efforts? Here are some pointers that would-be bloggers should keep in mind if they want to start blogging projects that will actually earn money. I’ve been running my own blog as a business for many years now, so I hope some of these tips are useful!
1) Look for Your Niche
The majority of bloggers who are able to successfully monetise their sites have one thing in common: they’ve cast a smaller net and decided on a particular theme or niche for their blog. Instead of just posting about random topics, take their cue and centre your blog around a particular subject. This will help you establish a brand and make it easier for people to determine whether they want to follow your blog and whether their interests line up with what you post.
Travel is one of the most popular blogging niches, for example, and there’s a definite audience for travel blogs that help travellers make the most of limited funds or enjoy experiences off the beaten path. Parenting is another niche that compels a wide audience, so if you’re a parent yourself, you may want to work on quality content that focuses on parenting hacks or cooking for a large household. If you’re interested in fashion and beauty, that’s a very popular niche (like myself) to get into. In simple terms, find a valuable niche for your blog and commit to releasing quality content around it.
2) Be Visual
The visual aspect of your blog is crucial towards building and sustaining your audience. Photos and illustrations do a lot to make posts more appealing to read, and they can also help establish credibility for the blogger—which is important if the goal is to earn off of content.
For example, if you’ve published a blog post about a festival, concert, or other event you attended abroad, your audience will likely want to see photos of the said event rather than just read about it. In case you don’t have a good camera, search for DSLR hire services in places like London to easily rent one. High-quality photos will definitely add a layer of authenticity and trustworthiness to your post. I know when I upgraded to my full frame Nikon D610, it was life changing.
If you invest in your own photos or illustrations instead of borrowing from press releases or other websites, your audience will also feel like you’re offering more value to them instead of just regurgitating other people’s content. Keep this in mind when you strategise for both text and visual content for your blog. I love to shoot my own for my outfits as it doesn’t get more unique than that.
3) Secure Brand Partnerships
Once you’ve built up a solid following thanks to the first two steps, you can look for partnerships that will allow you to make a profit off your blog. One way to strike up a profitable partnership is to team up with a business to promote its product or service in a blog post. Oftentimes a representative of the business will reach out to you. But if you think that your blog has gotten a decent number of followers to back it up, then you can also try reaching out to the business first.
Make sure that the brand is related to your blog’s niche, however; you don’t want your readers to be confused that you’re suddenly reviewing, say, a skincare product when your blog is specifically about cars. Choosing relevant brands to partner up with also makes them easier to promote, as you will be able to integrate their unique selling propositions or USPs organically into your content.
4) Use Affiliate Links
Another way to make a profit off your blog is to add affiliate links to your blog posts. Unlike brand partnerships, you don’t need to strike a deal with a business directly to distribute affiliate links. You do, however, still get a small cut if someone purchases the product through your affiliate link.
What’s great about affiliate links is that they can look naturally integrated with your post content. For example, if you’re already blogging about your favourite kitchen tools in your gastronomy blog, then including an affiliate link or two for certain items in the list can not only give you extra money, but also help your readers find the store you bought your tools from. I regularly include affiliate links to the items I’m wearing in my outfit posts. Just remember that it’s the best practice for bloggers to disclose affiliate links as such to their readers.
5) Collaborate with Other Bloggers
Collaborations are an excellent way to widen your reach and build on a new segment of your audience. Don’t hesitate to reach out to other bloggers or community experts to strike a deal. Perhaps you can guest post on their platform, and in return they’ll also appear in your next blog posts. This way, you can get more eyes on your blog and thus increase the chances of your advertisements and affiliate links being seen.
6) Try Offering Premium Content
As you gain a larger readership from your blog, you can also try offering premium content or content behind a paywall. This isn’t to say that you should lock away all your blog entries, but rather offer new content and incentivise people to pay to see it. This could be extra photos or videos, more in-depth discussions about a particular topic, or a behind-the-scenes about a recent blog. I don’t do this with my blog, but I do do this via Instagram and their subscriptions.
7) Make Your Own Products
Down the line, you can also sell your own products through your blog, granted that they’re related to your brand and that your sales are done in a natural way. If you’re managing a cooking blog, for instance, then it would be easy to promote a recipe book that you’ve written in your posts. Better yet, offer digital products such as e-books or online courses, which are more accessible to international readers compared to selling a physical product. If you’re in the fashion sector like me, your own clothing line can work too. I collaborated with PAIGE on a pair of jeans a while back.
There are more ways to make your blog profitable, each depending on your niche and audience, so don’t be afraid to try out various approaches. Hopefully, the ones discussed in this article can help you ensure the profitability and relevance of your blog to a wide population of readers. Just make sure you’re keeping everything natural and you’re not stuffing ad after ad in their faces.
