Should You Turn Your Blog Into A Business?

*This is a collaborative post on whether you should turn your blog into a business

For many of us, a blog is simply a hobby. However, a blog can be a source of income too. Turning a blog into a business could allow you to make money writing about things you love. Of course, there may be some challenges you need to overcome along the way and potentially some sacrifices that you may need to make – you need to make sure that it’s all worth it. This post offers more information on how to turn a blog into a business and whether it’s a good idea for you.

How do you monetize a blog?

There are a few different ways to make money from a blog. Below are some of the most popular money-making methods include:

Ad revenue

By joining an ad network like AdSense or Media.net, you can display adverts on your site. Every time a certain amount of people click on ads on your site, you receive a small amount of income. If you’re getting lots of page views, you’re likely to get more ad clicks and make more money. You also have the option of joining premium ad networks once you’ve passed a certain page-view-per-month threshold. 

Sponsored content

Sponsored content is content that a company or individual pays you to publish on your site. This could be a paid review of a product. Alternatively, it could be a paid guest article written by a company. This post explains how to get sponsors to pay for content on your blog. 

Affiliate content

Affiliate content is a type of sponsored content, but instead of being paid a flat fee, you have the option of being paid continuously by a company depending on how many leads your content gets for them. Most affiliate posts contain a link to a product or service – every time a reader clicks on this link and buys the product/signs up to the service, you get paid commission.  

Products and services

You can also sell products and services via your blog. This could include anything from writing services to an online course. Some blogs sell branded merchandise, although you generally have to reach a certain level of recognition for people to buy this merch.  

Should you invest money into your blog?

Making money using any of the above strategies typically requires two things: 1) a large amount of monthly page views and 2) professional blog design. To make your blog look professional and get more page views, you may need to invest some money into your blog. 

Spending money to make money is something all businesses have to do, and the same applies to profitable blogs. A few things that you may want to invest in include:

Domain name

This is a must. An official domain name (as opposed to a ‘.wordpress.com’ or ‘.blogspot.com’ address) will make your blog look less like a personal project and more like a serious online publication – which is important if you want to attract regular readers. 

SSL certificate

An SSL certificate shows visitors that your blog is secure by changing your URL from ‘http’ to ‘https’. All trusted websites have this, making it worth investing in. 

Web design

Investing in some professional web design could help to make your blog look more unique. Don’t just settle for generic templates.

SEO

SEO can help to attract more visitors to your site by making you appear higher and more frequently in search engine results. Consider paying an SEO agency to carry out some SEO on your blog.

Advertising

Advertising your blog will increase its exposure and help generate more readers. This could include everything from paid social media posts to paid search ads.

Blogging courses

Taking blogging courses can also be beneficial for teaching you how to grow your blog and create content that will get views. Check out some of these blogging courses for inspiration. 

What else do you need to turn a blog into a business?

Turning your blog into a business requires a lot of dedication. You need to not only invest money but time into your blog – this will help you to create high quality content and lots of it, so that you can build more readers. Some bloggers take on guest writers so that they can produce more content without having to put as much hours in (although you’ll still need to spare time to proofread and publish this guest content). 

Staying committed also requires passion. You need to enjoy creating blog content on a continuous basis. If you love your blog already, this may not be a major issue. Just make sure that you stay true to your brand and morals – don’t accept guest content that does not fit your blog just so that you can make money. By accepting the content you want, you maintain pride in your blog.