There are an estimated one billion websites on the internet ranging from personal blogs to name brand websites. This means you have a lot of competition when trying to find an audience. Yet, some creators are able to find their voice, attract an audience, and even keep up a stream of new content. Those who have the greater chances are those who know how to find new ways to monetize their sites and make adjustments to their blogging routine and approach to maximize them. Here are just five things you could do to help maximize your blog’s income.
Have a Schedule
Your blog’s engagement is proportional to your stream of content. Don’t expect people to keep visiting if you haven’t updated it in 6 months. On the other hand, you won’t see a spike in readers if you post three pieces this week and nothing for the next month. This is why it’s important that you set clear deadlines so that you publish on a consistent schedule. It doesn’t matter if your goal is a daily post, weekly post, or monthly update; simply set a schedule and maintain it. Your readers will then check-in when they expect the new post to be up.
Having a consistent posting schedule also allows you to maintain contact with your audience and that your blog is consistently at the top of their mind. In this sea of bloggers, you always have to work for your audience’s attention so that you don’t fall into irrelevance. So, make sure that you always have current content for them, and post often.
Set Realistic Goals
You should also have an idea of how much bloggers make before you decide you’re going to earn a living writing one. If you’re just getting started, we suggest you check out Jasmine Alley’s income report as a reference. This blogger income report will answer the question ‘how much do bloggers make?’ and gives you an idea of how what being a successful, full-time blogger entails. Her blogger earnings report tracks revenue over time and by revenue source. She also talks about some of the ways she was able to gain traction and how she managed to survive in the first months without actual revenue. You should take advantage of resources like these so you can find out which monetization methods are both successful and practical for someone like you.
Add Multiple Streams of Income
Many bloggers choose to rely on ad revenue, something that’s directly proportional to your readership, yet there are tons of different ways that you can monetize your blog.
You could create your own products and market them via the blog, for instance. This could be an eBook, online courses, subscription newsletters, or branded memorabilia. You could also earn money by promoting other people’s content and products. Then you won’t have to write a book, but you’ll get paid when your readers buy someone else’s book.
Another option is to go the affiliate route. Through this method, you’ll be receiving a commission every item you recommend and link through to another brand. You could also ask for sponsorships and get paid for promoting their products and services on your blog.
The biggest benefit of this approach is that you’ll receive passive income for months or years. Furthermore, several of these income streams could be running simultaneously on the same blog. Just make sure you don’t overdo it and turn off your readers.
Another way that you can use your blog to generate more income is to offer services. You could use the site as a tool to get consulting leads, for instance. If you write your own content, then you could offer your services as a ghostwriter. You could also work on building a solid mailing list and use it for advertising services or products.
There are tons of different ways that you can generate revenue with your blog, so don’t be afraid to be creative. You also have to focus on those that work and eliminate those who don’t.
Improve Your Conversion Rate
The conversion rate is the ratio between visitors to a site and those whose actions generate income for the site. If your website has one thousand visitors, but only ten buy the book via the affiliate link, your conversion rate is one percent. While a lot of people will try to increase their revenue by getting more traffic, instead, more should focus on increasing the conversion from visitor to customer.
If you run ads on the website, look at where they are located relative to where your visitors look. You might be able to improve the ad revenue by doing something as simple as adjusting the location of your ads. Or you may want to change the search engine optimization of the blog posts so that they are a better fit with the ads popping up on the site.
If you’re promoting affiliate products, don’t rely on a widget on your sidebar. Specifically reference the products in the content and link to them directly within the blog post. You’ll sell more items when you include a call to action like “Buy this product to treat this condition” or “Sign up for this course.” You should also consider running promotions. A sense of urgency can increase sales. Offering discounts to your loyal followers has the added benefit of increasing customer loyalty.
Also, know that you’ll need to have your metrics down if you want to make any progress. This means at least learning how to look at Google Analytics. You’ll need to pay special attention to your bounce rates and exit pages. You want to be able to see if your landing page is performing well, and do some A/B testing. You also want to see if people are exiting from certain pages without performing the desired action and make the proper corrections if you see issues.
Increase the Revenue from Your Customers
You may not be able to do much to alter the conversion rate, but you might be able to increase the value of each customer. One of the ways that you could do this is by upselling if you have a shop.
Upselling is when you offer an incentive or a one-time discount on a second product when people make a purchase. This will cause some of the buyers to throw the second item in their cart, increasing the revenue you receive.
Another option is increasing the pricing of your products, but this has to be done carefully. You will need to test different price points and see how the increase is affecting sales. Sometimes, the increase in revenue will be worth it even if you lose a few sales. And in other cases, increasing the price point could actually increase the perceived value of the product and get you more sales. This is why you should be flexible with your pricing strategy if you want to see what really works.
It is possible to make money from your blog regardless of the readership, though it is certainly easier if you have a large following. There are many ways you can increase your revenue from your blog, not all of which require generating additional traffic.
