How To Make Your Blog Into A Business For 2023

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If you’ve been blogging for a while now or you enjoy writing and want to put that writing into practice, starting a blog is a great opportunity for anyone of any age. All you need is a computer or tablet device and that’s enough to get yourself started, as long as you have a good idea for content.

Once you’ve created a blog, the opportunity to turn it into a business is certainly doable, as I did it myself some years ago. I started in 2010 and by 2015, I was established as a business. It does take a lot of effort, time, and investment. However, if you’re looking to take your blog to the next step and make money from it, then here are some helpful tips that might help you get that success you’re after in 2023.

Create goals for yourself

Firstly, try to set some goals for yourself. What would you like to achieve from the blog and transform it into a business? This might be your first year of blogging and so achieving any nominal amount of money might be the main goal.

For others, they might have started making a small income each month or year and so this year’s goal is to reach a point at which they might be able to take the blog business at least part-time.

Creating these goals is individual to the person and the blog owner themselves. Your goals should be easily attainable, with a few odd challenges thrown in. However, for the most part, they shouldn’t be so difficult or challenging that they actually hinder any efforts you make as a result.

Start posting consistently

To help get closer to your goals, it’s firstly important to maintain some consistency in your posting schedule. Whether you’re posting a blog once a week, every day, or multiple times a day, posting consistently is going to help garner an audience who will be waiting and anticipating the content you create.

Think about how much output you can manage without it impacting the quality of the content you create. You might want to think about reaching out to other blogs or writers who are looking to gain experience or backlinks to their own sites.

The more content you can churn out on your blog, the better it is for SEO, but it’s also something you want to ensure is high-quality. The key for content is quality over quantity, and a good word count. The more successful your blog posts are, the higher they will rank in Google, which means more traffic!

Create content that your audience wants to engage with

Content and the creation of great content is all about finding the topics and subject matters that your audience will want to engage with. It’s important that when it comes to creating content, you’re doing so in a manner that thinks about your audience, who they are, and what they want, as well as what you want.

That means knowing your audience and having an understanding of who your audience is. Do you know that information as a blogger? Chances are, you might not have explored this much. Other bloggers might have done so with the intention of creating a business from their blog to begin with.

There’s no right or wrong way as long as you start collecting that data from your audience. Take a look at who is reading and engaging with your content regularly. That way, you can begin to tailor your content not only to what you want to talk about but content that is relative to your audience too. Luckily, if you started with a niche from the beginning, it’s likely your audience already loves the content you write.

Set up social media channels

Social media is a great opportunity for any business both small and large, to advertise their brand. As a blogger, your blog is a business and therefore a brand that you want to develop. While it might be a hobby right now, it has the potential to become something more.

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With that being said, make sure you’ve set up social media channels that are useful in promoting your blog further. If your blog is fairly visual then having an Instagram profile is a worthwhile investment of your time, especially if it’s related to fashion. Pinterest is also a great tool too!

For those that are more of a storytelling approach to blogging, you might want to share that content on platforms like Twitter or Facebook for example.

It’s a challenge to operate multiple social media channels at once, let alone your blog on top. However, spending that time and dedicating that time to your blog is what will lead it to become a business for yourself. The exposure you can get from social media is fantastic.

Look to advertise your blog in unique ways

There are many ways in which you can advertise your blog and while it might seem a little odd at first to do it, every opportunity to talk about your blog takes it one step closer to success.

Whether that’s getting personalized DVLA plates that refer to your blog name to creating business cards that you can give out to friends, family, colleagues, and people you meet in the industry. There are plenty of great ways to advertise your blog and to get it on the map for agencies and brands to see.

I’ve seen other people put stickers with their website name in their car windows. There are plenty of exposure opportunies, but like I said above, social media is a really good option if you use hasthags right.

Start cold pitching to companies

Cold pitching is a great way to start working with companies. After all, just because you’ve got an established blog, doesn’t mean opportunities will simply fall onto your lap. They do over time, but it’s important to train yourself in how to pitch to companies so that you can acquire these opportunities prior to having an agent who does it for you.

This type of pitching can feel like you’re shouting into the abyss, especially when people just don’t get back to you. However, it just takes one or two responses to make the cold pitching all worthwhile.

You might find over time that more companies are coming to you than you are going to them. That doesn’t mean you should stop though! Just be sure to introduce yourself, your website metrics, and what you can offer the brand, and as long as you’re in the same niche, it could be successful.

Be a part of affiliate networks

One really good way to make money from your blog is with affiliate marketing. This means that if you sell a product you promoted via a specific link, you will receive a commission (the average is 5-10%) on that sale. This is really important as it means you can make money from well written articles that get Google search traffic and you don’t have to work directly with brands. Two of the best affiliate companies that I use are RewardStyle and Skimlinks (message me and I will refer you so you can receive a sign up credit). Definitely sign up for affiliate links once you’re established with traffic. It’s the first way most people start making money from their blogs. Especially if you’re reviewing items.

Ask to be put on agency and marketing databases

Another great way of achieving collaborations on your blog is by asking to be put on agencies and marketing databases. Just search for blogger outreach agencies or blogger outreach marketing agencies to find all of the applicable companies that work with bloggers.

Again, it’s a cold pitch but with a request to be put on their database to work with clients that might be a suitable match to your blog niche.