Blogging has been a successful route for many as a full-time career, myself included. What once started as a hobby for many of us, has led to full-time careers and businesses, which I never saw coming!
However, with the growth of the internet, the amount of blogs on the internet has grown. That means more competition to compete with, as well as other forms of media and entertainment to battle against (especially social media).
While blogs still remain popular, it’s important to look at how you could further expand your blog business in different ways to help boost your revenue. With that in mind, here’s how you can expand your horizons when it comes to your blog business this year.
Create an editorial content calendar
In order to be productive and provide quality content, you should be working from an editorial content calendar. If you don’t have one currently, then you’re not going to be utilising your time to the best of your ability. You may also find those potentially viral-worthy blog post ideas are being forgotten about if it’s not written down somewhere.
Content calendars are great to have because they allow you to plan out the content you have on your site and tailor it to suit the time of year or the specific topics you’re looking to cover. For example, if you’re a fashion blogger, planning out your year in content will help to ensure the right content goes out during the season in question.
An editorial calendar is easy enough to create and there are plenty of platforms and templates to reference and use when required. I usually leave a few gaps here and there for non planned posts that could be about a specific trend or something else that cropped up really quickly as well.
Grow and nurture your email subscribers
Email subscribers are valuable because they allow direct communication with those who are likely most interested in the content you’re publishing.
Pop-ups are usually handy for enticing traffic on your site, to sign up and get access to a newsletter. Whether this newsletter is weekly or monthly is up to you, but it’s an opportunity for advertising blog posts, as well as any newsworthy updates you may want to share with your audience.
Growing and nurturing your email subscribers is a practice that’s worth doing. You should look at how many subscribers you have currently, even if it’s a dozen, and begin strategizing on how you can grow it as part of your blog business.
Optimize SEO on your site
When it comes to running a blog business, you should focus on the level of SEO you’re contributing to the site. The reason is that SEO is imperative to your site’s success when attracting a wealth of traffic to your digital doors.
Search engine optimization (or SEO for short) is useful in taking your blog from one level to the next. Understanding what SEO does and the best practices for it, are going to ensure your blog gets seen by the right people – and by lots of people at that.
With that being said, there are plenty of SEO tips that can be helpful when you’re looking to optimise the site. These include:
- Condensing image and video files
- Adding relevant keywords to content and landing pages
- Adding internal links
- Fixing page errors
- Using alt text for accessibility
The more you can do to optimise SEO, the better it looks from Google’s point of view for search rankings. The point of SEO is to help Google rank you better and in a more relevant way, ahead of others. It’s something that you must learn and put in place to grow your blog.
Be proactive in editing and updating existing content
Try to be proactive when it comes to editing and updating any existing content that you have online. The reason for this is that your existing content might already have some traction online when it comes to attracting traffic to your site. As the amount of content on the internet grows, you want to keep that older content relevant.
This is usually referred to as evergreen content. This content is likely doing well and can be adapted and updated so that it’s relevant right now instead of when it was five years ago.
Try to set some time to edit and update any existing content that’s worthwhile as part of your schedule. Pay attention to your analytics and assess which pages get the most attention so that you can continue making them look and sound better. It’s also worth updating the shopping links as well as sometimes older posts have sold out links.
Explore other areas of social media content creation
Social media is a wonderful place and when you’re looking to expand your blog business, there’s nothing more exciting than trying out content creation on these platforms.
Sure it’s a little different than blog writing, but if you want to continue with adding something creative to your business space online, then content creation through other platforms can be helpful when looking to expand.
You’ve got a lot of social media platforms to choose from, so be selective in what you try out first and foremost. Look for the social media that you identify with the most and which you think would be most relevant to the type of content you create on your blog. Who knows what success and joy could come from it? My favourite is Instagram and it sends a lot of traffic to my blog.
Hire staff or outsource the help required
Hiring staff or outsourcing help for your blog business is a great thing to do when you’re trying to expand it beyond what you’re capable of doing in the hours you have available.
While you might have plenty of hours to take advantage of, you will never get as much done as three people might get done at the same time. Sometimes, it’s good to take on extra hands in order to make it easier for you to jump up a level when it comes to content or business opportunities.
Make sure you know what to expect when it comes to hiring staff, from scheduling working days to tracking overtime and paying them correctly. It’s really beneficial though.
Know what your audience wants
As a blogger, you will probably have a somewhat good idea of what your audience is after when they come onto your blog. Whether you dish out home truths or share your favourite family recipes, it’s good to cater your content to your audience specifically.
If there are some gaps in your knowledge when it comes to knowing what your audience is after, then there are plenty of analytical platforms worth taking advantage of. Understanding your audience is crucial to making your blog business a success and if you’re only just starting out, it’s beneficial to know your audience from the get-go.
Use paid advertising to attract traffic
Paid advertising is a wonderful form of marketing and even if you don’t have much experience in it, it’s fairly easy enough to pick up. Look at what type of advertising might work well with your site, whether it’s through Google or social media.
Experiment with different tactics and strategies, making sure to allocate a budget accordingly. With paid advertising, you can certainly get a lot of people heading your way. I don’t personally use this as I like the organic route, but I’m thinking about it.
Sell your knowledge of blogging as a course or e-book
Finally, if you’ve found some success as a blogger so far, why not take advantage of the knowledge and experience you have, by selling it on to others? While the market might be a little saturated with bloggers and influencers, there are still plenty out there who aren’t making it a financial or career success yet.
Having an e-book or course that they could invest in, might be something that you can provide with your own knowledge and experience to hand. You could sell these and make a passive income for your blog business that doesn’t need much in order for you to profit from them.
These are some excellent tips when you’re looking to take your blog business further and expand to new heights. I hope some of them help you! I turned my blog into a career back in 2015, which was 5 years after starting it in 2010. Never give up and stick with it if it’s your passion!
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