What To Know About Monetizing a Personal Blog
The concept of working for yourself and doing it from anywhere holds appeal for a lot of people. Some of the ways people work online and make a legitimate full-time income from it include having an e-Commerce site, working as a freelancer, or in some cases, by blogging. According to the RV rental site Outdoorsy, “Wi-Fi has set us all free,” and that’s true for millions of people.
With that being said, it’s tough to build all these businesses, but one of the toughest to generate an income from is blogging, especially if you have a personal blog. A lot of bloggers will start their site with the sole purpose of monetizing it, so they’ll choose a niche and operate it with the focus on traffic and income.
If you’re a personal blogger, however, it can be tougher. You might have a passion for blogging, but can that translate to earning money?
Below are some tips for monetizing a personal blog, even when your traffic is low.
Be Real
If you’re worried about your ability to capture traffic when there are so many other bloggers out there, consider the advantage you have: your voice.
There’s something that personal bloggers can do better than business-oriented bloggers, and that’s have a voice and share their authentic experiences. Your voice is one of the best ways to set yourself apart and build an audience.
Become a Coach
When people think monetizing a personal blog, one of their first thoughts is often using ads to do that. That’s a tough way to make money. It takes a lot of time to get enough of an audience that you would earn any income from putting ads on your site.
Think outside the box and consider adding a service to your blog. One of the leading ways to provide a service and make money is by becoming a coach. Coach on what you know, and use your blog as a way to market your services.
Blog For Other People
Another way to monetize your personal blog is to use it as a way to get other people to enlist your writing services. You can build out your personal blog and then add a page to your site for people who want to hire you to do writing.
You can work as a ghostwriter, or maybe you’ll be hired as a guest blogger. This way, rather than your personal blog actually being a direct source of income, it’s somewhat like a showcase of what you can do. Just make sure that you clarify you do offer your writing services on your blog and let people know how they can reach you.
Finally, affiliate marketing is another option for personal bloggers, but it’s important you go back to tip number one if you’re going this route. If you’re going to be doing affiliate marketing you want to make sure you’re only advertising the products and services that you really enjoy and use. If you start trying to go crazy and put every conceivable product and service on your blog, it’s no longer going to be personal. You’re also going to make your blog feel spammy, and you’re going to lose your audience.