If you were not aware that you could turn your blog into a business, well, this is the blog post that will tell you just how.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links to products I truly recommend. This means I may earn a commission should you choose to make a purchase using my link. It’s okay, I know you’ll love them too.
Let me tell you a short story of how I started an online business – It all started with a blog.
I realized that I loved to write a lot, so I created a blog to express my opinions.
I then told myself that, beyond expressing my opinions, I wanted to really succeed at this blogging thing.
When news broke that Linda Ikeji, a famous Nigerian blogger bought a home for about 500 million naira all because of her blog, I became hungrier.
I started to look through Pinterest for tips, but one thing stood out for me.
I noticed that every single blogger I came across all referred to their blogs as their ‘business’, that was when it clicked.
The only way to turn your blog into a business is to treat it like it’s already one.
So the first thing I did was expand it to grow beyond just a blog, but a website that had a blog page. It was transformational.
I also created a services page on the website and an about me page.
Before you read on, if you want to learn how to build an online business that makes money for you on autopilot, download this free ebook below.
So now, I want to teach you the steps to take if you want to turn your blog into a business.
But first, let me ask you a few questions.
1. Are you passionate?
The thing with blogging is, those who aren’t passionate about it never make it to the end.
I mean, why would you want to start a blog if you are not passionate about it?
Sometimes, the monetary rewards will not come in immediately, it could take months, or it could even take years. But you just need to learn to be patient.
You have to give your blog your absolute ALL. This may mean, sleepless nights, early mornings, long weekends, and the loss of netflix time.
2. Do you know how to write?
Blogging is solely about writing. You must know how to write.
You want to make sure that you know how to write on the topic that you have chosen to blog about.
If your writing is unimpressive and you are not very good with grammar or spelling, you might want to work on that first.
If you want to turn your blog into a business successfully, you must be able to write well.
3. How often do you read blog posts?
If you want to turn your blog into a business, you must consume other people’s blog posts.
By reading the blogs of other people, you’ll become familiar with the styles, methods, and best practices.
This will even help your writing, in terms of sentence construction and grammar.
Before I started my YouTube channel, I had watched a lot of YouTube videos for a number of years.
So when I started shooting, it came naturally to me, I wasn’t perfect at first, but I picked up easily.
So if you want to create a blog and turn it into a business, you need to consume from other bloggers.
4. Can you be committed to it?
So many people start their blogs and run them at the side, some only publish once in a while.
If you want to turn your blog into a business,, you need to stay committed to it and show up every day.
It will take a lot of your time, especially when you’re doing research and writing.
Alright, if you answered all of these questions in the affirmative, let’s go to the next step.
Skills That You Need to Create a Successful Blog
1. Writing
Obviously!
You need to know how to write.
A blog is not a video-based platform, it’s a text-based platform which means you have to know how to write.
As I mentioned earlier, if you don’t know how to write, you may want to work on that first.
Now, I’m not saying this to scare you. Anyone can learn how to write, it’s super easy.
I didn’t become a pro at writing blog posts, in fact, when I started, all I did was post pictures of myself with very horrible pieces of writing.
But the more I practiced, the better I became. I also started to read articles on writing and I joined writing communities.
So don’t be deterred by your inability to write, you can learn it.
Check out this blog post on 5 Business Copies You Must be Able to Write.
With writing skills comes SEO (Search Engine Optimization), the process by which you write using targeted keywords that people ae searching for.
And when peoeple search for what you’ve written about, your post shows up on search result pages.
2. Research
If you want to turn your blog into a business, your research skills must be top-notch.
Why? Well, simply because you want to share very grounded and factual information in your blog post.
Good research goes a long way, publishing well-researched articles will help your blog stand out online.
As a blogger, you must aim to is to provide your readers with the best resources possible so they learn to recognize and trust your brand.
When people land on your blog through whatever means, they are looking for relevant information or solutions to their problems.
So you have to meet them with correct information and help solve their problems, that is what will make them come back to your blog.
Use this 3-step approach when you want to carry out research.
1. Ideation
The first step is to come up with an idea, an idea you’d like to talk about.
To come up with an idea, look through your content pillars. That should guide you on what to write about.
When you are done coming up with that idea, you then want to go to Google and read any articles available on it.
For instance, if you’ve chosen to write about Facebook ads, from your Advertising pillar, go to Google and type ‘Facebook ads’ to see what other people have said about the topic.
You also want to run them through keyword research tools like SEMRush or Keywords Everywhere to see if they have high search volume.
2. Validation
Here, you want to make sure that the idea you have come up with is something that interests your audience.
You can ask your audience (assuming you have a following on social media already) what they’d like to know about the idea.
You can ask on Twitter or on Instagram, or on any community building platform that you have.
But make sure that your audience validates your idea before you start writing.
3. Topic Formulation
Once you are done with the next step, go ahead and come up with topics that you feel are good enough.
Example, ‘How to use Facebook ads to grow your small business’ ‘How to learn Facebook ads on your own’ or ‘ How to make Facebook ads work for you’
Note this about topic formulation in blogging; come up with at least 6-7 topics on that same idea.
If you use WordPress, the Yoast SEO plugin has a feature called Headline Analyzer. It analyzes your headline and helps you get rid of unimportant words.
Use the analyzer to narrow down the topics to one and then start writing.
3. Self-Discipline
Self-discipline is one of the key ingredients that’ll help you turn your blog into a business. And with self-discipline, your business will grow.
Blogging can be a very lonely task especially at the start of your journey.
Sitting in front of your computer to write can be really boring, I’m saying this from experience.
Sometimes, when I get so bored, I go to YouTube and watch a few videos, then return to my piece of writing.
Because you are the owner of your blog, you answer to no one. You don’t have a boss or a supervisor, so it’s easy to procrastinate on your tasks.
No one is going to hold you accountable for not writing your articles and uploading them.
That is why you have to be disciplined to get up and start writing.
Another thing is dedication. This simple trait helped me get to where I am with my blog today.
I would stay up late hours of the night working on my blog, researching, reading and learning.
Eventually, I was able to turn it into a business.
4. Communication
Communication is about creating and sharing ideas, information, views, facts, feelings from one place, person or group to another.
As a blogger, you will be sharing a lot of your ideas, views and general information to readers.
You need to be very crisp and clear in your communication, share your ideas without enforcing it on people.
Blogging is all about building a community of like-minded people and learning from each other.
And the easiest way to connect with your community is to communicate effectively.
Being able to communicate well will help you build a strong personal brand, increasing your reach.
You also want to share your ideas in an interesting way and in a way that will get people nodding as they read through your post.
5. Marketing/ Promotion
Every blogger must have good marketing skills.
No matter which niche you are in, you must have marketing and promoting skills.
A lot of bloggers struggle with marketing. Sometimes, all we just want to do is to write our blog post and sit back while it does wonders.
But even a beautifully written blog post will never pick up if it is not well promoted.
If you want to turn your blog into a business, you must learn all the acts of marketing and promotion available out there.
When you publish a post, you should share it on social media platforms immediately.
A few hours later, share it again, but use a different caption this time around.
After a few days, share the blog post again.
Figure out which social media platform brings in a lot of traffic for you and share it there.
For me, it’s Facebook. As soon as I share my blog post or new YouTube video on Facebook, my views increase.
I also share it on Twitter, LinkedIn and Whatsapp groups.
If you have the budget, you can run ads to your blog posts and get more eyes on them – your call.
6. Content Creation
Content creation is a necessity in the online business world.
If you want to turn your blog to a business, you need to know how to create content.
These days, ask anyone, and they’ll tell you content creation is their full-time job.
Content creation has become one of the best-paying jobs for Millenials and Gen Zs all over the world.
Right now, people are being paid multiple figures to create content. I mean you’ll literally meet people online who are full-time content creators.
If you understand the art of content creation and you apply it to blogging, you’ll see profitable results.
7. Tech Skills
I know that blogging doesn’t really require you to be techy, but having a few tech skills under your belt can be a lot of help.
The following are a few tech skills you should know.
* Design
Writing is not the only thing that matters in blogging, visuals matter too.
As a blogger, you need to know how to design. If you’ve been into blogging for more than a year now, then you might already know the importance of visual content.
You would need to accompany your blog posts with images, charts, infographics and so on and without good design skills, that may be difficult to do.
But design doesn’t have to be scary or technical. With Canva, you can create any design in an instant.
* CMS
Whether it is WordPress, Squarespace or Wix, you need to know how to build and mange it.
You will be making a lot of changes to your website/blog more often than not and hiring the services of a developer will not help your pockets.
The number one content management system (CMS) in the world is WordPress.
Over 40 percent of the websites you see on the internet today were made with WordPress.
If you don’t know anything about WordPress, there are tons of resources that will help you learn.
* HTML
Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a tech genius to know HTML.
You just need a little understanding of code to help you customize your blog in a way that will set you apart from other bloggers.
Since many bloggers rely on the features their CMS gives them, you can set your blog apart by customizing it with HTML codes.
How else can you turn your blog into a business?
Invest in it from the Begining
I started blogging on Blogspot, then I moved to WordPress.com.
It wasn’t until I started using a self-hosted blog that I started to see results.
A self-hosted website is one where you set up your own domain name and hosting for a particular amount of money.
The benefits are enormous. You have control over your website and you can customize it as you want.
However, a free hosting website like WordPress.com is limited. You cannot have your own customized domain name.
You don’t have freedom over your site, you are limited to the features they make available to you.
You cannot really monetize a free hosting, they’ll place ads on your website and still not pay you for it.
If you are looking to get a self-hosted web hosting at an affordable price, then use my Whogohost affiliate link to purchase one.
Another good way to invest in your blog is to run ads to your posts.
You could promote your blog by advertising through ad networks, social media, and other blogs that offer advertising space.
More traffic to your blog means more money earned through ad impressions and clicks or affiliate sales.
Hence, spending money on promotion is one of the best ways to invest in your blog.
You should also invest in quality photography. If you cannot afford that at the early stages, then use free images from websites like Pexel and Unsplash.
Treat it Like a Career
If you want to turn your blog into a business, you have to treat it like a career.
How would you behave at your job? Show up late? Go AWOL without permission?
No. You would give it your all, so that you can get promoted or get a raise.
So treat your blog like you would your job and you’ll be turning it into a business real soon.
If you go AWOL on your audience, you’ll lose readers and any opportunity that comes with that.
Be Consistent and Show Up Often
The last blog I had failed because of my lack of consistency. I tried to show up as often as I could, but sometimes, I just couldn’t.
One of my challenges then was coming up with content ideas. Once I sat down in front of my laptop, I struggle to type something.
I told myself that I didn’t want this blog to be like that, so before I started it, I wrote down every idea I could possibly think of that my readers would love.
So when I started blogging again, I just picked out topics from the ideas I had written down and I started writing about them.
There are tons and tons of bloggers out there who are doing their best to get in front of your audience.
And some of them are doing it so well. With colourful designs and professional images, and a lot of investment into their blogs.
The best way to beat that is to show up with your own content as well and get in front of their audience.
So set up a content calendar and stick to it.
No need to struggle with coming up with ideas for content, here’s a video that can help.
How to never run out of content ideas.
Start building your list early
The first day you launch your blog is the day you should start collecting emails.
In fact, one of the best things you can ever do for your blog is to set up an email marketing system as soon as you start.
Email marketing is a great way to make extra income on the side, money that you can reinvest into the blog.
The benefits of starting an email marketing platform is that it helps you build your own database of potential customers early and you won’t have to rely on social media platforms.
An email marketing system is also a good way to build a community around your business.
People always say “The money is in the list” because email is very personal. People check their emails every minute.
So you want to meet them there with your products or services.
There are different ways to get people into your email list, but the easiest way is to create very valuable content.
When you create valuable content that helps your readers solve their problems, you can simply ask them for their emails and they’ll give you.
Or you can give out a free item in return for their email addresses, like a free ebook, a free guide, etc.
The best book that will teach you how to use email marketing to make more sales is Dotcom Secrets.
Conclusion
Now that you have learnt how to turn your blog into a business, what are you waiting for?
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