This is a collaborative post by Ellie Jo on how to make money on your blog and how to turn your blog into a business.
How to Make Money on Your Blog: How to Turn Your Blog Into a Business
Blogging makes an excellent business. It’s fun, it’s accessible and you don’t need any special equipment. You can do it right from the comfort of your home, and build it up in your spare time until it’s at the stage where it’s earning money. WordPress sites can be used for a whole host of things, but if you want to start a blog then it’s a great choice because of customizable options. But what exactly do you need to do to set up a blog that earns money? Here are a few things to consider if you want to make money on your blog.
The First Step in Turning Your Blog into a Business is to Buy a Domain
Just because you’re hosting on WordPress doesn’t mean you have to be stuck with the ‘wordpress.com’ suffix at the end of your link. It’s easy to buy a custom domain and link it with your WordPress site, and it will only cost you a small amount each year. It’s so worth doing this, when sponsors are looking for blogs to work with on paid opportunities, many will rule out those who don’t have their own domain. I bought my domain name from GoDaddy. So it’s something to consider.
Have a professional redesign if you want to make money on your blog.
The bloggers saturate the internet. In addition, there are only so many sponsored opportunities, and advertisers have their pick of who they’d like to work with. While lots of factors come into play, a professional looking design will grab their interest. Then, they’ll be far more likely to want to work with you. Studio Press has lots of professional looking themes, including the popular Genesis theme. Click here to download The Genesis Guide for Absolute Beginners (PDF – 1.4 MB)
Declare yourself as self-employed if you want to make your blog a business
Once you’re earning money from your blog, you’ll need to ensure you’re paying the relevant taxes. Even if you’re employed for a company and already pay tax, this will be classed as something separate. Therefore, you’ll need to get registered. Once you’re registered as self-employed you’ll pay your tax each year after filling in a tax return. It’s up to you to keep perfect records, you could use a cheap vps to store things like invoices and documents relating to your income and outgoings in a secure way.
Work on your domain authority to be able to get more money on your blog
One of the things that sponsors will be most interested in when deciding on a site to work in is domain authority. There are many things that contribute to this, but one that you can influence is your backlinks. The more high quality backlinks you have, the higher your domain authority will creep up. You could guest post on other blogger’s sites or link swap with them. Build up a network of bloggers that you speak to regularly, that way you can all help each other out.
Use Social Media to Get the Word Out
Use social media to get the word out about your blog and learn how to run ads on the various platforms. Start here with Facebook Carousel Ads Hacks and Best Practices.
To have a successful blog, you need to keep producing good content
Finally, just keep at it. Give it time, keep producing high-quality content and in time, the sponsors will come. Whether you want to keep your blog as a side hustle or eventually go full time, it’s a fantastic way to earn money. Grammar check your blog posts, use high-quality photos and include information that a reader will find useful.
