If I make $1,000 from my blog monthly, and you earn $0.00, what do you think happened?
You might think I’m:
- More intelligent than you are – wrong!
- More connected than you are – wrong!
- More educated than you are – wrong!
- Receiving more blog readers than you – wrong!
- Using tricks to make people buy my products – wrong!
- And, and, and….
Let’s cut it there. There are more excuses and reasons why we’re stuck somewhere.
Our blog is crying for help – and truth is, you’ve got what it takes to transform your blog into a money maker. The only difference between someone who makes money blogging and the person who doesn’t is ‘action.’
But taking action has several arms. I’ve decided to break it down by giving you 8 smart ways to transform your dying blog into a money maker. Pause whatever you’re doing right now and read this post – don’t put it off (one reason why you’re still broke – procrastination).
1. Write The Amount You Want
It’s simple, common – a cliché but powerful enough to transform your dying blog into a money maker. If I may ask, when last did you write a clear goal for your blogging business? Oh, you thought it’s irrelevant. You’re so intelligent you store good ideas in your brain and thought it’s enough to get you profit. How pathetic!
You can’t go higher than the goals you’ve got for yourself. Yes, we know what goal setting is all about, but we don’t do it. I was shocked when I sent a simple poll to my subscribers a few weeks ago. Out of 1709 who received my newsletter-poll, 282 replied saying they have no written goals. Wow!
Listen, you’ll continue to admire pro bloggers, and even guest post on their blogs and help them make more money – but you may not see a dime. Change your mindset and write the amount you want to make down. How much is enough for you? Write it down today, not tomorrow and scale it through from there. It’s my best advice for you. If you’ve done that, see next line…
2. Change Your Theme
Wow, I’m waiting for someone to throw a stone at me and I’m ready to get burnt by your oven. In the past 3 months, I’ve visited and read over 50 blogs and this includes my favorites.
Interestingly, most blogs have excellent and insightful contents, but the themes suck. I mean, the theme is like that of a 2-year old who is still experimenting with blogging. Of course, you’re not obliged to spend so much money on an expensive wordpress theme, but ensure you use a good one.
Your theme must be unique. As much as possible, let it stand-out from thousands of others. My first blog didn’t use a premium theme, and my second blog also was highly customized to suit my readers. No matter how informative your contents are, if your theme is awful, I won’t buy what you’re selling – and if I feel like this, thousands of others have similar feelings too.
If you’re already earning between $10 – $100/month from your blog, re-invest the money to improve your theme. Stay away from the traditional theme (blue links) – the world is changing and don’t ever say people don’t judge a book by its cover, because they DO!
3. Clean-Up Your Sidebar
Is your sidebar stuffed with affiliate banners and ads? Well, making money with a blog works best when everything is simple. Look at typical blogs like socialtriggers and other expert’s blogs out there, the sidebars are unique, only relevant widgets are included.
A lot of bloggers who know the importance of this don’t want to step out to do something about it. That’s where action is needed. Why should I stuff my sidebar with banners with the hope of making massive sales and earning jaw-dropping commissions? It’s absurd and it just doesn’t work.
Even though my blog was attracting close to 600 quality traffic from Google alone, I wasn’t getting any clicks on my affiliate banners – I’m talking about the ones on the sidebar. I later discovered that cleaning up and having one is better. So, I deleted 2 widgets housing 2 extra banners and left one on the sidebar.
[box type=”info”]To my great surprise, I started getting clicks and the clicks began to convert into huge commissions. In fact, last month, I earned $250.08 from a single affiliate banner on the sidebar. Clean-up right now![/box]
4. Engage in Twisted Guest Posting
Trust me, you don’t know what ‘twisted guest posting’ means. It’s a phrase I coined after seeing the huge impart of guest posting in our world. I think writing quality articles for other people are vital but there is more to it.
Instead of wasting time sending readers to a homepage where nothing meaningful is happening, redirect them to a squeeze page or landing page to convert them. When you successfully get people to visit a page, it’s an opportunity to get them onto your email list.
I call this twisted because, it’s contrary to the traditional link building mindset and maybe, getting trickles of traffic. If you guest post in a popular blog and get thousands of people to visit your page, it can pose a big problem if your web hosting service is down (get a good web host). Don’t burn bandwidth – capture and convert (more on this in the next line)
5. Capture and Convert Readers
The competition is getting fiercer by the day. Everyone is launching a blog with the hope of building a tribe and earning from them. But a lot of folks give up blogging in the first 12 months. Social media marketing seems like survival of the fittest. If you’re not savvy, you might get drowned by millions of tweets and pins.
The only free space and opportunity to make blogging fun, profitable and passionate is to capture and convert. As much as possible, get your readers into your email list – yes, I’m so confident of this statement. It’s more important than writing new posts every day
If a few readers refuse to subscribe to your list, it shows they don’t want to learn more. Don’t be disturbed over a few unserious readers. They care too much about free stuff and to make money online, you won’t continue giving away free stuff.
A time will come when you’ll move-up to create, and sell products. A dying blog can come alive if you capture – build relationship and then, convert readers.
6. When Will You Focus
I’m talking about focus.
Aren’t you tired of reading other people’s blogs and the ‘monthly income reports’ they publish. When will you share yours for others to get inspiration from? You need to start today and challenge yourself. Focus is the secret recipe to preparing a powerful and profitable blog.
I think you’ve wasted a lot of time chatting, talking and engaging in activities that don’t agree with your goals. Stop right there and think again. You can’t succeed or make money as a blogger by doing everything at the same time. If your goal is to write 5 guest articles every week, then focus on it and make sure you don’t fail.
See, when you publish 5 quality articles on A-list blogs every week, the traffic and readers coming to your blog will be AMAZING. A single guest post I wrote for freelanceswitch.com added 127 subscribers to my list – oh, I love building my list – it’s the best thing I enjoy doing. Focus, Focus is the key.
Stop looking for the ‘next’ traffic strategy out there. Guest posting is the best and it’s not going away any time soon – take advantage of it right now. Stay focused and money will start flowing into your bank account quickly.
7. Write An Ebook. Package and Sell It
Yes, go out there and write an e-book. Well, it’s not the only product you can create and make money from, but it’s the easiest. Even a newbie blogger can create one within 15 days and make money from it. Don’t take my word for it; it’s not as easy as it sounds. You need to work hard to build and connect with others in your niche.
But the truth is; an e-book might be the edge you need to trounce the competition which is hot with freelancing. Getting freelance work that pays well is a hard nut to crack, except for the established freelancers.
As a freelance writer, I know the pain of pitching and getting no response. It takes guts to succeed as a freelancer.
But once you create an e-book, you can concentrate on this alone – use your blog as a billboard to advertise the product and who knows, you might be making so much money to support your business.
Well, there are no competitions in the e-book market. Even if everyone reading this post decides to create one, I would still sell mine – and I know that not everyone has time or flair to write a short e-book of 15 – 50 pages. But I’ve time for it – can you do that?
8. Rethink Social Media Marketing
If I may ask you, how much targeted traffic did you generate from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and maybe Pinterest last month?
If you’re not getting results, then it’s time to rethink if what you’re doing is right. Why is social media not bringing results to you? Have you missed the mark and what does it take to get results from social media marketing? If you understand how social media works, you would richly benefit from it.
I know a lot of people will not accept this truth – but social media can distract you from growing a successful blog. Of course, social media when done correctly can add so many flavors to your bottom-line, but not the way most bloggers do it.
I talked about capturing and converting above. Did you know that twitter followers and facebook fans may continue to be skeptical of your marketing offers no matter how hard you try? The best strategy is to channel a handful of them to your email list.
It may not be easy but it’s doable. Use social media networks to increase your email list and build relationships that matter there. Quote me wrong, but building a remarkable relationship with email subscribers is easier, fun and more lucrative than with twitter or Facebook fans. Am I right? leave a comment to let me know?
Over To You
Did you enjoy this post? All I ask is that you add your 2-cent by leaving a comment below. I would like to know how successful your blog is and what’s stopping you from making good money from it. Thank you for reading and have a gracious day. See you at the top!
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