How To: Develop a Multi-Faceted Revenue Strategy for Blogs

Credit: srbichara

How do you go about starting a blog ? Do you just get up one day and tell yourself that you are ready to become a pro blogger without having a proper plan? Or do you just stick to your “eternal optimist” line and hope for the best when it comes to making money from your blog. In order to make a living from blogging, you need to have a plan. For starters, you need to passionate about what you are doing and the topic you want to write about. Content has always been king, and your goal as a blogger should be to develop the best content possible. That’d be tough to do if you hate the topic you are writing about. But even if you are absolutely in love with the topic of your blog, you still need to have a multi-faceted revenue strategy to become a full-time blogger.

I may not be a full-time blogger as I used to be in the past (running a start-up changed that). But I can tell you that blogging is not an easy business to be a part of. There are a lot of people who have high hopes and dreams, but only a few become true superstars. The rest will have to find ways to make enough money to stay afloat and keep their blog going. If you develop a long-term revenue plan before your launch your blog, you are in a much better place. But even if you haven’t done that, it is never too late to start. You just want to make sure that you don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

I have seen too many new bloggers who spend all their time focusing on one revenue channel. I have been there before. It’s so easy to get excited about Adsense or an affiliate program when you are making lots of money in a short period of time. But all good things do come to an end. While you should pay attention to revenue channels that pay your bills, you should also work on developing new ways for your blog to generate revenue. If you look at most blogging superstars, you can almost see the evolution of their blog’s business models through the years. Most started with advertising, sponsorships, and affiliate programs before adding membership websites, books, and videos to their offerings. That just goes on to show that no matter how much money you are making in this business, you always want to innovate and find new ways to provide more value to your visitors and generate revenue to help you take your business to the next level.

As a blogger, you owe it to your blog to explore multiple revenue strategies to help fund future investments and blog expansions. If you are just starting and have no idea where to start, here are a few revenue channels you should pursue:

• Advertising: it’s the most popular revenue channel that bloggers happen to name as their major source of revenue. You can always start with Adsense and other third-party ad-serving services. But there is more money in selling direct ads. Your blog needs to have a decent level of traffic for you to go out and sell your ad spaces, but you’ll get there if you keep providing quality content to your visitors.
• Sponsorships: another way to fund your blogging efforts is by taking on sponsors. Not every blogger is going to get sponsored. There are a lot of moving parts. But if you are in the right niche and have an audience that can be attractive to sponsors, there is no reason you shouldn’t try bringing sponsors.
• Freemium Content: many major portals are still using this model to fund their operations. They provide you with free content on a regular basis, but they have a set of articles that are only available to their members. You can be creative with this strategy. Depending on your niche, you may be able to make it work on your blog.
• Affiliate Marketing: affiliate products can help you generate additional revenue from your blog. You can use affiliate banners just in case you have trouble making enough money from third-party ads. You can also test affiliate ads against other types of ads to find out the ads that earn you the most amount.
• Membership Websites: these types of websites seem to be very popular these days. Even highly popular blogs, such as ProBlogger, have taken the time to introduce their own membership websites. You are going to need proper planning to launch a successful membership website, but it’s another revenue channel worth looking at.
• Books, Videos, …: if you have the resources to produce premium videos and write books (or e-books), you have yet another way to monetize your blogging efforts and fund your business operations.
• Merchandise: giving away or selling your branded mugs, t-shirts, and so on could help promote your blog and bring more traffic to your blog. But there are creative ways to make money from selling your own merchandise online. There are plenty of ways to add a store to your blog. You are just going to need some unique ideas for your merchandise to go viral.
• Products: if you have the funds and resources to develop goods and services for others interested in your niche, you have yet another way to generate revenue for your business. Let’s say you are writing about everything social media. Developing a decent social media ROI calculator could be very helpful for your visitors. You can develop an iPhone app, a desktop app, and all kinds of products as long as you use your creativity.
• Other: there are hundreds of ways to make money from a blog, many of which I don’t recommend trying. You can try writing paid reviews, selling links on your blog, adding a premium job board, and more. Some of these methods are too aggressive for my taste. Whatever you try on your blog, you just want to make sure you are being honest with your readers. Credibility lost is hard to gain back.

There you have it. There are lot of ways to make money on a blog. Just don’t put too many eggs in one basket. What other ways do you go about making money on your blog?