Four Smart Ways To Turn Your Blog Into A Business

**Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you choose to make a purchase.

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Can you make a mint blogging?

If you have a passion for communication and connecting with others, blogging could be a tailor made business for you. But it's not quite as simple as registering a domain name and picking out the best WordPress theme. There are quite a few different ways to generate income from running a blog, but they all require a bit of effort to get up and running. What combination of those you adopt has to depend on your brand DNA. Your blogging niche and the values you stand for will shape the revenue methods you can make successful. Here are some of the most popular:

Merchandising

The most popular blogs, or ones with a cult following, can explore making money with merchandising opportunities. It all depends on natural synergies with the content on your site. For example, a cooking blog may be able to look into kitchen items and the publication of a recipe book. Beauty blogs can explore makeup brushes and palettes. Technology blogs could produce branded mouse mats or laptop shells. Like any business idea, success depends on solid market research before production, and you will have to have quite a substantial following and presence, but it could be something to work towards. Your blog is your best marketing tool for your merchandise, and collaborations with other bloggers in your niche could work well. Producing merchandise items can be expensive though, and you may need capital to fund it, so check business loan rates carefully to make sure it's worth doing.

Selling Advertising Space

If you have a loyal and engaged following, great domain authority and strong traffic, you can sell advertising space on your blog to companies wanting to target your audience. Companies that operate same sphere are likely to be interested - like fast fashion retailers on a style blog. The low-hassle option is to sign up to a network (Google AdWords being the most well-known) that procures and displays relevant advertising content for you. But there are other options which allow you to customise more what gets displayed on your site. Check the terms of payment before signing up.

Becoming An Affiliate Partner

Most blogs mention products and services when producing their content, and this can be monetized through an affiliate marketing service. Put simply, when you mention an item you can link to the product page to shop the item, and you earn a percentage of sales. Most large online retailers offer a programme for bloggers to participate. The most popular is probably Amazon’s affiliate programme. They stock every kind of item, so you can make the maximum amount of links and increase your earning potential.

Selling Digital or Physical Products

If you love creating things whether they are digital or physical, then a blog provides a perfect platform to showcase them. Printables are an easy way to create a variety of organizational tools that others can use to help get their lives in order. Not to mention, you can personally use to help get your own life in order. Here's a daily planner example I've created: https://payhip.com/b/Ac1a. Here's a meal planning template I've created with actual recipes laid out for 30 days:

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Whichever method you choose, make sure that you stay true to the spirit of your brand. Followers are very good at spotting naked commercialism and don't tend to react well to inauthentic content which is plainly designed to sell. However, if the advertising is relevant and helpful it tends to do well. Make sure you believe in what you are doing and don't endorse products you wouldn't genuinely recommend. Protecting your brand credibility must come first or you’ll lose followers and be less able to make money.

**This is a contributed post.