Last week I had a coaching call with Sally, a new client with a 2-year-old fashion blog.
I asked how she was making money with her blog and she replied “ads”. So, just like Dr. Phil, I asked, “And how’s that working for you?”
She said that in November; she had 83,132 visitors and made $194 from Google. You didn’t read that wrong – about 83 THOUSAND visitors (NOT page views – actual people) were stopping by her blog monthly and from that; she was making about $200… A MONTH!
The Last Thing You Should Do
Here’s the deal:
…putting advertising on your site to make money is the last thing you should do.
Ads make your site look uninviting and pay you practically nothing until you have close to half a million views a month…and how long is that going to take? They slow down your site and keep your visitors from signing up to your email list.
So:
…what’s the bottom line?
Give It Up
Give up the ads and start selling your own product, service or course.Bloggers that create their own eBooks, teach their own courses or offer one-on-one coaching are making way more than they would make with ads.
Want to know the best part?
If that product, course or coaching solves one of their readers’ main problems, then they make a lot more.
How To Have A Successful Blog
This is the formula I teach my clients…
- Great content plus
- Free traffic plus
- A strong offer equals a profitable blog.
You’ve already been creating great content and you are building up your traffic every month.
Now you might wonder:
“Just how do you create a strong offer?”
By listening to your audience – on blog comments, social media, and your own reader survey questions – and building what they already want and need.
Here are examples of strong offers. (And notice how they solve a problem for their customers and clients).
Freelance Services
Corinne offers small businesses that are too busy to write. She offers freelance writing services for blog posts, articles, eBooks, and press releases.
Coaching
Tor sells one-on-one coaching so his entrepreneurial clients can set goals, save time and increase their results.
Consulting
Kyla is a business coach and digital strategist who offers business strategy consulting to passionate, dedicated entrepreneurs.
Services
Jane makes her clients’ best-selling authors without them having to even write the book.
Courses
Dre offers solopreneurs visual branding via a DIY course plus she has a one-on-one branding mentorship, freelance design services, and an eBook.
Each of these bloggers has a profitable, successful blog with strong offers…
…offers that make them money month in and month out.
The Truth About Making Money
Ads will not be the answer to making money with your blog.
Instead, focus your efforts on selling your own products, courses, and services.
Want to know more about making money blogging?
Hey Sue,
Money is always the concern for people who enter in the field of online business. But are they doing it the right way? As you have mentioned that people should give up on the ads, they should start selling.
Maybe some services which are needed in today's era of technology. Though it would require great efforts to create your own product, but still hard work pays off.
Glad to read this post.
Hope you are enjoying the day.
~Ravi
I always appreciate your comments, Ravi.
Thanks!
Sue
Thanks for sharing,it really helpful.
You are so welcome, Anthony!
Sue
This blog post of yours ignited me to blog about how I use my blog to sell my product, services, or in my case — myself! Coming from what you wrote above, "Don't sell your blog to make money. Use your blog to sell yourself!" ? I'll tweet you the link.
Spot-on, Raffy!
Thanks for your comment.
Sue
OMG is all over my mouth.
Indeed this is a captioning secret to clean, clear blogging style.
I feel nourished with all I have read.
Been blogging for 3years now and been somewhat battling with questions which you just answered all in one article.
Thanks.
Bookmarking your blog right away.
You are so welcome!
Sue
Very interesting article. I was almost sure that ads are not the way to go for a small blog. I actually was thinking to also write a post about it, although I do not have solutions for making money. Your suggestion make sense and I have to consider them.
You are so welcome!
Sue
Hello Sue, i'm doing blogging since 2012. I'm actually a web developer and seo analyst. I started it doing for others designing my clients website then one day i decided to create it for my self.
I had also a vision for my blog. Getting good traffic and using affiliate ads for making money. But I was getting less traffic. So I started providing services and found it to be more profitable. With just 3000 visitors monthly I had 4 leads who had asked me to build their business website in wprdpress.
I earned around 2000$ for four website which I build in 1 month deadline. So my profit with just daily visits of 100 gets me good business. So I'm focusing now on services only.
Love your story, Dumaji!
Thanks for sharing it.
Sue
A very good article Thank You So Much….
I am learning so much already that i wished i could have put into practice earlier. as I have been blogging for over a year. i thought about buying facebook ads, google adsense, and anything i could to get more eyes on my blog. My site is about dealing with menopause, and while there is plenty to write about and i love doing it, my readership often is less than 10 people, except for once it was 150, when i was following up on some free resources from Carol Tice.( Make a Living Writing). I will now retool the blog to solve more problems and wish you had a memberhsip site that could be joined on a monthly basis, as coaching is very expensive. Thanks again and looking forward to learning some new tips and tricks even at age 63.
We are in a similar age group, Patricia! No matter how long you have been blogging, you can pivot and get more traffic. Have a great Lead Magnet to get people to sign up for your list and send them weekly emails on your guest posts, blog posts, podcast interviews, etc. that you will work on getting 🙂
Thanks for your comment. I'll let you know if I ever do a membership.
Sue
Thanks for this useful information; this will help me solve my querys
Right now I'm just trying to get viewers to my site and have no desire to sell my own product or services. Affiliate ads only.
Nice blog Sue. I think blogs like these are very helpful for people who wanted to gain knowledge on how to monetize their blog.
Most of the people who start their blog do it with their passion towards their niche. But do not make use of various ways to monetize it.
Even if they monetize, most of them are aware only of Google adsense.
Blogs like these can be of really a great help to them.
Thanks
Wow! I am glad I read through this! I am currently using adsense and amazon affiliates, but I learned that I can be doing so much more! Thank you for all of your awesome advice!
You are so welcome, Rahul!
Sue
we can make money with our blog only when we have intension of sharing great knownledge instead of thinking of earning money
That’s a really great compilation. My web developer shared this with me and we have started working on a few off this list right away!
Greetings .
Blogging was on my agenda for a long time . Now full time in to blogging with focus on quality content .
The high failure rate in blogging is because ,blogging requires lot of hard work.
I agree , your own product should be the focus . I already have two successful courses on Udemy which are generating good revenue. But I need to have my own blog. Thanks for the inputs.
Regards
Hi Sue
Make Money with blogging, Sounds easy doesn’t it! On some levels the process is simple – but we need to know up front that there’s a lot to each step.
Thanks for your effortable post,
Thank you so much Sue for the insight.
When building a business (which a blog is) one must factor in how they want to make money from it. It’s good doing it for passion but its great when passion pays.
Apart from selling one’s product which is always the best bet, bloggers can also sell the products of others that are closely related to their core focus and will interest their audience and earn commissions that way.
Affiliate marketing has made many bloggers rich.
Your fashion client for example can do a post with reviews of some fashion item, sign up to the company’s affiliate program and earn money writing about it.
It makes life easy and you don’t have to think too hard about creating a product.
But it’s not as dependable as having products of your own, which you can tweak, increase its pricing, use as a lead magnet, create upsells for and do so many other things with.
The circle illustration you did is powerful. I enjoyed the write up
-Uzoma
I so appreciate your thoughtful comment, Uzoma!
Thanks,
Sue
Hi Sue,
The formula you mentioned for building a successfull blog is really effective.
It has proven by so many pro bloggers like you if someone have great content and best deals with free organic traffic, anyone can make big money.
Thanks for sharing this insights.
We always wait for such type of contents. Please keep writing the good and informative contents.
We are in a similar age group, Patricia! No matter how long you have been blogging, you can pivot and get more traffic. Have a great Lead Magnet to get people to sign up for your list and send them weekly emails on your guest posts, blog posts, podcast interviews, etc. that you will work on getting