5 Steps to Make Your First $1K from Your Blog
When you search on Google for “ways to make money blogging” you’re going to see a lot of the same. People will tell you one of two things: either it takes time, or it can’t be done. It’s time to cut through the usual answers to this age old question and really boil down the subject to its bare roots.
Today I’m going to show you the real method for making money from your blog and your blogging experience. Today’s focus is on making that first $1K that lets you know you’re on the right track to success. Once you’ve hit this milestone, you can start branching out into some of the long-term strategies. Let’s start making money!
The 5 Steps to Making $1K from Your Blog (Without Waiting a Year)
At the heart of it all, blogging is a form of consulting, and consulting is a $415 billion industry. Your job is to teach others what you know as an expert in your field. There’s money to be made when you consider yourself as something more than a blogger and more of a freelance consultant.
The main takeaway from this article should be one thing: You’re not just a blogger.
You have a lot more to offer the world than blog posts. Remember that once you’ve chosen your hosting and started your blog. Now, let’s dive into these steps.
1. Start Collecting Emails
There’s a certain flow to successful blogs. Once you start making money, you elevate yourself to the level of an entrepreneur, not just a blogger. At this point, you need a business model, and I have one for you:
- Bring people to your blog with useful and valuable content
- Offer a free download, or newsletter in exchange for their email
- Build up a rapport by sending them useful content
- Offer your own product (or an affiliate product) that you believe will help them
- Profit
Whether you’re selling something you made or a course you designed, the end result is the same. Once you have an email, you have an interested party. By providing them with content in return for their email, you build a bond of loyalty.
That loyalty results in huge success when you recommend a product or service. At that point, they trust you and they will seriously consider buying anything you tell them is beneficial. So, case and point, install an email capture plugin and start collecting this information immediately.
2. Sell Something Your Audience Wants
Once you’ve built up a following and you’ve received some emails, the next step is to start selling something. Thanks to modern technology, the product or service you choose to sell can be a bunch of different things:
- e-Book
- Personalized courses or seminars
- Ad space on your blog
- Products you created
- Someone else’s successful product (affiliates)
There’s plenty more, but those are the top ones. The last one is especially important. If you don’t happen to be an inventor or you don’t have something to start selling, you can get off the ground by becoming an affiliate for another product.
The main thing to remember is that you should be selling something your audience wants or needs, and you have to convince them that this will solve their problem.
3. Build Your Funnel in Reverse
Most bloggers will begin by offering something for free or selling a cheap book to get people’s attention, and while this has worked in the past, it’s not the ideal way to make your first $1K. There’s a faster way:
- Start by developing your big, profitable products and offer them first.
- Offer cheaper and lower-priced products later.
- Start high and gradually go down in terms of pricing.
By doing this, you’re giving yourself the opportunity to make a lot more much faster. The problem with offering the cheap stuff first is that people will automatically go for that instead of the higher priced option when given the choice.
4. Create a Killer Landing Page
When you direct someone to purchase something, sooner or later they’re going to end up on one of your landing pages. This is your opportunity to seal the deal, but more often than not, these pages are making a few major mistakes:
- They don’t have a concise (and more importantly, clear) call to action
- There are hyperlinks leading away from the page (no navigation should be on your landing pages)
- The content on the landing page doesn’t match the tone or subject of the page the user came from.
- There’s no social proof (testimonials, quotes from customers, etc.)
- There’s too much information to fill out (keep it short and simple)
Your landing pages should be all-inclusive destinations where you focus on one thing and one thing only: converting leads into paying customers.
5. Start Promoting Yourself
Content promotion should be the last step, and here’s why: You can’t advertise yourself until you have something to showcase.
By building your landing pages, forming an idea of your products, and building an email list, you’re laying the foundation for your first $1K from your blog. With all of that in place, you can spread your wings and take to the skies of social media.
I recommend starting small with a Facebook page and maybe a Twitter account. Trying to make yourself present on every platform is an easy way to get overwhelmed. As you begin promoting your content and your products, follow the 80/20 rule:
80% of your posts should be useful and valuable content. The other 20% can be promotional items and advertisements for your products/services.
Final Thoughts
Making your first $1K isn’t easy, but it’s certainly possible. All of these steps will also lay a foundation for the future of your blog. You’ll soar past this first milestone and on to greener (pun intended) pastures.
How did you make your first $1,000 from your blog? Tell us your story in the comments!
Tags: blogging, online income, tips & tricks