Steps to Turn Your Hobby Blog into a Business

If you have been thinking that you need an extra income stream, or have wanted to find a job that means you can work from home completely, then there is no time like the present. One thing that you can do, in order to get a business running from home is a blog. Yes, you read that correctly. With some planning, motivation, and determination, you can quite easily help to take your blogging to the next level and make it a career. 

Being able to make money from a blog does take some time and some hard work. So you do need to have a passion for it, and you do need to have some time to dedicate to it (like you would with any business). Consistency and strategy are going to be important pieces of the blogging for money puzzle. Believe it or not, if you do want to make money from your blog and turn it into a business, then there is actually a right and a wrong way to blog. So with all of that in mind, here are some of the important things to think about and be doing, if you want to monetize your blog. Of course, there will be some aspects that won’t be relevant to you, and some that will be. But with these general principles, you can be well on your way to turning your blog into a career.

Choose Your Focus

When it comes to blogging, you need to know what your focus is going to be. The key thing is to not think too hard about, and think what people will want to read. You should think about what you know about, have experience in, and at the end of the day, what you are passionate about. It helps to have a niche, so that the readers and therefore customers down the line, are ones that really have an interest in what you do. If you keep things too general, then the readers might be confused as your content changes. Not only that, but they are likely to not come back if they came for travel content but you now start sharing vegan recipes or business tips, for example. So think about your niche, and then you can plan your content around that. There are opportunities for all blogs to make money, so there is no need to think too hard about it.

Business Blogging Basics

If you are going to make this a career, then there are some things that you will need to do, if you’ve not done them before. To start with, you need to decide if you are going to register a company, or if you are going to just do your tax as someone who is self-employed as a sole-trader. There are pros and cons to each aspect, so it definitely does depend on what you are looking to do. 

Another thing that you may not have thought about before, is that you will need to get public liability insurance. Although it is something that you will be doing from home, it is still a business, and to make money, you will be working with clients and brands. As such, it is such a benefit to get insurance for the work that you do. It is worth speaking to an insurer in person (or on the phone) about what kind of cover you need, as it is likely to be a niche area that not all insurers will cover.

Content is King

The content that you put out there is going to be what makes a difference to your business. If you have bad content, no one is going to read it or come back for me. Posting regularly is something that is really important; keep consistency. This is good for readers, but also for search engines, to help you to get found. SEO is a whole other topic that will help your blog, but think about the content that you put out there, on your website, as well as your social media channels.

Focus on Growth

If you want to take things to the next level, and make money from more than just affiliate links and sponsored content, then you need to have a plan to help the business to grow. Are you going to sell products alongside what you already do? Are you going to work with brands to create a collaboration? How about putting together something of your own like a subscription box, for instance? Will you write a book to sell? Once you have built a blog and an audience, you can think about what else you can do to grow.

Image credit:  Pexels.com

Let’s connect on social