This is a contributor’s blogpost …
A few years ago when blogs started becoming popular, many of us started one up with the hopes of sharing our passions, connecting with others and improving our skills. Little did we know that later down the line there would be the opportunity to turn this into a full-time career, and a very well paid one at that! Doing something you genuinely enjoy from the comfort of your own home while being paid for it is pretty much the dream, so if you already have an established blog, it makes sense that you’d be looking for ways to turn it into a full-time job. No commute, no boss breathing down your neck, flexible hours that you can choose yourself, all while writing about things you enjoy- sounds perfect right? Here’s how you can take your blog to the next level and start turning it into a business.
Register as a Business
The first thing you will need to do to transform your blog from a hobby to a business is to register it with the relevant authorities. It’s not as scary as it sounds, a quick phone call or online form is all it takes. When you register you have the choice of choosing a name, you can either set it up in your own name or under your blog’s name. If you’re going to do this, you need to make sure it’s a name you really like and are happy to live with for the foreseeable future. You will need to register to pay tax, even if it’s early days and you’re not earning money yet the tax office will want to know. Each year you will do a tax return, but unless you’re earning a lot of money right away it might take you a year to earn over the threshold to start paying. But get everything registered up as soon as you’ve made the decision to turn it into a job.
Explore Ways To Monetize
As a blogger, most of your money will be earned through sponsors. These are companies looking to place links on your website, either by having you write a post and include a link or by publishing a guest post written by them. This is because these backlinks can help to boost their own site in search engines. However work from sponsors can be unpredictable, as a blogger you might find you get lots of emails for work one week but hardly anything the week after. Therefore it’s important to explore other ways to monetize. Set up an account with Google Adsense, search for affiliate link companies and sign up to blogger sponsored post sites. These can all earn you some extra cash while you wait to be contacted.
Photo Courtesy of Negative Space via Pexels
Choose a Domain Name
When you registered your blog, you will have chosen a blog name which will have been followed with ‘.blogspot.com’ or ‘.wordpress.com.’ depending on the platform you went with. If you’re serious about turning your blog into a businesses, it’s important to drop this so you have your own professional domain name. You could look online for appropriate domain names by industry, you want something that’s catchy while still summing up what your blog is about. Since many sponsors will only work with blogs who have their own domain name, this is something you can’t afford to overlook. They’re really inexpensive and are just a case of setting up your blog, so it automatically forwards to the new domain. There are loads of tutorials on how to do this online, and it takes a matter of minutes to do.
Have a Re-Design
Another thing sponsors will be looking for when choosing blogs to work with is the aesthetics. It goes without saying that you should be producing excellent content, writing high-quality blog posts that offer valuable information to the reader. But the way everything looks on the page is also crucial if your blog looks amateurish, cluttered and spammy chances are you will be passed over in favor of someone else. Sites like Etsy sell premade blog templates which don’t cost much, or you could hire a designer for something custom made if you have more to spend. Everything should look clean, it should be easy to read and navigate, and your header should be beautifully made – bringing in a little personality while still looking elegant and professional.
