If you want to grow your blog into a part-time or full-time job and start monetising your posts, you’re going to love these 5 steps!

Even though I started this blog in 2012, it wasn’t until this spring when I really started focusing on it in a more professional level. At this point, I can happily call myself a full-time blogger. I was afraid of this status before. I thought that being a successful blogger means making your living primarily from blog posts & advertising. For this reason, I kept my design business on a separate note and I couldn’t be more wrong.

You might also like:

• How Exactly I Make Money As a Blogger
• How Better Blog Design Can Make Your Blog Profitable
• 10 Things To Keep In Mind Then Launching Your First Blog

To keep you away from making the same mistakes I did and help you turn your blog into a business, I prepared 5 tips that you might want to follow on your journey:

Define Your Audience + Niche

Every business needs to have a unique voice in order to succeed. Get a notebook and write down all the topics that you feel confident in talking about. Now- cross off the ones that you don’t feel that passionate about. You should end up with 3 topics max. Concentrate on these topics and these, topics only. Of course you can set sub-topics too.

I see myself as a lifestyle + self-improvement blogger.

My lifestyle posts cover style + beauty + everyday life joys (such as food, travelling or any other more personal kind of themes). I see these posts as a way to introduce myself to my readers. As much as I love blogs concentrating on one specific topic only, I feel like I still like to know the person behind the blog too.

My self-improvement posts is my way to give back to the blogging community. I try to blog every week on blogging or business topics and I love the response I’ve been getting so far. Building my own brand is a huge part of my life and I really feel passionate about sharing these tips with you all.

If you take your blog seriously, you should definitely start thinking about your audience needs. You must determine the demographics of your audience and think of its interests. Below you can see the screenshot I took from Google Analytics. You can see that the majority of my audience are your females up to 35 years old. Looking at interests they’re mostly interest in Apparel, Shopping, Beauty and Employment. Lucky me- I fall into the same category!

Read more: How to Find the Right Niche for Your Blog?

Offer Products or Services

Now then we know our audience, we can determine what they might need in their lives and how can we help. I started creating premade Blogger and WordPress templates when I became a blogger myself and noticed the lack of affordable design services out there. I also received a number of comments and emails asking me how I created my blog’s layout and business idea just kind of came to me.

If you keep getting compliments on your writing- maybe proofreading /copyrighting services would be a good niche for you?

Just start listening to your audience and you will come up with ways to easily monetize your blogging!

Prepare a Media Kit

Don’t have a media kit yet? What are you waiting for?!
If you’re trying to find brands to work with, you must prepare a professional media kit that you can send out.

What is media kit and why you need it? Basically, it’s a document with all your info and stats in one place. You can also list your preferred ways to collaborate and your pricing. It makes you look professional and it also shows your potential partners why they should be interested in working with you.

I occasionally get in touch with companies that I’d love to work with and attach my media kit with the letter stating why I think my blog would be a right fit for them. If I get a request from a brand offering to collaborate- I also attach my media kit with the response, so they can get a better idea about the promotion they could expect.

Make sure to create a media kit that really stands out, find premade Media Kit templates at our design shop.

Grow Your Newsletter

I truly think that my biggest mistake is not building my mailing list earlier. I only started sending out weekly newsletters a month ago. Even though it hasn’t been that long, I can already see the huge improvement in the relations with my readers & customers. I started receiving responses via email with questions and business enquiries. I love helping people and I love to see them comfortable to get in touch and start the communication.

EVERYONE has an email address now (everyone, except my dad, of course). I don’t know about you, but I check my inbox at least 3-4 times a day.Email marketing seriously the easiest way to be noticed and get people come back to your blog.

Join the party!  I share special offers + updates every Monday:

Read more: Why Your Blog Needs a Newsletter List & How to Start One.

Focus on Creating a Brand for Yourself

Despite all the tips &tricks I share, let me tell you one main goal you should definitely focus on. It’s- creating a brand for yourself.

When I started my online business, I kept my design shop and blog as completely different online activities and boy I was so wrong! I recently rebranded both of my sites and now use the same logo, even same social media accounts for both and I can really see it helping me a lot. My design clients turn into my blog readers and my readers turn into my clients. I hope one day to launch more products with my name on it or develop courses for young people trying to make it as a soloproneurs. I love seeing people showing their interest in my shop, my blog AND my social media at once. Don’t repeat my mistakes and connect all your activities through creating your brand as soon as possible.

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While it’s important to enjoy blogging, treating it as a business can really take you to a new level. Working with the brands you love and having loyal readers can bring a lot of joy to your online presence and help you turn your blog into a dream job.