Why Your Blog Shouldn’t Directly Generate Revenue

Like millions of others, you’ve started a blog to make money. You’re more than likely to fail at it. While you may become disappointed with the amount you earn, you’ll either continue blogging with little to no results or you’ll simply give up altogether.

All bloggers, or nearly all of them, take one of two directions. One group starts their blog to make money directly rom their blog, while the other sets out to make it indirectly. There is a third group, the one that doesn’t want to make a single cent from their blog, but we aren’t discussing that at the moment.

At some point, you’ll either find yourself to be successful. In this case, you’ll be making enough money to quit your day job, and if you aren’t successful, you obviously can’t quit. Even if you aren’t successful, there are ways that you can make money from your blog.

Why Indirect Profits Are Better than Direct

Earning money directly from writing on your blog can certainly be easier to do, but it won’t get you nearly as far as it you earn indirectly. Selling advertisements can be great, and most blogs generate most of their income this way, but it won’t help you reach all your goals, especially if you want to become “known” both online and offline.

Start a business around something you enjoy. For example, if you enjoy writing, strike a deal with a publisher and get your work published. As bloggers obviously love writing, this is the path many take. It’ll also be rewarding to see your work hit bookshelves or appear across the Web for sale.

Having all your income coming through indirect sources generally means that your most devoted readers and visitors are supplying your income, rather than advertisers who may be making bulk purchases and have little to no relationship with you — other than purchasing a space on your blog. By having your income come through indirect sources, you are developing your brand.

With a brand in place, you’ll be able to grow profits further down the road. This is one of the reasons companies stagger the release of new products. Why release ten products at once only to see sales diminish within a year? Instead, use the sure-fire approach of creating the brand, experience, and relationship, then release new products. It has worked for companies and individuals in the past, so there is a good chance it’ll also work for you.

Types of Blogs that Create Indirect Profits

Sure, there are many ways blogs can generate profits, the most common being through advertising sales. However, you want to grow beyond this, and here are some ways that you can do it.

1. Provide updates to your customers through a company/corporate blog.
2. Use a blog to promote a book or other product that you are selling. For example, share the process you have gone through to get the product to market.
3. Share customer testimonials through a blog as a method to drive more sales.
4. Create a “personal” blog, in a CEO-like fashion, in order to build a more personal relationship with customers.
5. Provide support through the blog. Listen to what customers are saying and address complaints or issues.

Think About Your Personal Goals

The main reason you want to create indirect profits may not be clear at first, but one of the main reasons is flexibility. When you make money directly from your blog, you are focused solely on advertising – whether in the form of sponsored posts, advertising sales, or affiliate offers. There isn’t much you can do to increase income through these methods other than by increasing traffic. We all know what a very small stream of traffic means to a blogger – no revenue.

Generating a majority of your income through an indirect source means you can spend more time on improving your product, service, or other offering, rather than on building traffic. Your traffic will grow as you are able to get more people to sell your product through word of mouth marketing. For example, one customer can tell another person, who will then pass the product information further.

Your main goal should be getting the product into the wild. After this, it is all up to you to promote and market the product.

Here are a few questions that you should be thinking about.

• How often do you plan on releasing updates to your product?
• What type of content do you plan on publishing on your blog?
• Will you hire writers or get guest posters to write on the blog, or will it solely be your effort?
• Will you build sales links directly into your blog or refer new customers over to your official landing pages?

Once again, you need a clear business plan for launching your product, and then the outcome of your efforts revolves around how much time you put into your work as well as how dedicated you are to making things work out.

What are your thoughts on directly making money from your blog? Has it worked for you?