This is a guest post by Mary Jaksch, a professional blogger and Zen Master. Together with Leo Babauta, Mary runs the A-List Blogger Club, an ongoing training for bloggers. She’s also a tango dancer, as well as a 4th Dan Blackbelt in karate.
Are you a blogger? If so, you’ll know that blogging can be one of the most exciting rides. Well, ok - it’s not quite as exciting white-water rafting.
Actually, I once had a scary experience on a river. I was on a rafting trip down the Karamea, a dangerous river on the wild West Coast of New Zealand. Suddenly rain started to sheet down, and, within minutes, the water in the narrow gorge rose alarmingly. The raft bucked in the roiling rapids, and plunged down 5-metre drops [yikes!]. Finally, the raft flipped over - with me trapped underwater beneath it. Yep, that was definitely exciting.
As a blogger, you also have to ride the rapids. You need to be alert to new developments and continually adapt to changing circumstances in order to keep afloat. Yes, blogging is a challenge. And it can be frustrating at times.
When you first start a blog, you write and write – but nobody reads your stuff. I was so frustrated after writing my blog Goodlife ZEN for three months, that I subscribed my cat Sweetie – just to have a third subscriber besides my son and my best friend.
Ok, so the start can be sluggish. In fact, most bloggers give up within the first six months. The Internet is littered with dead blogs. Defunct bloggers say things like, “I started too late. If I’d only started a few years ago, I could have been successful.”
Yeah, right!
Actually, there’s a gold rush happening in the Blogosphere. Do you want to be part of it?
But before we talk about the gold and where to find the stash, you need to make sure that your blog has what it takes.
Write insanely useful content
Whether anyone reads your stuff or not, the key strategy that will make your blog flourish is to create insanely useful content. Every post needs to be about your readers and their needs – and not about you. This simple point is where 80% of all novice bloggers go wrong.
How to build a strong foundation
Let’s fast forward a year or so from the birth of a bloglet. If you’ve learned how to create a blog that looks professional, write insanely useful content, and keep on promoting your blog, you’ll have gathered a fair number of subscribers after a year or so. In order to accelerate the growth of your blog, you may want to consider creating a product that you can give away to your readers in return for subscribing. Yes, I suggest that you create a report, video, nifty app or other product for, well, nothing, nada, nichts.
However, the effort you put into creating a free product actually pays dividends. It enables you to build a substantial subscriber base.
Ok, so now you’ve got a solid foundation to work from. What now? Where’s the loot?
How to make your blog pay the bills
Your blog is an untapped source of revenue. Here are three ways to dig out the hidden gold.
1. Create products (that your readers actually need and want)
A great way to create some income is to create digital products for your readers. But they need to be something that your readers actually need! Before you lift a finger to create a product, take some time to reflect on how your planned product can improve the lives of your readers. Does it make their life easier? Does it solve a problem? Does it teach a valuable skill?
2. Create membership programs
Membership programs rock! The key drivers that make people want to join membership programs are the desire to learn new skills, and the yearning to be part of a community. A membership program can fulfill these two basic desires. If you create a program that offers ongoing training and a lively, and supportive community, you’ll have a winner on your hands.
I first created a membership program more-or-less by accident. Together with my business partner Leo Babauta (of Zen Habits fame), I ran our first A-List Blogging Bootcamp two years ago. When we came to the end of the virtual Bootcamp, I noticed that participants didn’t want to leave. They loved being part of a lively and supportive community.
So I said to Leo, “Hey, let’s start a paid membership program!” I worked day and night for a whole weekend to find out how to set the darn thing up. Then we launched with 45 members. Today, two years later, we’ve got nearly 900 member in the A-list Blogger Club. It’s got a great vibe. A member recently wrote: “You couldn’t pay me to unsubscribe!”
We’ve taught some of our more experienced Club members to create membership programs. For example, Jules Clancy - who runs a blog, called The Stone Soup - recently created a successful membership program on the back of her virtual cookery school.
3. Create paid content
There is a new development in the Blogosphere. Bloggers are talking about offering paid premium content. Here's how the conversation is unfolding: Ryan Deiss recently killed his blog and now offers a paid email subscription instead. Internet entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck predicted The Return of Pay in a recent video. In a follow-up of his post Is Blogging Broken?, David Risley explains how he would charge for blog posts.
Ok, these are only three voices in the great wilderness of the Blogosphere, but I know that some other big bloggers are considering a ‘paid content’ strategy as well.
One of the ideas is that some content-rich posts will be for sale for a small fee, whereas other posts will be available to the general public. Another idea is that people pay for an ongoing subscription to a private section of a blog which offers premium content.
My prediction is that a new era of ‘pay for content’ will be well established within a year.
What’s behind the ‘pay for content’ movement?
The ‘pay for content’ strategy has become a realistic opportunity through the advent of the iPhone and the iPad. The reason is simple: people have got used to spending small amounts of money online for apps. It’s a small step from buying an app to spending 90 cents or so for a useful blog post.
If you’re interested in knowing more about this new development, here are two more links. Video expert Dave Kaminski created a podcast, called Have a Wordpress Blog? Here's How To Charge For Premium Content. Also, you can check out a new Wordpress pluging, called Cleeng, which helps to sell access to selected blog posts for micro-payments of under 1$.
So, is it too late to start blogging?
No, it’s not too late. In fact, blogging is only just coming into it’s own. With the slow demise of traditional print media, the door is wide open for bloggers to take advantage of a new gap in the market place. We can each become publishers in our own right, be insanely useful to others,s and make a living whilst having fun with our blogs.
Mary Jaksch blogs at Goodlife ZEN and is Chief Editor of Write to Done. Together with Leo Babauta, she run A-List Blogging Bootcamps, and the A-List Blogger Club. If you’re keen to get top articles and case studies about blogging for free, go here.
Paying bills is one of the hectic feature and thank god with my knowledge and skills i pay my online bill easily
Great post Mary! My next step now is to create a free product and get more subscribers...working on it...
I also have a plan to create a community in the next year or so. the plans are in the works! :)
I am also in the A-List Bloggers Club and I can say that it is awesome!
Great post Mary! My next step now is to create a free product and get more subscribers...working on it...
I also have a plan to create a community in the next year or so. the plans are in the works! :)
I am also in the A-List Bloggers Club and I can say that it is awesome!
Thanks for this great info, I'll use it in building my blog where I'm also posting episodes of an ebook day by day to support my product, hot water bottle covers.