Blogging is big news and more and more bloggers are turning their passion into a career. So author of The Million Dollar Blog, Natasha Courtenay-Smith gave us the lowdown at the recent Stylist live on all the steps to take to be able to make money from your dream.
In the UK every month there’s 100,000 searches on how to start a blog. There’s 50,000 blogs launched per day globally on WordPress. A quarter of people under the age of 25 see blogging as their number one career choice.
The three business models
Natasha talked about three blog business models. “Most bloggers come into the industry as very artistic and creative but creating a business plan for the bank would make their heart sink.”
The first model she spoke about was the ‘Big Business Model‘ where you have millions and millions of views, readers and your blog will be a million dollar empire in its right, you’ll be selling space and doing sponsored content. The key to this is that your blog is not about you and can exist without you. Anybody can run it, it can be replicated around the world and it’s effectively a media source just like Sky News or CNN.
The second, the ‘Personal and Rewarding Model‘ which is most bloggers are attracted to do – big bloggers like Lily Pebbles have taken this model on board. It’s similar in that it involves selling advertising but the success of the blog is driven by a personal brand. The blog cannot survive without its owner – if the owner leaves the blog, it loses its attraction and ceases to exist. You’ve got a much more intimate audience.
But at what point can it be monetized? “10,000 visitors a month is a point at which your blog probably can be monetized.”
The final is the ‘Authority Based Model‘ – if you’re blogging as a professional – whether that’s a hairdresser, an MUA, a dog walker and you’re doing and you’re doing any type of blog to help with your expertise and make you a leader in your field then all that matters to you is getting enough reach and eyeballs on your blog to scale your business to the level you want to scale it to. If you only want one client, you may only need ten visitors to your blog and you’re still making money. If you’re trying to grow your company off the back off it, you’ll need a lot more.
It’s really important to understand your business model and where your blog sits in it. So ask yourself what blog model you want to build your site around?
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