Last Updated on February 5, 2023 by Freddy G. C.

A blog is not just a place to air your thoughts and feelings, it can be a profitable financial asset.

Your posts should reflect the full extent of your knowledge, and be set up to generate traffic, revenue, and leads. Whether through affiliate marketing, referrals, or brand reputation — maximizing your blog’s power could lead to financial and professional success.

Here are some simple ways to make the most out of your blog.

Be A Helping-Hand On Forums

There is a forum for every subject under the sun, and Google gives the best ones authority in search rankings.

You can quite easily generate leads and build up a brand reputation by contributing to these online content communities.

This is not about doing old-school SEO and dropping spammy forum comments, but about engaging with the people and influencers in your niche through the power of great content and insights.

Some tips on using forums:

• Don’t be too salesy in your comments. This means that you cannot openly state that you want everyone to check out your latest blog post. However, you can approach the ‘plug’ more subtly. For instance, if a subject comes up that you have written about in the past, summarize the point in a written response and then add a link to ‘read more.’
• Open source answers on sites like Quora, eHow and InfoBarrel can provide an excellent source of traffic for your blog. Find a question in your niche and type up an in-depth article response and give a link to one of your previous posts. Journalists even use these sites for research. So, maintain a presence on these sites, and your blog may get picked up by a local or national network.
• Set up Google Alerts for related keywords to alert you to new stories and postings you can comment on with your opinions. Being on top of industry news will hone your marketing skills and make you appear authoritative to your fans.

Build Social Media Influence

When it comes to promoting your blog on social media, writers waste a lot of time developing platforms which don’t actually bring in readers. It’s more important to bed down and specialize in a few platforms that offer you real value.

Here are some platforms you may want to focus on:

If you have a younger audience, this may be Snapchat or even Musical.ly.

Pinterest, on the other hand, attracts lots of ‘foodies’ and fans of lifestyle and fashion content.

Facebook is still the biggest and most widely used social network. You can create a Page profile and utilize sponsored posts to boost your blog traffic for a low daily budget.

Alternatively, you could create a Community profile on a related topic, and spend money on advertising to get likes and then use it as a forum to aggregate content.

Don’t exclusively repost content from your blog, but do include some of your own posts in the feed to attract interaction and comments.

Instagram is ideal for fashion and lifestyle content, but has a strong bias towards beautiful-looking imagery. Make sure your posts reflect the standards and include a link to your latest blog post in your bio. You will also do well with motivational content and quotes.

LinkedIn is a decent platform, even if your blog is centered on non-B2B content. There is a wide range of topics being discussed on LinkedIn, and contributing may increase your chances of being head-hunted to an amazing opportunity. Recruiters spend all day on LinkedIn, so make sure you regularly update your network.

Tune-Up Your Blog

If you’ve neglected your blog’s SEO, it may be time to perform a full content audit.It’s easy to get lazy when it comes to SEO — but a little maintenance can pay dividends.

• In very basic terms, you want to ensure that your blog is built on solid foundations. Take out a pen and paper (or use a content auditing tool) to help you figure out the correct information architecture for your blog.
• Use Google’s Keyword Planner to find a series of high volume long-tail keyphrases. You may be able to target these with some informational posts and guides.
• Re-write your titles, subtitles, meta descriptions, image tags, etc. and see if you can make your site’s structure more accessible.
• Add a search bar for your posts, add social media sharing badges, and optimize the layout of your blog to facilitate ease of reading and sharing.
• Take some time out work on your site’s branding. Update your images at the top of the homepage and ensure that your website looks professional. If you are looking to invest money in building up your blog, this may be the wisest place to spend your hard-earned cash. There are many options for doing this cheaply, check out Upwork or PeoplePerHour to find some talented graphic designers for an affordable price.
• Repurpose some of your existing content to give it a new lease on life. If you can, make a video of a long-form article and take a look at some free video editing packages that can help you put your masterpiece together. YouTube audiences are enormous, and you can also choose to monetize your videos.

Diversify Your Business

If you have an extensive content resource, say, over 50,000 words on a single topic, consider compiling it up into an ebook that you can sell on your blog and on Amazon?

Make sure that you include a sample chapter you can give away for free as an incentive for joining your mailing list.

Or why not create some content products like downloadables and worksheets and sell them online? Many bloggers have gone down the content creation route and generated steady income from creating digital products.

Also, don’t forget to add a site pop up on your homepage, plugging your content products or new ebook. You will want to create a solid sales funnel for your new products.

Don’t Forget Your Email Mailing List

If you haven’t built a mailing list already, you are seriously missing out.

Many people like to keep track of the blogs they read, and would be more than happy to see a monthly email blast of your latest and best content.

Take advantage of the free email hosts available online until you reach up to 2,000 subscribers.

Once you’re over that mark, find an affordable email service and do all you can to customize the templates to make your e-blasts look great.

Place your signup link on all of your social media profiles and regularly encourage your friends and followers to sign up.

In many ways, email subscribers are more important than social media followers. If the social media platform you love decided to close its doors one day (RIP Vine), you would lose all of those viewers instantly. With an email list, you can guarantee readers, regardless of the changing online trends.

Making the most out of your blog comes down to your ability to offer a helping hand to your online audience, wherever they may reside.

In all honesty, you will have to put in some considerable ground-work to make an income as blogger — but it’s certainly not impossible, especially if you embrace diverse income streams.