How to Monetize Your Mom Blog

How to Monetize Your Mom Blog

Monetize Your Mom Blog

With any small business comes costs, and it’s no different for a newly created mom blog. Of course, with these costs also comes the desire to make money to sustain the needs of your new business, also to help support your family, your passion, and hobbies!

Below you’ll find four great ways to jumpstart and monetize your mom blog quickly after launch! All of these are easy to do, and with a little work and research can help you earn money for years to come thanks to your new blog.

Advertising

Starting our list we have one of the more obvious ways to make money through your blog; advertising.

Now don’t shy away! Many people feel that running ads on your blog has to be intrusive, annoying, or downright scummy. I’m here to tell you that this is definitely not the case! It’s all about how you do it and all about the kinds of ads you run.

Depending on your niches, you may be able to find an online ad service that will target their ads to your blog’s topic. Not only does this help them by showing ads your audience actually cares about, but it helps you make more money, since more people will want to click on the ads on your site.

Better yet, find a company or service provider in your niche and partner with them directly! While this may not be possible early on in your blogging career, plan for it down the line. This way you’re choosing exactly who to run ads for, ensuring they align with your blog’s message and values, and that they pay you a fair price for the precious internet real estate you’re giving them!

Affiliate Marketing

Next up we have affiliate marketing, which is in many ways similar to advertising, but more organically woven into your content.

For example, have you ever been researching, say, the best crock pots available on Amazon? You probably found a lot of blogs with an affiliate notice at the top. This lets you know that, if you buy one of those crock pots from the link on their site, they earn a little kickback at no charge to you.

Guess what? You can do this on your blog too!

Through super simple programs like Amazon Affiliates, affiliate marketing has never been easier. Whenever you mention a product you already enjoy and use on your blog, make it an affiliate link. That way, if one of your readers finds it equally as useful and buys it through your link, you earn a little bit of money as a thank you from the seller!

It’s a really simple process, and is likely to earn you way more money than plain old advertising!

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content is similar to affiliate marketing in that it’s essentially advertising that’s been organically included in your blog’s articles and posts. Sponsored content differs in that it’s usually done through a direct partnership with your sponsor company and that the entire article is geared towards selling that product to your readers.

In terms of advertising, sponsored posts will probably be the most lucrative you can do, though they’ll also require the most work. Researching, writing, and promoting the article are key if you want to earn money and a good reputation with your sponsors.

However, when done right, these types of posts are great ways to promote products and services you enjoy and use to your readers while making a large chunk of income for your blog!

Ebooks, Courses, and Coaching

Last but not least we have the most work intensive of the four; ebooks, courses, and coaching.

Essentially, this method requires you to spend a large chunk of time upfront to create a product or service, design it, market it, and sell it to your audience. However, what you get from all of that work is a sustainable source of income that doesn’t require much upkeep once it’s been created!

This is likely where you’ll want your mom blog to go in the future, moving you away from relying on other’s sponsorships and ad money and instead relying on your own fantastic products and offerings! Product creation is definitely a “down the road” endeavor for the beginning mom blogger, but it’s something to keep in mind as you start planning your monetization strategy and preparing your mom blog to become a profitable endeavor.

When combined, these four methods are a great way to start small, making bits of money here and there through ad revenue, and then grow as your blog grows, moving on to affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and eventually your own products.

This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.

How Social Media Can Improve Your Mom Blog’s Traffic

How Social Media Can Improve Your Mom Blog’s Traffic

Improve Mom Blog’s Traffic Using Social Media

Every blog in its early days will struggle to get enough traffic to sustain it. It’s totally natural, but it is disheartening for many new blogging moms.

Fortunately, there are some simple social media hacks that can help you get more traffic for your blog and grow a loyal audience that will sustain you for the rest of your blogging career!

Facebook
How Social Media Can Improve Your Mom Blog’s Traffic

First up we have Facebook! The titan of the social media sphere, practically everyone is on Facebook, making it the perfect place to begin your social media work. Best of all, you probably already know quite a few people on Facebook who would happily follow your blog’s page and help promote your posts!

Don’t be afraid to leverage family and friends here! The more exposure you can get the better. Your focus on Facebooks should be to provide excellent, in-depth content that you can promote over and over. Of course, don’t be afraid to promote other people in your niche as well and share the love. This is a great way to make friends and create some good will. Good karma never hurt anyone!

Instagram
How Social Media Can Improve Your Mom Blog’s Traffic

Of course, not every blog is ideal for Facebook! Some blogs have a stronger focus on photography, food, or fashion than in-depth articles. If that’s what your blog is all about, then Instagram is the place for you.

A social media platform dedicated entirely to photos, Instagram is the perfect place to promote your beautiful, enticing, or delicious photo skills and earn followers that love you for them. Your focus here should be on creating the most alluring photos possible. Make sure they’re well lit, colorful, and fit a cohesive style that your whole blog contributes to.

And don’t be afraid to share articles here as well! Just focus on providing a beautiful image to link people back to your article, and make sure the photo relates to your topic! That way the people who come to your blog from Instagram have something to stick around for beyond your photography skills.

TwitterHow Social Media Can Improve Your Mom Blog’s Traffic

Next up we have Twitter, one of the often overlooked younger brothers of the titans that are Facebook and Instagram. Hopefully, you won’t make the same mistake of underestimating Twitter that many of your competitors do!

If you’re an engaging writer and are proud of your wordsmithing skills, then Twitter is the perfect place to begin finding an audience. Because of the short character limit, Twitter works best for promoting articles on your site with catchy headlines and memorable quotes.

Of course, Twitter has its own unique requirement when compared to Instagram and Facebook, and the focus is more on your existing readers than on new ones. You can use Twitter to remind your audience of a new post, and encourage them to visit your site. When they read your article and love it, encourage them to retweet it to help you reach a broader audience.

If you already have a small, but loyal fan base, Twitter may be a great place to get started on your social media growth, letting you leverage existing readers to gain a new and highly engaged audience.

Pinterest
How Social Media Can Improve Your Mom Blog’s Traffic

Last, but definitely not least, we have Pinterest! A strange hybrid between Instagram and Facebook, Pinterest requires both great writing and quality graphic design, but the payoff for the extra work is immense.

While a Facebook post or an Instagram photo may last on someone’s feed for four or five minutes, a post on Pinterest can continue to be circled around for years after you initially created it. That means you get a huge return on your time investment, making Pinterest one of the best social media platforms for beginning mom bloggers!

Because of this, Pinterest has a ton of moving parts to keep in mind. Setting up rich pins, joining group boards, and even just the basics of designing pins can all seem super intimidating at first. However, once you’ve done the research and mastered these skills you’ll be a pinning genius in no time, and can reap the rewards Pinterest has to offer as one of the fastest growing social media platforms around!

Thanks to all of these great social media platforms, gaining new traffic for your growing mom blog is more attainable than ever. Since everyone already congregates on these platforms, why not take advantage of them? They’re free, easy to use and learn, and the perfect way to jumpstart your blog’s growth and success!

This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.

9 Mom Blog Marketing Tips for the Holidays and New Year

9 Mom Blog Marketing Tips for the Holidays and New Year

9 Marketing Tips for Mom Blog this Holidays and New Year 

You know that the holidays are coming up and that everyone is looking to finish (or start) their holiday shopping. You want to draw all of the online shoppers to your blog, but you aren’t sure where to start. Fortunately, there are some easy marketing tips for your blog during the holidays that can increase traffic and maybe even make a profit at the same time.

These marketing tips do not mean that you should throw everything you usually focus on out the window. The first thing you need to do while considering this (and really, you should apply it to any of the suggestions) is remembering to stay true to yourself and the reason you have the blog. You’re a mom first and foremost, and that’s why your readers follow you. The more genuine and approachable you are, the more attractive you will be to new visitors.   

Affiliate Marketing

If you aren’t already using affiliate marketing, you should consider it (find out more about one of the easier ones to join here). If you are already using affiliate marketing, add links to what you think might be your more popular posts. If you can tie products into your posts, you increase the chance of your blog coming up in a search for the products.

Focus your attention on companies that moms will be most likely to buy from.  For example, take a look at Gymboree’s program and feature their holiday outfits in your blog. Partner with MindWare and give your readers suggestions on educational toys for different ages. You can never go wrong with promoting Amazon’s products. Learn more about their associate’s program. Utilizing affiliate marketing can help people build their shopping lists, give people new ideas for gift exchanges.

(Note: Make sure to read the guidelines of the affiliate programs carefully, as some have restrictions that may make you ineligible).

Create a Gift Guide

You can make this as big or as little as you prefer, but creating a gift guide is probably the number one way to utilize your blog to its full potential during the holidays. Yes, there are a lot of gift guides already out there, but make yours unique and follow a theme.

For example, instead of the usual “20 gifts to get your animal lover,” do a guide that covers gifts for the entire family, i.e. “Have a soccer player? Gifts for everyone in the family to take to the fields.” And then suggest everything from gear for the kids to the best camp chairs or insulated mugs for Mom and Dad.

Be creative, but choose items that you can suggest with authority; do not pick items that do not stay true to your brand. You want to be the trusted person to your readers. Moms are generally loyal readers because they will find a common bond and hold onto it, however, they can also be easily turned off by something that feels forced or unlike your usual material. 

Produce Holiday Content

This doesn’t mean overdoing it with snowflakes and holiday decorations. The key is to stick with your brand and your focus. Discuss fun kid crafts that can be used to decorate a holiday table. Talk about family-friendly places that have holiday events. Give tips on how to make memorable holidays without breaking the bank. These are things that moms think about all of the time, so give them the information they are looking for.

Recycle Old Content

Revisit blog posts of holidays past. Update the content, check to make sure links are still active, and make new graphics or update pictures. For example, if you posted about your kid’s excitement about the “best gift ever” that he received last year, update your readers on the status of the gift. You could cover several years in a retrospective approach (“Whatever Happened To…”). Readers will love revisiting memories with you.

Any readers you have gained over the past year probably haven’t gone too far back into your archives, so all of this will be new material for them. It will give them a better feeling for who you are and help to create that bond and loyalty even faster.    

Share Festivities

Take some time and put together a calendar of holiday festivities. It is not feasible to do one that includes every single event, but you could do one that highlights local activities and other events within a certain radius.

You could also look at the bigger cities and find the exact dates of their holiday events. For example, knowing when the tree is lit in Rockefeller Center in NYC or the hours of special shopping events at malls or holiday markets. Amusement parks often have special winter wonderland hours; find all of the big ones and post them in one handy place. (Remember your readers aren’t always just local)

People are often traveling for the holidays and sometimes find themselves with extra time after all of the family commitments are winding down. How helpful would it be for them to know what might be going on near them, especially if it’s an area they are unfamiliar with?

If you can make yourself useful at a particular time of year when people want quick answers, you can create loyal followers who will bring others with them to your blog.

Take the Pressure Off

Moms are going 100 miles an hour in 7 different directions during the holidays, and they often do not have the time (or, let’s face it, the energy) to do all of the research or planning that they should. Be a good resource for your readers. Make your blog the “go-to” place for gift information. Loyal followers will know to trust you and your recommendations.

Review products, or do some “shopping” and report what you have found. If there is a hot ticket “must-have” gift that everyone is talking about, do the research on it and post it on your blog. (This would be an opportunity to work on sponsorship for your blog that could carry into the New Year as well). If the gifts turn out to be successful, you may gain yourself some new followers in the process!

Be Creative

People are stressed out during the holidays, so give them a place to have a little bit of a brain break. Do a holiday-themed quiz (“Name the holiday movie from the screenshot.”). Get interactive and have a user-generated photo contest (“Funniest Family Holiday Card Photo”). Offer a gift card to the “winner.” If people have fun with your quizzes or contests, they’ll stay for the rest of the year.

Optimize SEO

Regardless of what you choose to do to enhance the marketing of your blog during the holidays, make sure that you are using effective SEO practices. Compile a list of keywords that you think will bring hits to your blog and scatter them throughout your posts.

Plan Ahead

To be truly effective and to see a marked difference, start earlier next year. By many accounts, it takes time for word of mouth buzz to really take effect. This doesn’t mean you have to do holidays in July, but you should start your planning early so that everything is in place to roll out at the appropriate times to catch that wave of holiday fever.

Whatever you choose to do to promote your blog during the holidays, remember: stay true to your voice and your brand. Your followers will appreciate the consistency and your new readers will get to know you even faster.

This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.

How to Grow Your Mom Blog’s Audience

How to Grow Your Mom Blog’s Audience

Growing Your Mom Blog’s Audience

 

So you have your mom blog up and running. Congratulations! You’ve passed the biggest hurdle on your blogging journey! Now comes growing your mom blog’s audience and reaching newly engaged readers for your content. 

Of course, this will require a bit of learning and work on your part, but don’t despair. The three methods you’ll find below are all simple to get into and proven to work, bringing your blog the traffic it needs to become wildly successful!

Social Media

How to grow you mom blog's audience

Starting our list is the simplest of the bunch; Social media! You probably already use and love social media in your everyday life and you aren’t alone. Nearly everyone is on some form of social media these days, and you can be sure you’ll find tons of people who’d love to read and experience your content. You just have to know how to reach them!

There are a variety of platforms you can explore, depending on your audience from Facebook, to Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. What you choose really depends on the type of people you think would enjoy your content.

Once you’ve decided which platform is right for your blog, all you need to do is focus your content to fit what succeeds on that service. Facebook likes clickable articles, while Twitter is a great place for impactful quotes and tidbits of information. Instagram is perfect for photobloggers, fashionistas, or culinary geniuses, while Pinterest acts as a hybrid of all three!

Once your social media strategy is in place, give it a few weeks to pick up traction! These things take time and will grow exponentially if you give them a chance to take off. Don’t rush things! If you only get a handful of followers your first week, that’s ok! So long as you keep growing slowly and steadily, you’ll be just fine.

Advertising

How to grow you mom blog's audience

One of the next most popular ways to grow your mom blog’s audience is through good old advertising, but not the type you may be thinking of. Most people imagine the annoying TV commercials that interrupt their favorite shows, or the pop-ups and banners ads that litter many websites. Advertising this way doesn’t really work for most bloggers though. Instead, there’s a better way!

Much like how you used social media platforms above to generate organic, free traffic, you can also use these platforms to generate extra paid advertising traffic. Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram all have the ability to display your paid ads on their site, and since that’s where most of your users already are, it makes sense to embrace these types of ads.

One of the best strategies for maximizing your return on these social media ads is to pick from posts, articles, photos, or pins that have already done well for your organic traffic. Did you have an Instagram post that went viral or a Pinterest pin that doubled your traffic? Set those up as ads to reach even more people with an ad you have essentially already tested, for free!

Newsletters

How to grow you mom blog's audience

Finally, we have a slightly unorthodox way to increase your mom blog’s audience, and that’s through your email newsletter!

While at first glance this doesn’t seem to make sense, think about it. Someone comes to your blog, likes your content, and decides to sign up for your newsletter so they don’t miss your future posts. As more and more people sign up for your newsletter, more and more people come to check out your posts when they go live thanks to the newsletter they receive. Soon you’ve built an audience that loves your work, is excited about your products or services, and wants to hear from you.

Having a loyal audience like this is one of the most vital elements of having a successful blog and something you simply can’t ignore if you want to do well in the blogging space!

Of course, it isn’t as simple as putting an email signup form and waiting for the subscribers to flow in. Many people will want some incentive or reason to sign up, and this provides you with an opportunity to provide them with more great content that will encourage them to come back for more.

Here are some ideas you can use to encourage people to join your newsletter!

  • Make a free ebook about your niche
  • Make a pretty checklist, planner, or calendar based on one of your posts
  • Write a short email course teaching your readers skills you mentioned in one of your posts
  • Offer something personalized for people who sign up
  • Run a short giveaway or contest for people who join your newsletter

All of these are excellent ideas that will jumpstart your newsletter activities. Paired with social media and advertising, you’ll have a successful mom blog in no time!

This article was originally posted at Mom Marketing Coach.

Blog Marketing is an Effective Tool that Can be Used to Grow Any Business

Blog Marketing is an Effective Tool that Can be Used to Grow Any Business

Grow Any Business with Blog Marketing

A blog is one of the most popular terms in business and social media today. The term generated years ago and has taken its stance as one of the most effective marketing tools around. In the beginning, blogs were viewed or used as an online diary, which gave a text account of the lives and activities of people. Bloggers were limited in numbers early on because, in order to launch a blog, it was required to build a website. A few years later, platforms were developed that made the process easier, which made it possible for almost anyone to create a blog.

Blogs vs. Websites

There is a difference between a blog and a website. Other than the degree of visitor or audience engagement, blogs are typically joint forces with social media. Visitors are permitted to post comments and interact with the owners of the blog. Blogs are updated more often than websites. Once a website is developed and launched, it’s usually permanent. Information, data, and images are added to blogs on a regular schedule. Bloggers will add info that their audience wants to read about.

Contemporary and traditional entrepreneurs utilize blogs as an effective marketing tool. They use it as a source to give information to clients and potential clients as a means to attract more business. Blogs have evolved into one of the most operative marketing strategies of 2018.

Understanding Blog Marketing

Blog marketing communicates to the target audience of your business via the content of a blog. Before, many business owners kept an independent blog that was not a part of their site. Today, it is most effective to link the two for easier operation and management. This also simplifies access for visitors. Blogs and websites can be successfully managed using an engine such as the WordPress platform. The increasing popularity of blogging has created an increase in business for many website owners. When visitors land on a webpage, a blog is one of the first things tabs they look for. Once they find this, they immediately go to the blog to see its content. Therefore, it is essential to not only have a blog but to have one that contains amazing content.

Utilize Blog Marketing to Promote Services and Business

Creating a plan for blog marketing is one of the smartest moves a business owner can make. This takes a matter of minutes and with continuous management, it will bring success to the business. Marketing will take time but if incorporated properly, it will be effective and have a positive impact on the business.

Here are a few ways to approach blog marketing.

  • Develop a blog marketing strategy or plan. Decide what type or genre of information you will post and share from your blog. Consider the best time of day to post and how often to do so.
  • Create the blog. Choose a platform for blogging, set It up, and customize it to match the personality and size of the business. Incorporate your business logo into the blog to maintain uniformity. When utilizing free platforms, make sure that the domain name leads to the blog to allow consumers to reach the site without issue.
  • Add multiple posts immediately. Don’t launch the blog until at least eight to ten blog posts have been added. Your audience doesn’t want to visit a site that has only one blog post. Once the initial batch of posts has been added, start a regular posting schedule for the blogs.
  • Promote the blog. It is essential to integrate social media into the blogs, which will allow your posts to reach your followers and their friends. Remember to always add your blog to the marketing tools you use to promote your business.
  • Interact with your audience. Readers will post comments, ask questions, and give their opinions on your posts. Interact with them when necessary to generate more activity on the post.
  • Utilize the blog to motivate email signups. Visitors will continuously return to your blog when you offer incentives for them to give their email address. Email offers are great tools to encourage business from potential and current clients.

Blogs are a primary source for marketing because they provide fresh and informative content that readers want to know about. It encourages them to return and presents an effective way for consumers to network with the business. Blog marketing is not only effective, but it’s cost-efficient which is another reason more businesses rely on it for business growth.

This article was originally posted on Mom Marketing Coach.

 

Tips to Help Mom Bloggers Maximize their Blog Results

Tips to Help Mom Bloggers Maximize their Blog Results

Maximize Your Blog Results With These Tips!

Seven days in a week and on each of those days, more than a million blog posts are created. These posts include videos, content, photos and more. Posting content that is minimal and without character will not help you achieve the results you expect as a blogger.

Business growth is inspired or motivated by quality content that engages your readers. Remember, your post is competing against millions of others that are published. While genres may vary, many readers are drawn to unfamiliar genres simply because of the quality of their content and the amazing character and appeal that the images display.

If you spend a few hours of each day, researching, developing, and writing content, you are on the fast-track to becoming a full-time blogger. Publishing weekly posts can be quite overwhelming. It is less draining if blogging is your passion, but the need to create quality content is important, along with a few other strategies.

The purpose or intent of the blog has a huge impact on the tone and pitch of it. Generation of sales, providing useful information, and encouraging interactions are a few reasons that motivate bloggers to create posts. To develop or improve sales, bloggers should post quality content more often.

Businesses may see a vast improvement in sales if the quality of the content is above average. There are many other bloggers that are breaking stride by creating blogs that everyone wants to read. What makes their posts better? What causes people to navigate towards other blogs and away from yours? What are you missing or doing wrong? The answers to these questions will vary among bloggers. There is not a single formula to help you get it right with every post. Changes in marketing and social media engagement occur from day to day, and it’s easy to lose track of what works and what doesn’t.

Here are a few tips to help maximize the results yielded by your blog posts and help your posts to shine among the millions of others that are published daily.

  1. Create a Strategy

Treat your blog like you would a business, especially if your plan is to generate income. Therefore, you should document your strategy by writing it down and following it as planned. It is essential for any successful business to create an outline of their goals, plans, marketing strategy, and projected outcome. Blogs require a similar effort and the concept is similar.

Bloggers should have an objective from which they can develop a mission statement. This statement is the foundation for completing things such as social media posts, outreach content, emails, and more. Content strategy and documentation are important tools for effective marketing of your blog.

Documentation of the following is ideal for building a successful blog:

  • Plan your topics – prepare a month ahead by creating a plan for the type and topics of the content you will post. At times your brain will be cloudy. You will have vague ideas by may be unable to bring them to the surface. There are blog idea generators available to assist with ideas for blog topics. Utilize these tools to create interesting and eye-catching topics that appeal to readers. Organize a list of 10-15 topics for the month and add them to the calendar on the scheduled dates to post.
  • Add to Google Calendar – add a topic to your calendar and work to ensure that it is out by that date. Abide by this schedule. Treat it like a deadline for an exam or academic paper. It is important to create a strict process of documenting important to-dos, as it is easy to allow other tasks to side-track you and get you off schedule. Schedule daily writing totals according to the number of posts you have scheduled each month. Remain consistent in your writing and always commit to complete the daily requirement.
  1. Create Content that is Long-Form

Once you’ve documented and scheduled your posts, it’s time to begin writing. Be creative, consistent, and diligent in your writing. Short posts will not deliver the quality and informative content that readers look for in blogs. Write, read, rewrite, and read the post again. Make sure that you are pleased with the content and confident that others will find it engaging and informative.

When creating long-tail content, don’t lose the reader by adding fluff throughout the piece. Doing so diminishes the quality of the content and is not informative to readers. Most potential readers will not finish the piece and in many cases, never attempt to read your blog again. Create a blog post that performs and calls for action when necessary. Performance data and information that guides can rarely be written in less than 2,000 words. Research suggests that longer and more detailed blogs generate almost ten times more leads than short-form posts. Consider this for an example, posts that hold the 10th position in rankings of internet searches are longer than 1,500 words. You can’t afford to write less than this and expect to compete with high-performance blog posts.

  1. Implement Video into the Post

Online and social media video enhances a blog post tremendously. YouTube content is a prime example with more than a billion viewers logging in to view uploaded content. There is more than an hour of content viewed by each viewer daily. This is a key indicator that images and videos are positive additions to your blogs. Create a YouTube channel and use it to filter traffic through to your blog. The addition of videos is a primary method for increasing engagement and holding the interest of viewers longer. Remember to utilize a call-to-action in video posts and you will notice an increase in shares of your content.

These are just a few tips to help you reorganize or enhance your blogging strategy. There are many additional strategies that should be implemented with the above tips to successfully reach your maximum blogging potential.

This article was originally posted on Mom Marketing Coach

Copyright: niroworld / 123RF Stock Photo

 

 

 

Help-Desk