Everything about it feels right to me. I get to provide an awesome service at no charge. I get to see people start with nothing and build blogs they love. Even the domain name beginnerblogging.net was available (I couldn’t believe that).
Furthermore, the scope is huge. I don’t just want to stop at helping people set up their sites; I want to empower them to grow their blog into something they consider truly meaningful.
But to be able to pour the necessary time and energy into making Beginner Blogging what it should be, the site needs to provide a return on my investment. In August it made $1,700, but that was the honeymoon period (i.e. when I was able to best leverage the existing Leaving Work Behind audience). If I want to sustain and build upon that kind of return, I’ve got work to do.
With the above in mind, in this post I want to introduce a number of ideas I have for building Beginner Blogging into a six figure blog.
How Beginner Blogging Makes Money
The only existing source of income for Beginner Blogging is hosting commissions through Bluehost.
People can either sign up for our completely free blog installation and setup service or follow the Beginner Blogging course at their own pace. In the first case, signing up for Bluehost through our affiliate link is a requirement of receiving our free service. In the second case, we hope that people use our Bluehost affiliate link to purchase hosting (although it is not a requirement) as they go through the process.
So in a nutshell, the site is funded through web hosting signups. My thinking is simple: if we provide enough quality guidance on how to create a blog, people will be compelled to purchase web hosting.
In the future I may expand this monetisation strategy, but web hosting commissions are my singular focus at this time.
My Goals for Beginner Blogging
My ultimate goal is for Beginner Blogging to turnover $100,000+ per year, which would be represented by a monthly turnover in excess of $8,333.33. I want to achieve this within twelve months of the site’s official launch date (i.e. by 29th July 2015).
I haven’t had a year-long goal since I decided to quit my job by 23rd May 2012. I ended up quitting way ahead of schedule on 31st December 2011; a similar result here would be great!
At the moment I have a linear plan for meeting my goal, which is to increase turnover by $1,000 per month, starting with $2,000 this month. That would lead to $9,000 turnover in April 2015, which I’d then want to sustain through May, June and July to demonstrate that the earnings are stable.
It sounds easy enough on paper, but I’m pretty intimidated by the goal if I’m honest. I’m not yet sure how I’m going to manage it. But I figured the best place to start would be to write down my thoughts here on Leaving Work Behind then start taking action!
My Ideas to Increase Turnover
With that said, below you’ll find a selection of ideas I have for increasing Beginner Blogging’s turnover. I will be implementing these ideas over the following weeks and months and plan to keep you updated on how things are progressing.
Any feedback or questions you have are welcomed in the comments section at the bottom of the post!
Keep the Course Updated
When it comes to marketing a website, it can be all too easy to lose sight of what matters the most: providing something useful. After all, what’s the point in pouring your time and energy into marketing something that is declining in value?
That is mistake I want to avoid. WordPress 4.0 has just come out, and I need to update the course material to make sure that it is fully up-to-date. I also need to check that the Bluehost signup process is the same as it was, and update the course if it has changed.
This approach should also be adopted for the Beginner Blogging blog. While keeping all posts constantly up-to-date to match updated plugins is too big an ask for my liking, my plan is to periodically sift through the archives and commission new versions of existing tutorials for plugins that have changed considerably.
Figure Out What to Do With Beginner Blogging Email Subscribers
At the moment, the core aim of the autoresponder series that people receive when they sign up to the Beginner Blogging email list is to convince them that blogging is both relatively easy and worthwhile. I want to remove all doubt in people’s mind so that they are ready to give blogging a go (at which point I hope they turn to us).
But what happens after the autoresponder has finished? I’ll have three groups of people:
- Those who already have a blog
- Those who have signed up for hosting through my Bluehost link
- Those who haven’t signed up yet (i.e. they need more time/convincing)
These three groups separate natural into two lists: those who have a blog and those who don’t. Unfortunately, they’re all bunched into one.
The first two groups aren’t as important to me as the third; these are the guys I need to speak to. I need to find out why they haven’t signed up yet, so I can edit and add to the autoresponder series as necessary. In a perfect world, my autoresponder series would be compelling enough to convince 100% of subscribers to either sign up for hosting or unsubscribe (having realised that blogging isn’t for them).
The most obvious way of reaching out to these guys would be to send them an email at the end of the autresponder series with a simple question: “If you haven’t started your blog yet, what is holding you back?” I need to know how I have failed to convince them that blogging is worthwhile, so that I can hopefully ‘fill in the blanks.’
Implement a More Diverse Blog Content Strategy
At the moment we are publishing two technical tutorials on the Beginner Blogging blog every week. Ideally I’d like to add an article per week that focuses on a non-technical aspect of blogging, such as content creation, marketing, etc.
I’d want to keep these articles as short as possible (less than 1,000 words) and focused down on one tight topic. The intention of this would be to give readers a clear prompt for taking action for each post.
I intend to start writing these articles starting next week.
Start Tracking Sales
I’ve always been terrible with analytics; I’ve never had much interest in tracking the success of my endeavours. I’m far more of a creator than a marketer.
While I have embraced that to an extent, I recognise that I need to be a bit more numbers-oriented to have any chance of reaching my financial goal with the site. In other words, I need to start tracking sales (or more specifically, web hosting signups).
I’m not quite sure how to do this, but I’m looking into it. I want to be able to track when someone signs up for web hosting and know where they’ve come from. In doing so, I’ll be able to see the value of my various marketing efforts and adjust my strategy accordingly.
Split Test The Homepage Signup Form
Split testing is something else I’ve heavily neglected in the past, but I want to change that with Beginner Blogging.
There are a lot of things I can split test, but I don’t want to overwhelm myself. So, my first port of call will be the homepage signup form. I’ll focus on improving the sales copy to improve the percentage of readers who sign up.
Feature Beginner Blogging on Leaving Work Behind
Beginner Blogging attracted a grand total of 786 unique visitors in August. 786 visitors is not going to get me to my goal, regardless of what I do with the content on the site.
In terms of attracting more people to Beginner Blogging, I want to start by tackling the ‘quick wins.’ The most blatant quick win I can get is to feature Beginner Blogging more heavily on Leaving Work Behind. I started this process last week by adding an email to the LWB autoresponder series, but I also plan to add Beginner Blogging to the Resources page and sidebar (in button form).
Another thing I plan to do is go back through the archive blogging posts and find opportunities to link naturally to Beginner Blogging.
I’m also considering other options, like syndicating the occasional Beginner Blogging post to Leaving Work Behind, with a link back to the site.
Write About Beginner Blogging on Other Blogs
I also plan to leverage my freelance blogging connections to blog about Beginner Blogging on some client sites. It is my hope that at least one of my clients will permit me to write a short piece on Beginner Blogging on their site as a sort of guest post.
Speaking of guest posts, I’m also interested in pursuing that option once I’ve got my sales tracking process in place. I’ll experiment with a few posts on a few blogs and see if they actually lead to conversions.
Offer an Affiliate Program
Generally speaking, I’m not keen on affiliate programs. They’ve not performed wonders for me in the past; probably because I’m not particularly marketing-minded.
However, it is something to consider. If I can track sales, then I could potentially form affiliate agreements with other blogs whereby they’re paid a percentage of any Bluehost signup via Beginner Blogging.
Given that I’m not so good at marketing, this might be a good way for me to leverage the marketing skills of others.
Test Facebook Ads and Google AdWords
When it comes to advertising, the equation is simple: If you can make more money from advertising than what it cost, you’re golden.
With that in mind, I plan to explore both Facebook Ads and Google AdWords. I’ll run small campaigns to see what kind of a return I can get (if any). If I can get a decent return, I’ll look to scale up my advertising efforts.
What Else?
As I look back over the ideas above, I’m concerned that they’re not enough.
But then I realise that there’s little point in me fearing if these measures are big enough. The proof will be in the pudding; if I don’t turnover $2,000 this month, I’ll know I need to do more.
All I can do at this stage is get my head down and start working on the above ideas. And you’re more than welcome to suggest your own ideas below; your help would be most appreciated!
Photo Credit: liber