Yesterday I gave an example of something I’d been putting off doing to improve my blog—even though I knew it would have long-term benefits.
Today I want to continue on that theme and being to suggest a number of areas that bloggers could be investing time into today—and enjoying payoffs from in the future. Some of them will lead to financial benefits while others are just going to improve the effectiveness of a blog.
1. Create a Product
Every time I talk about monetizing blogs by selling a product of your own, I get comments from bloggers telling me that they’re thinking of, planning to, or wondering if they should launch a product of their own.
Yes there’s significant work in creating your own product, but there are also many many tangible benefits of doing it.
Have you created a product of your own?
Hi Darren! Thank you so much for your awesome resources. I’ve read your book and now follow your blog. You make it easy to implement your strategies. I’m super excited to just have created a product I have been thinking of for sometime for photographers. I’m hoping next that you will get into the nuts and bolts of getting the product out to an audience!! Thanks again for all your fabulous posts – looking forward to what you have next in this ‘series’!!
I agree with Angie! Looking forward to what you’ve got next!
I’ve created an eBook product, and it’s free to download. 49 Free Ways to Increase Blog Traffic.
I hope to create something great one day.. and ideas for it are in the motions in me wee little bwain! :-)
– tork
I have 3 products I’m working on, but none are finished yet, I know it’s the key to going to the next level, so I’m working hard on them, hopefully all 3 will be done before the year is out, I know one will be done next month for sure.
Oh yeah! This (I believe) the very best method of earning money online. Providing an actual “something” or providing a service geared to solve someone’s issue is the key to success in the blog realm. I’m currently providing a service, but I’m always thinking of tangible products that I can provide my clients. Woderful topic!
Yes, I have. I have an ebook on how to be more creative, and a product (which includes an ebook, a workbook, and full audio) on how to create and achieve your life list. I’m very glad that I did both; it was a fun experience, I learned a lot, and I make money from them.
I created a product in just a few days that launched at the beginning of the year. Although, it wasn’t perfect, I was glad I put such a short time frame on getting it completed be I never would have finished it.
Since “Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule” was my first product, I had much to learn and spent quite a bit of time working out the kinks. I actually just relaunched it this weekend (with it’s own website) and am extremely happy with the results!
Coming from the perspective of having a product BEFORE the blog, it is actually interesting to me that people have established, well-read blogs that don’t even associate with an actual product or service. I mean I can fully understand writing for the love of writing and sharing, I guess I just never even thought of what would happen if I had done everything in reverse. Inventing a product to fit with what I have already written. Maybe thats the right way to do it! Maybe nobody trusts a blog that wants to sell something…
I just had a baby, and was just thinking about creating my own product too. You won’t believe have competitive the baby market is. But, there is a ton of opportunities to find a good niche item. Do you know how much laundry and dirty diapers a baby makes! It’s crazy. I’m in the process right now as we speak of getting the product out.
Not yet for the blog that’s linked in my name, but I have other blogs with products. In fact, I have a blog that’s created solely as a sales page entity for the products I create for the other blogs. With the right theme creating a sales page can really be truly easy.
There are many ways to monetize your blog, creating a product is certainly a very good way to do so.
Hey Darren – Can you give some tips on how to pick and choose a product? What are the potential ones that a new blogger would want to concentrate on? That will be helpful for all of us. Thanks.
I created an email course that will later turn into an ebook. Thanks for the boost today, Darren. I think I’ll finish up the last few things to get the book finished.
85% complete, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for the boost.
I definitely think that creating products is the way to go. I have quite a bit of work as a writer and virtual assistant, but I realize that if I stick with only that type of work, I will always be trading time for dollars. I like a certain amount of that, but I also want to create some residual income and information products seem to be a great way to do that.
Darren–
Time and time again, I hear the importance of creating a product. I created a small report based on my experiences as a free giveaway, but look forward to building a much more detailed product for the future.
It’s not testing well, so I think I have to go back to the drawing board…
I have an idea of a product I want to create but I am waiting to reach a certain number of subscribers / readers before I do. Does it make sense?
Yes, I have created a Christian Stress Management ecourse which teaches how to manage stress by combining Biblical principles with medical relaxation techniques. Thanks for your awesome resources.
Besides an e-Book, I’m struggle what kind of products should I make or be launching in the future :( I guess a merchandise is not the way to go (at least not at this stage yet)
I was looking for the ‘read more’ button but realized that’s you being concise. :)
I’ve just recently created an ebook called ‘Duct Tape SEO: WordPress SEO Done Dirt Cheap,’ a budget friendly SEO system I’m using. It took nearly 2 years to learn the information and put it to the test – and the biggest hurdle was believing I had something to contribute in the first place.
Already knowing the market/need for traffic online is getting hotter and hotter, I’m glad I did it. Now writing another product – a giveaway (after writing the e-book I did bonus material myself, and can’t seem to stop the ball from rolling).
People like you and Pat Flynn can’t have all the fun, Darren. :D
Thanks Darren I have been wanting to produce a product for so long but there is always other things that need to be done. I am going to take 2 hour’s a day this week and put it towards creating a product.
Darren, I’ve started work on my first book. Can you share some tips and tricks involved in writing a book that might help me.
Great post! I recently created my first product, a guide on how to start a part-time social media business: http://alexisgrant.com/socialexis/socialmediabizguide/ Not only did I make some money, I made new contacts, established credibility, and more people than before are now finding my blog through search engines. It’s worth it in lots of ways. I’m already working on my next offering!
Great tip Darren.
Creating a personal product is gonna be one big leap for me.
I have three books I’ve written which relate to my blog. So I’ve got the product(s). Are there any proven ways of promoting and presenting them to my blog readers? I’ve got a sidebar which randomly shows the book cover and a link to it on Amazon.
Should I be writing posts about the books? Writing snippets of the books as posts? E-mailing my readers about the books? What’s best?
Yes, I’ve definitely seen my traffic go up since creating my relationship workbooks. They clearly resonate with people…in fact my sales page for one of them is the most visited page on the site now!
Yes, ~2 months ago I launched a paid subscription service. No promotion – I didn’t blog about it, I didn’t really send it out to my email list. Instead, I created a landing page to subscribe to a 7-part course, created a drip campaign, tweeted that out a few times and grew the list that way. 150+ subscribers in 2 days.
Traffic to the site is minimal but growth has been good – meaning paid subscriptions.
Here’s where I’m stuck though, and perhaps this might serve as good fodder for an upcoming post… I’m stuck on pricing. Currently, the subscription price is $10/month. I think it’s worth more, except I’m stuck on how/where to price it.
very important post…. this makes me think about something to do with the content I’ve been putting online…. I have been working hard on creating a reader base among the photographer community through the technical write-ups…. may be its time to make them count…
I’m also thinking of making that big step by starting a photography business and using the blogs to get more clients….
Just stumbled upon this post. I turned my Swedish blog about geocaching into an actual book, sold through print-on-demand rather than a publisher, about two years ago. Due to the success I’m now very far along in translating it into English to reach a much larger market :D