Today I received an email from someone asking what my “methods” are for building an online business. That’s always a tough question—particularly because I got the sense that it was asked by someone looking for an easy and quick answer.
Here’s my response. I’d love to hear what you’d have added or said.
Thanks for the email.
It’s difficult to sum it all up in an email (I’ve published over 6,000 posts on ProBlogger on the topic as well as written a book), but really, if I had to summarize what I do, it’d be:
- Blog on topics you know about and enjoy (I’d blog about the topics I blog about for free).
- Try to blog something interesting and useful to others every day, for a very long time (I’ve been doing it for nine years).
- Engage with other bloggers and on other sites where people engage around the topics you write on (like social media, forums, etc.). Put yourself “out there” on a daily basis to find new readers for your blog.
- Build community around your blogs. Answer reader questions, stimulate discussions, make your readers feel engaged and involved. Love them to death!
- Experiment with different ways to make money from (and because of) your blog. There’s no single way to do this—it could be by a combination of methods including selling advertising, doing affiliate promotions, writing sponsored posts, creating and selling your own products, etc.
A few last thoughts
- None of this is easy or quick. It takes time and daily work over the long term.
- There is no blueprint for guaranteed success in this space.
- Ultimately it’s about being persistently useful to people and building a relationship with them. A by-product of that is that they will keep coming back, bring their friends, and respond to your calls to action.
Thanks for your email—I hope something in this helps.
Darren Rowse
