How to Make Money with Your Business Blog

By John Rampton

Small businesses must often get creative to generate more revenue for their businesses. When you're putting so much money into different aspects of a company, it's important to get as much revenue from your efforts as possible.

Your blog offers one opportunity to monetize your business that many entrepreneurs don't consider. Though it may never reach the caliber of bloggers who revolve their businesses around content creation, you can still bring in some capital to help cover your primary expenses. Here are some ways you can monetize your business blog.

Build a great blog platform 

Blogs that make money aren't run-of-the-mill content factories that offer little value to the reader. They're well designed with high-quality content that readers can actually use. The subject matter should reflect your industry, indirectly sell your content, and inform on current news and trends. It's a blog that's useful on multiple levels. It takes work to build a blog of this caliber, but companies do it successfully all the time—and you can too.

Use your blog to sell products

The most obvious way your blog can turn hard work into money is through sales pitches in blog articles when you use the content you publish to promote your products. Write blog posts or produce videos that explain the benefits of using your products and services. This is what I do with my payments company blog to drive users.

Though it's okay to do a few highly promotional blog posts, make sure there are many articles published on the blog that are more informational than promotional. This will generate new readership and boost your search engine rankings without spamming the reader. 

Accept sponsored posts on your blog

This is another way to earn a little extra income for your business. Sponsored posts are those from outside sources that explicitly advertise for a business. Companies will pay top dollar to publish a sponsored post on your blog if your online presence is clear.

The catch here is you need a great online presence to begin accepting sponsored posts. You'll need time to develop and foster relationships with your readers so that, when affiliated posts begin rolling in, your readers don't scatter.

Allow advertisements on your blog

This is one easy step that many businesses are afraid to allow because advertisements for products and services can take visitors away from their web pages. There's also the concern that advertisements will challenge the authenticity and credibility of the blog.

These are valid concerns, but they are easily controlled. First of all, never solicit advertisements from a competing business. Doing so will definitely take traffic away from your blog and potentially steal your customers. However, posting advertisements for non-competing products shouldn't be a problem.

Secondly, it's your blog, and you have control over the spam factor. If you feel that your blog is being overrun by advertisements, pull a few out. Work with a designer to develop a strong balance between advertisements and your content to avoid compromising the effectiveness of the blog.

Become an affiliate for other companies

Sponsored posts and affiliate links go both ways. You can use other companies' blogs to promote your business and link back to your own blog or product page. Every time someone clicks on an affiliate link, you get paid.

The best converting affiliate links are those posted on a site with complimentary subject matter and products. Though you'll have a hard time getting links on a competitor's site for obvious reasons, you can find a site that compliments your own. For example, if you sell car parts, you might successfully use affiliate links on a car dealership's website.

As a small business, you honestly can't afford to let any money-making opportunities pass you by. It's difficult to make a profit these days, and if you can boost your capital by generating money from your blog, you'll have a little extra to put toward your business operations.

John Rampton is an entrepreneur, investor, online marketing guru and startup enthusiast. He is founder of the payments company Due.

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