The Secret to Having a Profitable Blog

Have you ever wondered why your blog isn’t profitable?

You're doing all the things you are told to do…

...pumping out blog posts

...showing up on every social media platform

...emailing a weekly newsletter

But, it’s just not working for you. I’ve been in that exact same spot. I was actually in that spot for years. 

I listened to what everyone online was telling me to do, but my blog wasn’t profitable.

I was barely covering my blogging expenses let alone paying myself.

At the time, I had a VERY expensive hobby.

It wasn’t until I took myself out of the day-to-day operations that I was able to see the problem.

In order to be profitable, I needed to be selling every.single.day.

I don’t mean launching or pushing my products on my audience.

I mean focusing my actions on leading my audience to a sale.

I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that I was prioritizing everything else in my business, but sales.

I got caught up in busywork that was keeping my blog at the same level. 

I was wasting all of my time and energy on growing my blog. I thought that the more page views I had the more money I would make.

WRONG.

I was able to get my blog to more than 700k page views a month, but my income wasn’t showing any kind of increase.

I literally was working for pennies because I wasn’t making profit a priority.

I was prioritizing how many followers I could get on all of my marketing platforms and how many people I could get to my blog posts each month. 

Those tasks were keeping me busy and they were also keeping me from making money.

Have you been preventing yourself from having a profitable blog because you’ve gotten caught up in vanity metrics?

Below, I am going to share with you what you can do instead.

What does it mean to prioritize profit?

This process is all about simplifying.

Prioritizing profit means you are going to focus all of your time and energy on revenue-generating tasks.

Instead of doing all the normal daily tasks, you do to maintain your blog, you need to pull yourself out of the blog and think about how you can fill the CEO role.

How are you making money right now?

What is working?

What isn’t working?

You don’t need to be putting in 8-10 hour days trying to do #allthethings.

You can spend 2-3 hours each day on tasks that are going to help you make money.

Look at your current to-do list.

Will the items on your list bring in money? 

If not, consider automating, delegating, or deleting those items from your list. 

You don’t want to be wasting your time on things that don’t make your business money.

I know it can be tough because everything on your to-do list feels urgent and important, but take a good look at it to see what can be eliminated. 

You might have some big projects that you want to accomplish on your list, it doesn’t mean you never get to do those things, it just means you can’t do them right now.

Your focus needs to be on making a profit and then you can branch out and do those other things. 

How do you prioritize profit?

You need to have a plan. 

Doesn’t it sound so simple?

It’s because it is so simple.

Having a plan will guide your day-to-day actions and prevent you from veering off and getting caught up in busywork.

But, you’re plan can’t just be to say, “I want to make $3,000 this month.” 

And then it magically happens (wouldn’t that be nice though!).

You have to break it down into a plan of HOW you are actually going to make that money.

Step #1 - Set your profit goal you want to hit

Start by thinking about the amount of money you need to earn each month. 

Maybe for you, it’s $1,000 or $3,000. 

Write that number down. That is going to be your first monthly milestone.

You need to have that number in order to create your plan.

Step #2 - Map it out

This is the HOW part of your plan.

How are you going to make money?

Do you sell services?

Do you offer digital products?

How many sales do you need to make to hit your monthly goal?

Break it down as much as you can for yourself.

Example: You offer a design service to online biz owners and charge $259. You’d need 4 new clients to hit a goal of $1,000.

Step #3 - Evaluate

Look at what you just mapped out. 

What projects and tasks do you need to complete so you can make progress towards hitting your monthly goal?

Those are the things that you need to prioritize each day.

Everything else can wait until you are profitable. 

Example: Using the same design example, you decided that you are going to host a flash sale for your services. All of the tasks that make up the flash sale is what needs to be your top priority now.

Step #4 - Action plan

Break down your projects and tasks and put those items onto your calendar.

When you set a due date for yourself it is much easier to plan your time and it helps to cut down on the overwhelm.

Following this 4-step plan will help you to have a profitable blog.

It’s all about making consistent progress and moving closer and closer to your monthly revenue goal.

I’d love to hear your secrets to having a profitable blog, comment below!