Today’s post is a guest post from Sagan Morrow – a freelance coach and professional lifestyle blogger. She teaches new freelancers how to achieve success in their freelance businesses—including tips on how to find clients, set rates, prepare and thrive as a home-based business owner, develop healthy work habits and time management skills, and more. Check out her blog at SaganMorrow.com, or click here to sign up for her free 8-day e-course for new freelancers. You can also find her on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.

So you want to monetize your blog… but what’s the best way to go about doing it?

Traditional blog monetization forms include selling ad space, participating in affiliate programs, writing sponsored blog posts, and creating products. But there’s a MUCH better way to monetize your blog quickly, efficiently, and without alienating your readers: offering freelance writing services.

Here’s the thing about traditional blog monetization strategies: a lot of them are really great, but they can be extremely time consuming… and they don’t always pay off. Before we get into freelance writing services, let’s look at the drawbacks to traditional blog monetization strategies:

• Ad space: besides the fact that ads often clutter up a blog and can make it look less than appealing, ads also don’t typically pay very well unless you have hundreds of thousands of pageviews each month. Moreover, depending on the ad program you’re part of, you can’t always control the type of ad that appears on your site. If the ad doesn’t match with your blog’s brand, it can completely turn readers off.
• Affiliate programs: while this is an awesome way to support the brands you love while making a profit, you need to be careful about these. After all, you don’t want to spend ALL of your time selling other people’s products! And that’s the thing with affiliate programs: you can’t just include a few links and hope that people will click on through and make a purchase. Nope. You need to actively encourage your readers to make a purchase through your link in order to make a commission. That means balancing out being strategic without inundating your readers with sales pitches. Plus, even though some businesses will be very generous in paying out their affiliates, a lot of the big companies that offer affiliate programs pay out a tiny percent for commission. It’s a lot of work to do affiliate programs right.
• Sponsored blog posts: these can be such a fun way to connect with brands you adore (and again, make a profit from it!). Unfortunately, many brands won’t pay bloggers what they’re worth for sponsored posts. Even if you do find a brand you adore that does happen to pay upwards of $200 for a sponsored article, that’s a one-time fee. If you want to keep making money from sponsored posts, you have to continually write more and more sponsored articles, which can have the adverse effect of overtaking your regular blog content.
• Your own products: it is so cool to be able to have created something of your own for your readers! However, creating (and marketing) products can be far more time-consuming than the above three blog monetization strategies put together. It takes a ton of effort upfront, and then it also requires that you put a lot of time (and sometimes money) to continue to market it and make a long-term sustainable income.

This is where offering freelance writing services come into play. If you as a blogger want to take your blog to the next level, to go pro and become a professional blogger who makes a living from blogging (or at least a nice little income on the side of your day job), you need to be offering freelance writing services!

Here’s the why and how of leveraging your blog as a platform for freelance writing services:

• You don’t have to worry about any “ick” factor with freelancing services. When done right, ads and affiliate programs etc. can complement a blog beautifully and totally align with that blogger’s voice and values, without taking away from the awesomeness of that blog. But unfortunately, ads can occasionally detract from a blog and, depending on the types of ads being displayed, also reduce that blogger’s credibility. Freelance writing services don’t have that same issue associated with them—on the contrary, offering writing services can actually increase your credibility and legitimacy as a blogger.
• It’s easy to start offering freelancing services right away. While the other blog monetization strategies can take up lots of time to go through program applications and initiating brand relationships and creating products, freelance writing services really only require that you add a page to your blog outlining your freelance services, and then including it in your social media bios. That’s all you need to start with! You could theoretically do that in the space of a couple hours.
• You already have the skill to write! As you continue to blog, you will continue to improve your writing skills. You have the ability to write already… so why not share that ability with clients who need those services and make an income while you’re at it? The business side of things is a whole other ballgame, but you can learn how to start a successful freelance business with the Set Yourself Up For Freelancing Success e-course.
• Your blog can act as your portfolio. Bloggers have a huge advantage over other freelance writers who just have a website without a blog, because your blog is essentially your online portfolio. Clients can check out your blog and determine right away from your voice, style, and writing ability about whether or not you are the right fit for their brand. Even better, your blog is probably somewhat optimized for search engines, so you might have a much better chance than other freelance writers at showing higher up on those search engines.
• Freelance writing can be incredibly lucrative. New freelance writers can easily charge $40/hour right from the start. As you improve in your writing skills and increase your authority in your field, you can charge more and you will also start getting approached by potential clients for those writing gigs.
• Freelancing can drive traffic back to your blog. If you plan on incorporating some of the traditional blog monetization strategies into your business plan, you’ll want to get more traffic to make those blog monetization strategies worthwhile. If you are doing a lot of freelance writing online, linking to your blog in your bio can help a lot with increasing your own website traffic.

So now that you know why you NEED to start offering freelance writing services if you want to monetize your blog… what are you waiting for? Find out how to get started and create a successful freelancing business today.

How to Monetize Your Blog with Freelance Writing Services

BIO: Sagan Morrow is a freelance coach and professional lifestyle blogger. She teaches new freelancers how to achieve success in their freelance businesses—including tips on how to find clients, set rates, prepare and thrive as a home-based business owner, develop healthy work habits and time management skills, and more. Check out her blog at SaganMorrow.com, or click here to sign up for her free 8-day e-course for new freelancers. You can also find her on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.

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