Most blogs are purely a labor of love. They're places where anyone can get on their soapbox and broadcast their message about fitness, technology, recipes, finance, fashion, music, or whatever else they're passionate about. The thing is, they have to be a labor of love because they don't bring in much money.
If you're such a blogger, you know that as passionate as you are about your topic and audience, it can often seem difficult (or sometimes even impossible) to continue investing time when it isn’t generating revenue in return.
However, if your blog has gained some traction and you’ve built up a dedicated group of readers, a membership site can be an excellent way to start monetizing your blog.
Here are 5 great reasons to incorporate a membership into your blog:
- When done right, membership sites can generate more income than ads.
Ads don't pay much unless you've got a high volume of traffic (it’s a dirty little secret of monetization on the internet). In order to generate substantial revenue from advertising on your blog, you must use extremely relevant ads and have a ton of traffic consistently washing over your site. In contrast, a membership (even at a minimal rate) can add up to a lot more immediate and long-term revenue, especially if you can entice all of your existing readers to sign up. - It's simpler than you think to produce premium content for your membership site.
You might not realize it, but you’ve probably already got a great “product” to sell as part of membership. We’ve seen plenty of folks take existing content from their blog and refactor it into premium content. Now, we’re not suggesting that you take down your free articles — as that could have dire consequences for your Google rankings — but we do recommend that you combine, expand on, and incorporate existing content to create new premium content. - A members-only area will increase the value of your content.
Not every blogger offers premium content, and the fact that you do sets you apart. The age-old saying, “That which we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly,” is very, very true. When people know that you charge for some of your content, it increases the value of ALL your content and your reputation. - Membership helps you better engage and build your community.
When you get someone to raise their hand and decide to participate in your blog (rather than just lurking), you'll engender more commitment and fans who are more likely to spread the word about your blog. - Setting up a membership site is much easier than you think (and doesn’t require any coding experience at all).
If you already have your blog on a self-hosted WordPress site (NOT wordpress.com), all you need to do is get MemberPress, install it on your WordPress website, tweak a few settings to configure the details of your membership, and voila — you have your very own blog with a members-only area!
Endless love for your blog, its subject matter, and your audience are all definitely great reasons to stay devoted to producing great content… but money's pretty cool too. And it doesn't hurt that it pays the bills.
So don't wait! Install a membership option on your site, and start making money from your blog today!
Photo Credit: Alejandro Escamilla
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