Blogs have come a long way from being just personal online journals 30 years ago. Nowadays, people associate blogging with entrepreneurs, influencers, or generally someone who is an expert in their field.
And that’s not just the association, but the reality. The fact is that only blogs with high-quality content are successful. Successful means not just popular but monetized.
If you’re interested in turning your blog into e-commerce and starting to make money from your writing and expertise, keep reading because I’ll give you some useful advice on how to make it happen.
What‘s a niche blog and what’s an e-commerce
Niche blogs are a type of online magazine or journal, usually wrapped around one topic, containing articles or blog posts talking about the specific topic.
When it comes to e-commerce, we all have some association with it. Some would say it’s an online shop, some an online business.
So, what is a niche blog, and what do we mean when we say e-commerce?
A niche blog is a type of blog where you choose to narrow your area of expertise, meaning you can choose a specific niche to write about and therefore have more chances to attract a specific audience. For example: you write about food, but you can choose a more specific part of the topic, like cakes, and therefore your audience will be specifically interested in all information about the cakes.
The great thing about blogs is that if you offer good value to the audience, they’ll trust you, and it’s more likely they’ll buy a product you recommend.
What’s not so great about blogs is that blogging is not a quick-money scheme. It’s a long journey, and that’s why it’s not for everyone. You have to have patience and also have faith in yourself because results can take even a few years to show.
E-commerce involves buying and selling products over the Internet, meaning money transfers and data exchange are done online. Products, if not digital, are then shipped to the buyer.
This type of business also dates from 30 years ago, more precisely from 1994, when the first online trade was made. And it has been growing ever since.
The recent changes in the world, meaning wars and, most of all, pandemic situations, have pushed this type of trade even further, and it will only grow.
That’s why it’s a great business opportunity and why more and more bloggers are choosing to e-commercialize their blogs.
Combining the two is a great way to get the actual credits for all your work on your blog. And financial support, of course.
Let’s dig in and define what steps you’ll need to take to make this fairytale your beautiful reality.
What to do before transitioning
Before you take your big step into a new dimension, there are some actions you’ll need to take to be best prepared.
And what’s most important is to prepare your audience. Because if you just start selling them staff, you’ll lose a great deal of your audience, and your reputation will be ruined.
Nobody likes to feel tricked into buying something. It’s all in human psychology; we’re sensitive beings. And with all the online scams growing daily, it’s no wonder we all became reserved and afraid to trust anyone online.
So, if you have a glorious group of readers, take good care of them. They’ll pay you back when the time comes.
Here are a few steps you have to take to act like a professional and prepare everything for an even smoother transition to e-commerce.
If you haven’t found your niche yet, now’s the time. Take some time to research what niches are most profitable. Research what kind of products you could sell in those niches. Take a good look at the competition. And then decide.
If we take the previous example, you can research all cake blogs and what and how they are selling. You’ll see that there’s a lot of competition in your niche, and you may want to narrow it even further. Perhaps write about vegan or raw cakes, since it’s a popular theme.
But if you want to be authentic and passionate about your business, don’t go too far from what interests you.
The advice that worked best for me was – choose what you’re most comfortable with. And that’s the truth.
Yes, you do the research and make the strategy, but don’t let all those numbers and analyses trick you. You can only write about something that you’re not interested in for some time, but with something you love and know a lot about, you can create the best blog out there, no matter the competition.
With defining your niche comes your niche audience. It’s important to know who would be interested in such a blog. Who can benefit from your wisdom? Define that, and half of the job is done.
Then, find their interests and their troubles, and write about them. To get some ideas about what’s bothering your audience, try doing keyword research or just asking Chat GPT (AI can be useful in this kind of operation).
If you solve their problems, people will follow you, and search engines will recognize your content as relevant and good. So, more people could read it.
That way, you’ll build your little empire, and that’s where you can make a profit.
Since you’re starting a business, you’ll have to appear more professional. First of all, if you’re just starting to blog, you’ll have to choose the name of the blog, which can also be the name of your business. This builds trust with the audience and also helps when you’re working on brand awareness.
If you already have a blog and perhaps you’re using any of the free version blogging platforms, upgrade and try to get domain extensions that are considered more professional (.com,.org, and similar).
Maybe the most important part of a successful niche blog is SEO (search engine optimization). If you’re not familiar with the term and haven’t been using any of the SEO tools, change that. Or hire someone who knows how to help you, like an SEO service provider.
With good optimization of the blog, you can reach exactly the audience you’re writing for, and that’s the goal of the whole process.
I recently tested SERP empire to boost some of my keywords with CTR and it worked. You can also check out this option.
Now that you’re all professional and ready to roll, it would be a good idea to ask your users and potential buyers if you’re really that good.
But how?
There’s this method called usability testing, and it can give you the most valuable feedback. It includes working with real-life users, who are asked to go through your blog/e-shop and rate their experience. The best and easiest way to conduct this is by using tools for usability testing.
With the use of these tools, you can get relevant information about the whole project and apply improvements even before you launch it. That way, you’ll avoid any potential problems your future buyers might have, and their user experience will be so good, they’ll come back for sure.
Before you start selling anything, research the laws and regulations in your state. You’ll have to register your business and pay taxes. If you’re not sure how to do that, hire an accounting agency to do it for you. If you don’t have funds for that, roll up your sleeves and do it yourself. Just pay attention to all the regulations you’ll have to comply with.
Besides good SEO and your rankings on the search engine pages, you should promote your blog whenever or wherever you can.
That’s what social media networks are for. Use them, use them a lot, and use them wisely.
Choose the networks where your targeted audience is, and be active there.
Did you know that 70% of consumers would rather learn about a product or company through a blog post than view an ad?
Use that fact to save you some advertising money.
The best options for e-commerce business
Now that you’ve set up your blog, you can choose from various models of e-commerce. Here are the three most common and profitable options.
The type of marketing you can earn from. If you promote someone’s product or service on your blog, you’ll earn a commission for every purchase. This is a great option if you have a large audience but don’t want to deal with selling and sending products. You can be the middleman.
For a long time, this type of marketing was degraded because of all the fraud involved and the low income rates.
But things are changing, and with the growth of social networks and the expansion of influencers, affiliate marketing has found its way up. The blooming of online shopping helped.
More and more serious companies and brands are bringing affiliate programs into their business activities.
Affiliate marketing can be a good way to earn some money, but don’t expect to get rich fast.
However, we could all use some of that passive income. I wouldn’t mind, for sure.
If you have a bunch of potential buyers following you, why not cash it? And with no extra investments, too.
This is one more way to earn from selling products you don’t produce or send. Dropshipping is the type of business where you, with your online store, sell other people’s (your supplier’s) products and send them your orders. The supplier then ships the order to the buyer. You pay the supplier, and the buyer pays you.
Here you’ll have a few investments, an online shop, and some marketing. But your good old blog can help you a lot with promoting the products and redirecting people to your shop.
In this type of business, it’s important to do thorough research on what products to sell, since this has become a very popular way of doing sales, so the competition is very big. There’s always a chance that someone else is selling the same product as you at a lower price.
E-commerce platforms are what most of us consider an e-commerce business. This is the type of business where you have the products and ship them to your buyers. These platforms allow you to run an online shop, receive payments, and get the data you need for shipping.
Some of the most popular are Shopify, Wix, and WooCommerce. You can have your blog and your shop on the same platform, and it’ll save you money.
An e-commerce store is an easy and not expensive way to start your business, and combined with the great blog you’ve been writing, you can continue doing what you love while making money at the same time.
Your audience already knows you and trusts you; you just have to gently direct them to your products. And who knows better what they need than you?
Still thinking about monetizing a blog?
With all being said, it’s clear that turning your niche blog into an e-commerce business is not such a problem. The hardest part you’ve already done-started a blog. The most important part of this whole process is patience. You have to be patient when building your audience and your leads. After that, it gets easier. You just have to decide which path is yours and which business model suits you most.
Or, you can be brave and agile and combine more than one model with your business.
That is totally up to you.
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