How To Start Selling Products On Your Blog

There are a lot of different ways to monetize your blog and if you get it right, you could make blogging your full-time job. Most people start with ads on the side of the site. That’s fine and you’ll make a bit of money. However, if you want your blog to be a full-time business you’ll need to find other ways of earning. Selling products through your blog is one of the best ways to do that. It does require a lot of work to get it started, and you’ll need to dedicate a bit of time and money if you’re going to do it right.

If you’re looking for new ways to monetize your blog, here’s how to get started with selling products.

Selling Other People’s Products: Sponsored Posts

Selling other people’s products is the easiest option. You'll want to start here before you begin thinking about selling your own. There are a few different ways that you can do this. One of the most common ways is through sponsored posts--this is often the main source of income for many bloggers. The way that it works is that companies will pay you a fee to put reviews of their product on your blog with a link to pages where they can buy it.

If you’re going to get companies to pay you for sponsored posts, the first thing that you need is a big readership. They’re not going to invest money in your blog if your posts are only reaching a handful of people. If you’re just starting out and you haven’t got a very big audience yet, you’re probably not ready to start selling through your blog. It’s better to focus on growing your readership for a while. Then you can start looking into sponsored posts further down the line.

If you've got a fairly big audience already and you’re trying to attract sponsors, there are also a few options. First is influencer marketing services, which will help connect you with companies looking for blogs to work with. It’s a paid service, but it can be a worthwhile investment if you’re serious about earning money from your blog. If you don’t want to pay for it, you just need to be proactive and start contacting companies.

Make sure that you are professional while you’re doing this. Give them details of exactly how many readers you have, what growth you expect to see over the next few months and a clear pricing structure. If you’re not approaching it like a business, they’re not going to take you seriously. You also need a page on your blog that outlines your policy and pricing for sponsored posts because some companies will approach you.

Amazon Affiliate Program

The Amazon affiliate program is another common way that bloggers sell products through their site to make money. There are a lot of products available on the program and you simply write posts with links to the products. If people click through and buy the product, you earn a little bit of money. It’s not usually that much but it’s a good way of supplementing your income.

Those are the best ways to make money from selling other people’s products, but what about selling your own?

Find Relevant Products

When you’re choosing products to sell or even creating your own product lines, it’s important that they’re relevant to your blog. You’ve already got an audience there, so consider the subject matter of your blog and which products work well with that. For example, if you post a lot of beauty tips on your blog, you should consider selling makeup products. If your blog is focused on fitness, workout gear is likely to sell. Don’t forget that you can sell services like ebooks and online training courses as well if they apply to your audience. If you just start selling random products that have no relation to your blog, your readers aren’t going to be interested in buying them.

Create Marketing Materials

Proper marketing materials are important if you’re going to advertise your products successfully. You need things like video demonstrations, promotional pages outlining the features and benefits of the products, and good quality pictures that you can post on your blog and your social media. It’s worth using sales enablement management software so you can access these marketing materials on the go and put them out to your readers. Without good marketing materials to showcase the benefits of your products, you’re not going to convince your audience that they’re worth buying.

Payment Platforms

The payment platform that you choose for your blog is very important for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it needs to be secure so customers feel comfortable entering their credit card details online. If they have any concerns about the security on your payment platform, they’re probably going to think twice about buying something.

Secondly, you need to make it easy for people. Customers are prone to changing their minds about online purchases quite often. It’s actually a big problem for online shops! Sometimes, this is down to a payment process that is too long and complicated. If they have to go through loads of different pages filling out lots of information, people are likely to give up. So, you need a secure payment service that is quick and easy for your customers. There are a lot of different options out there so it’s best to do a bit of research to decide which ones work best for you.

Carry On Posting As Normal

This is probably the most important piece of advice. If you decide that you’re going to start selling products through your blog, you can't turn all of your posts into ads for those products. You’ll lose readers in the blink of an eye. People come to your blog in the first place because they like your content. Buying products from you is just a bonus. It’s important that you don’t lose sight of that and you continue posting as you always have. Find ways to include the occasional product promotion within your normal content structure.

Follow these steps and you’ll be selling products on your blog in no time, and you’ll be on the way to turning it into a full-time business.