Melinda Emerson, who is also known as the Small Biz Lady, started www.succeedasyouronboss.com to help women understand how to run a small business. But after her small blog began to gain more followers, she became a major influencer in her field. Emerson now serves as the social media columnist for the New York Times.
During the Blogging While Brown conference in Philadelphia, Emerson spoke with rolling out magazine and provided tips to bloggers on how to monetize a blog.
1) Build an audience. My blog speaks to professional women from 25-54 who want to start or grow a small business. That’s all I blog about and I’m very specific. I know who my customer is and I give them quality content. You have to blog consistently to be taken seriously.
2) Use social media to push out your blog content. Because you are selling your influence. You can’t begin to monetize a blog until you have close to 20,000 regular readers.
3) Be specific on how you will monetize your blog. You don’t want any advertiser to have access to your blog. You want to make sure your advertiser can further your brand and you feel comfortable forming a partnership.
4) Reach out to a third party organization to syndicate the content from your blog. It’s another way to generate revenue. But you have to bring a huge following with you.
5) Respond to your comments and be engaging. That will make your blog attractive to people who want to pay you to have access to your audience.
