Generate Income from your Blog by Offering a Service

This is a guest post from Herbert Liu. His blog is a relatively new one, but I’m delighted that he’s become a part of the Mike’s Life community and I’m looking forward to seeing his future success.

Traditionally, bloggers and web publishers have seen advertising as their main (or only) source of monthly income; firstly, I’ll explain why this can be potentially unsustainable. Secondly, I’ll suggest an alternative to making money on blogs. It was actually this article Services for Bloggers that really pushed my mind to offering services.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What Happens when Google isn’t on your side?

Generally, all webmasters know of the importance of PageRank and search engine results towards traffic. PageRank is an added bonus for advertisers, and it’s generally also recognized as a number signifying the popularity of a website (this isn’t necessarily true). And boy, if the majority of your traffic comes from Google and search engine results, and Google decides algorithmically that someone else’s article is more famous, say goodbye to traffic (this goes double if you get relocated to the second page). Bye-bye traffic means bye-bye advertisers (unless you fake your traffic statistics, or recover very quickly).

Or, if your PageRank plummets after an update, say goodbye to some advertising revenue (maybe they just wanted link juice?).

Or, what happens if a recession hits harder and companies decide to cut advertising (it’s been shown that although some companies choose to expand during recessions, the majority do cut costs – including labour and promotion)? There are ton of factors that I could mention that would impact the revenue you get from advertising.

You get my drift – what would happen if you couldn’t fully rely on advertising as your source of income anymore?

What have you got to lose?

Alright – granted, there’s not a high probability of Google destroying you. You’re smart. You’ve got a variety of traffic sources, with the majority coming in from either sites linking to you or social media. Good for you! Now, I pose this question: what have you got to lose?

No one ever turned down free money. And hungry people have never (knowingly) turned down the opportunity for money. Are you hungry? Do you really want to be a part-time blogger for the rest of  your life, or do you want to break away and become a full-time blogger? If you do, you’re going to need every single source of income; every extra dollar you can get, in order to sustain your business.

Or maybe you just want to make some more money to buy that new car. The new house. Whatever. I’m not trying to be materialistic, but I’m just throwing in ideas. Again, I’m sure you’re starting to see the connections here.

What have you got to lose by trying something new, and offering a service for your blog?

What Service can I possibly offer, though?

You might be thinking to yourself – I’m not particularly skilled in anything. I’m not particularly smart. I don’t have that degree in XYZ expertise. How will I be able to realistically offer a service? And you’ve got a point.

But you do have something; you have passion. You have a blog. You have a blog topic. This is the topic that you have a passion for and expertise in, and this is the topic that will get you clients. You already have a following (assuming you have loyal followers and respectable amounts of traffic).

Anyone can become a consultant. Firstly, if you’re recognized as an expert in your topic/niche, this will be easy to accomplish and people would definitely be willing to put some money towards your opinion. However, if you’re not established, then you better start working on that portfolio and some projects to prove your skills and talent. And start learning – who ever said university was the only method of learning? Even though you might lack the degree to prove it, you’ll still have your portfolio and past work to back your skills up (once you create it).

Secondly, freelancing is never a bad option – this is a bit more narrow of a field, because it requires a certain amount of skill in specific, demandable areas. However, it’s not as narrow as it seems – anything from writing, to designing, to developing, to programming, to branding – there are a ton of freelance positions that you could develop into. And in hindsight, yes, a consultant is a freelancer as well, but I initially meant freelancing in the more traditional sense.

Realistically, one could start off at around $20-$30 an hour, and work their way up to even hundreds of dollars/hour (if you’re really in demand, it’ll happen).

Don’t do it yet.

If there’s one thing I’m disappointed with, it’s the speed of the Internet. Nowadays, we can jump into so much stuff so quickly without even thinking about it that we don’t even know where we’re going and what our goal is (do you really want more money? Or do you want to develop your skills? Or do you want to be established as an expert?). Don’t set up your domain name yet. Don’t buy hosting yet. Take a step back, and think.

Don’t just take my word for it. Read about it. Think about it. Ask around, see if you know any freelancers – if you do, then talk to them and learn from them. If you don’t know where to start, this article Become a Freelancer is an excellent guide to development of a freelance business.

Stay hungry. Best of luck.

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Herbert Lui is a freelance writer, student, and technology enthusiast. He is author and administrator of JoblessJoes.com where he talks about money, freelancing, and business. Employed or not, you're bound to learn something.