How to Plan Your Blog to be Profitable Right From the Start

This is part 2 of the Blog Profit Plan Series, where I’m breaking down the steps to turn your blog into a full-time income as quickly as possible.

My hope is that this series will help you launch your blog, decide how you will make money from it, and clear up any questions you have about profitable blogging.

If you missed it, Part 1 was all about business plans:

• Why you need them
• How to create them
• And a business plan workbook

Today, we’re all about getting things done. I want to help you execute on your plan and create a scalable business with your blog.

First, I’ll cover launch essentials (those things you need to consider when you start your blog). Then I’ll share strategies for long-term success and give you a step-by-step roadmap to kick your blog business plan into action.

Ready for it? First, let’s look at some blog milestones and income formulas.

BLOG MILESTONES

1) Blog Income Formula

I came across this simple formula just a few weeks ago and am in looove. Seriously, I think I’m going to plaster my apartment with formula post-its. 🙂

Income = Number of Email Subscribers x (.02 x Price of Product)

Pretty powerful stuff, no?

This formula literally gives you the ability to predict your income, estimate how much money you can make blogging, and create a road map for making it happen.

Knowing that an average of 2% of your subscribers will purchase your product (the common range is 1-3%), if you want to make $3K this month and you have a product that is $100, you know you’ll need 1,500 subscribers to make it happen. This assumes that your product is relevant to your readers, which of course it will be.

So the blog income formula tells us what areas to focus on for growth:

1. Awesome blog and content
2. Traffic
3. Subscribers
4. A product

That means that every goal, task and item in your blog action plan should be around these 4 areas in order to make money with your blog. Ideally, you will address each bucket every month, meaning that you set specific goals that you plan to achieve for each focus area, each month (blog, traffic, subscribers, product). This way you’ll be covering all bases and moving them all forward.

Note: Income from affiliate programs and ads is more complex because there are so many variations in payouts, cookie lifetime, and other details. My Affiliate Marketing for Beginners post will help you get started.

2) Start With 12-Month Goals

Now that we’re clear on our focus areas, let’s create 12-month blog goals. Nothing fancy here, all you need is a simple spreadsheet. Take the 4 buckets and map them out across every month. This will give you a high-level view of your goals and help you plan a time frame to earn money from blogging.

For instance, you might say that by month 4 you want to make $3k, and by month 12 your money goal is $10K. Or, you might say that in month 1 you want to launch your blog, and by month 3 you want to be blogging twice a week. The point is that every focus area has a goal attached to it.

What should you do first? Great question! If you’re feeling stuck on which comes first – the chicken or the egg – the answer is really both.  It may seem like a lot to juggle, but as I explain (Step #3 below), even though you’ll be dipping into all of your buckets each month, some will have a priority focus over others. For instance, if you’re starting out with blogging, in months #1-3 you may have a priority focus on:

• Building your blog (content)
• Creating epic content (content)
• Building a following (traffic)

Now, at the same time you will do things like:

• Building your list (subscribers)
• Brainstorming content funnels (subscribers)
• Researching products (money)

See where I’m going with this?

The difference here is that you’ll be full-steam ahead with your priority focus items, and not so much on the others. Think of it like you’re building a runway for the others to take off, while you’re at peak altitude with the others. Make sense?

If you want, you can grab the Blog Business Plan Workbook I created to help with this step:

3) Break Those Down into Bite-Sized Steps

Next up: time to break the goals down into smaller chunks. We’re talkin’ 3 months, then 1 month, and then weeks.

What does that really mean? To start, just take a mental snapshot of your priority focus areas for the next 3 months. This works fantabulously well because it’s a small enough time frame where you can feel positive and excited about your action items, rather than stressed and defeated because you start getting ahead of yourself. Been there, done that. At the same time it gives you a bird’s eye view of where you should be putting your focus.

Once you have that, you want to start working on one month at a time. Take one month from your blog goals and break it down into bite-sized steps. What that looks like is you pick a priority focus for each week, and that one priority drives all of your actions.

I generally have a larger priority goal for the month as well. For instance, if I’m rebranding or creating a new product, I want to keep it front and center in my mind, so I’ll make sure it stands out on my calendar.

Each month/week your priority goals should get done first, meaning that when other things come up you turn them down (or shift them around) so you can focus on the things you really need to achieve.

Now that you have the success mindset, let’s look at action steps to creating a profitable blog.

BLOG ACTION PLAN STEPS

1) Choose your niche

I’ve written about the importance of defining your niche and target audience pretty extensively in other posts, so I won’t go into it too much here. Hmmm…or will I?

The thing is this: Finding your blog’s focus is a biggie.

This is a step that every successful business faces, and if you really want to turn your blog into a business, it’s a step you simply can’t skip. I say this with complete confidence and after years working with brands who put so much effort into marketing, and then later realize that they’re missing the mark. I don’t want this to happen to you, so here’s the deal…

You absolutely have to be BFFs with your audience.

What we’re really going for here is to drill down on specifics. First of all, I would start with the basics like age, job title, income level, gender, and so on, then move beyond that to how your audience is feeling, what they’re struggling with, and how you help.

You should be able to answer these questions:

• How is your audience feeling right now?
• What are they trying to do but can’t?
• What’s stopping them?
• How can you help them?
• What will change for them after YOU?
• How will they feel when they’ve overcome this problem?

The more focused you are with your niche, the easier it will be to jumpstart your profits.

Psst…Don’t go crazy over that last bit like I did at first. You definitely want to start with your skills, talent, and passions first. Then look at groups of people who heart what you heart. And finally, give some thought to the types of products you will offer.

Related: How to Choose Your Blog’s Niche and Focus

2) Choose your name

When you’re starting out your name feels like all you have, so you hold on to it and drive yourself a little nutso (at least if you’re me you do!) But, really, your name is a name and that’s it. Other people don’t care what you name your blog. That’s just how it is, friend.

Your brand is so much more than a name, meaning that it’s really everything attached to your name. It’s the way you speak to your audience, your logo, the colors you choose, what you stand for, your mission, your values…all of that exciting brand stuff. 🙂

Now, whether you use your own name or a product name for your biz really depends on which you prefer. I recommend choosing a name that makes you feel 100% authentically YOU, and at the same time encompasses your longer term vision. For instance, if you plan to grow your team beyond just you, a product name might be the way to go. Try to include keywords related to your blog’s focus so that people have an idea what your biz is all about.

Related: How to Choose the Perfect Name for Your Blog

3) Build your blog

Now we’re going to roll up our sleeves and build your blog! I recommend using a self-hosted WordPress site because you’ll have access to functionality that you need to grow your business. We’re talkin’ plugins that will put your biz on autopilot ’round the clock.

Having said that, I know many people love SquareSpace, and there’s definitely a lot to be said for getting your website up quickly, which you can do easily with SquareSpace. WordPress is a bit more techie and will take longer, so if you’re up for the challenge, I say go for it!

Not sure which one to go with? byRegina has a free course that shows you both platforms to help you decide. And if you’re sold on a self-hosted WordPress site, I’m your girl (wink, wink). This post will help you get up and running.

4a) Build a following

Now we’re revvin’ up the traffic engine of the blog income formula (first part, step #1). First things first, let me say when it comes to driving web traffic, social media and content are interrelated. Where one goes, the other must follow, which is why step #4 is broken down into two parts. In case you’re wondering which part to tackle first, I say both, friend. You really can’t have one without the other.

With that said, let’s dive into building your following so that your content gets found by more people, ev’rywhere. From your niche research, you should have a good idea where your audience hangs out. So now we’re going to create profiles on those sites and start building an audience.

Heads up, you’re going to have to spend some time on each social media platform. It might seem like your entire day is devoured by social media at first, but it won’t be forever, I promise! You’ll get your days back soon! Really, you just need to spend enough time to learn the ins and outs, share some content, see which types of content perform best, and most importantly, which sites give you the most bang for your buck.

Now let’s look at the content part…

4b) Create and share content

How frequently should you write new blog posts? I think the real question here is How frequently CAN you  write new posts on the regular? If you can commit to writing a new post once every 2 weeks for now, perfect. That’s your magic number. Over time I recommend ramping up to once or twice a week as you get comfortable with your blog schedule. Whatever you do, please don’t write 6 posts in 2 weeks and then disappear for 3 months! Creating a schedule and then sticking to it is sooo key when it comes to building trust.

One thing that saves me oodles of time is working with themes. I find that my brain works 24/7 behind the scenes when I work this way, so by the time I sit down to write my next post, the words flow freely.

Curious what a theme is? I’m glad you asked! You’re reading a post from my theme right now – The Blog Profit Plan Series. Seriously though, themes are just subtopics where you take readers on a journey and one post feeds naturally into the next. So if you’re a fashion blogger, you might plan a theme around stripes one month and then colors the next.

Oh, and I promised you’d get your days back, right? Once you’re comfortable on your social media platforms, scheduling tools will actually automate your content sharing for you, so you don’t have to do it manually. Who’s a game-changer now? My favorite tools are SmarterQueue and Buffer for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn; BoardBooster for Pinterest; and Planoly for Instagram.

If you’re ready to step up your traffic game even more, these two posts will help:

• 14 Things to Do to Every Blog Post Before You Hit Publish
• How to Promote Your Blog Posts Effectively on Social Media

5) Build your subscribers

High five! Your traffic engine is hummin’ and you’re on your way to wrapping up the blog income formula. Time to crank up the subscriber engine! Let me just say there’s no magic pill for building your list. But there are a ton of ways to do it, just like there are a ton of ways to market your business. So nothing to be overwhelmed about here!

Start by adding a freebie (content upgrade) to your posts. This can be anything, really: cheat sheets, Ebooks, printables, planners, checklists…anything that will provide meaningful value for your readers.

To do this, you’ll need a few tools:

• Software to create your freebie – Canva, InDesign, Google Docs
• Opt-in form/landing page – Leadpages, ThriveThemes
• Software to create a pretty image for your opt-in – Canva, Picmonkey, Photoshop, Pixlr

You’ll also need an email marketing platform like MailChimp, ConvertKit, or Infusionsoft to create automated emails and campaigns so you can build a relationship with your subscribers while you create products to offer them.

That about brings us to…

6) Create a product

Woot woot! You made it. Almost at the finish line. Let’s tackle this last step, k?

How do you know what products to create? First of all, you can send a survey to your subscribers asking them what their biggest challenge is, and then brainstorm products you can create to help.

You can also look into pre-selling your course. What this looks like is you create an outline of the course idea, then a sales page and a webinar, and if people buy, you know you’ve got a winner! Just be sure that you can actually deliver your course in the time frame you promise, so you won’t lose credibility with people who register for it. If this seems too scary, why not create the first few modules? This way you know you’ll have something to deliver while you’re doing your preselling.

Why not research other popular blogs in your niche? Look at what types of blogs make the most money, how they make money, the types of products they offer. This will give you tons of ideas for your own product.

What if you don’t have a list yet? No worries, just start tracking which posts get the most shares on social media and have the highest page views in analytics. This is a super easy way to get some insight into the content that people are responding to.

What tools should you use to create your course? I break it all down for you in this post.

Should you create an ebook or an ecourse? It’s really up to you. Ebooks take a bit longer than ecourses, but you can always turn your ebook into a course later on.

I’m so excited for you! I can’t wait to hear about all your success. As you move through these steps, remember to work in bite-sized chunks and keep the blog income formula plastered to the top of your brain. This will help you earn money from blogging as quickly as possible, because you’ll know exactly what you need to do to turn your blog into a blogging for profit machine.

Always, always, execute on the priority focus areas you set for each month. Don’t go skipping steps and gettin’ ahead of yourself. 🙂

Let’s hear it! How do you make money with your blog? What’s working for you right now?