Building a blog that will later become a platform to offer services for sale takes some advanced planning. The services can be SEO, web design, graphic design, consulting or other services that relate to your blog’s subject matter. The closer that the services will match both the topic of your content and your readership, the more successful they’ll be.
Selling services from a blog is difficult at first. The way to do it is to build the blog’s audience first and then to sell to them later. In the post below, we go into greater detail on this approach.
Focus on Branding
You must create a memorable brand for your blog. The name, the logo, the site’s design and everything else about the site must demonstrate the care and attention that went into it. While visitors may only click an advert or buy an affiliate product that you review and recommend, not your own products or services yet, the relationship with them starts from the first time they visit the blog.
If you wish to build up the site’s audience, you can do so with improved web design. A studio like Avila Web Firm has a track record of producing attractive sites that are eye-catching and serve their clients’ well. Investing in design once your blog has some early visitors is worth it to show that you’re serious; anyone can launch a blog with a free generic theme. A custom design means you’re committed.
Post High Quality, Well Researched Content
Every piece of content on the site must be of high quality. There shouldn’t be any spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, or typographical issues. Whether it’s the resources page explaining the products you use regularly or the latest blog post, the effort that went into producing it should be clear to the audience. It all counts towards establishing the blog as worthy of further attention on their part.
Create a YouTube Channel
To go the extra mile, you can put yourself up as the face of the brand by recording some YouTube videos. Creating a business channel on the tube site and sharing tips that relate to your latest blog posts is a terrific way to establish greater credibility with your audience. Include a link in the description of each video to your blog and mention the web address within each video. Mobile users and YouTube app users don’t necessarily see the description or links in the videos, so it’s helpful to mention it in the recording too.
Offer a Newsletter and Use Email Opt-ins
Build up a mailing list for your blog visitors. Offer an opt-in pop-up and provide a useful e-book as a ‘link magnet’ to give away when they subscribe. This doesn’t have to be long – maybe 20 pages – and make sure it’s topical to what visitors are looking for. Opt-ins now require a separate confirmation that the subscriber is happy to accept follow-up emails beyond the initial one supplying the e-book. This change is part of the EU’s GDPR law.
When you have their email address, you can contact them about new blog posts, special offers and when you begin to offer services later. Without an email list, you’re relying on them returning at some unknown future date to hear that you offer your services now.
Services are much easier to sell when you have a willing audience already. A popular blog will have visitors commenting or emailing to ask if there are related services available because they respect the writer of the blog. Creating a blog and priming it to sell services in the future takes advance preparation but is well worth it and pays dividends later.
