How to Commercialise Your Blog?
I’ll probably get a lot of hate mail as a result of what I’m about to say. Blogging can be a powerful profit generation tool. When you have a large blog following and attract a lot of traffic from search engines why not cash in on it. Just be careful if you plan to take your blog and commercialise it. You need to get the balance right. Beware, you will lose a few readers in the process. If your content is high quality and you have built strong connections with your readers, you can introduce lead generation strategies with minimal damage. These are the three options I would suggest considering.
Adding banner graphics to the top and bottom of your blog
Banners that stretch over the whole width of your blog page are a great way to get your offer noticed. The banner design needs to fit well with your blog design but at the same time, needs to stand out. Relevance is what makes banner ads work. If the offer is highly relevant and compelling for your readers then don’t feel bad introducing it to your blog. Your offer may actually be just what your readers were looking for and actually help them. There is nothing wrong with selling something to someone who will benefit from the purchase is there? Use a top page banner to display your hot offer. Use a bottom page banner to remind readers of that same offer and link them through to a landing page specifically about that offer.
Use sidebar banners
Just like the full-width top/bottom banners, sidebar banners are very visible within a blog however they are not quite as ‘in your face’ as full width banners. What you don’t want to do is confuse your readers with too many different offers. Many bloggers have made this mistake and the result is usually an ugly web design that often looks ‘spammy’ and will have low conversion rates. Too many offers in the sidebar will usually confuse your readers unless it’s some kind of menu for all your product and service offerings.
Download/Subscribe/Buy buttons within posts
A visitor who has just finished reading a good post will be likely to click a call-to-action button at the end of that post. Of course the offer must be relevant to the article. Again, relevancy is the key here. Always match your offer to your content. Make it clear and compelling.
For all these commercial strategies to work you need good content on your blog. If you don’t have engaging content nobody will take the time to visit your blog, and all those fancy banners, buttons and links will remain forever unclicked…
