What is Digital Engagement?

If you’ve been blogging for any real length of time, you know there’s a bunch of bad ideas out there for how to make money from blogging. You know the ones. It’s the same folks who’ll tell you it’s quick and easy to blog and make a fortune. 

Well, there’s another ditch to run face-first into as well: the it’s-too-tough-to-make money from blogging. Here’s the deal: not long ago, it used to be super difficult to make any money from blogging. Remember all of the disjointed tools? Then there was the cost of all of those disjointed tools. And, you pretty much needed an advanced degree to actually use the expensive, disjointed tools.

Nowadays, many folks make money from blogging. And, honestly, lots of people don’t. How much money can you make from blogging? Answer: it depends. I’ve heard stories of bloggers who report making millions of dollars per year—or better yet—while they sleep. While other bloggers make, actually almost 90 percent of bloggers, make an average of less than $10,000 per year. 

I have no idea where you are on this scale or where you want to be. But, you’re here, which means you’ve probably been blogging for a while and figure it’s time to go pro. Another guess is you have a decent amount of page views. But, you also get that a lot of barriers exist - you’re crunched for time, you don’t have a ton of money to throw at this whole thing, and you probably don’t have the technical expertise that’s necessary for running all of the different systems it takes to be even a little bit successful (see my rant above about disjointed tools). 

Anyway, you’re here. You’re looking for help. You understand the challenge is not can you monetize, but how? Maybe you already know some folks who are making money blogging. So you aren’t questioning that. But, you have no idea where to start related to how to monetize a blog. Which approach is right for you? When should you start said approach—right this second or wait until you have one billion followers? And, let’s say you start within the hour and you make a few bucks. What now? At what point will you know if this whole thing is actually working?

There are a bunch of methods you could use to monetize a blog. I’m not pretending this post is exhaustive by any measure. But, my hope is the following list will either remind you to try one of these ways—or—jumpstart your thinking and try one or more of them out for your blog. 

Here are seven (7) real-life ideas for how to monetize a blog that actually work:

1. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people’s (or company’s) products. There are many different affiliate marketing networks to use. One of the biggest affiliate marketing networks Amazon. Point is: you find a product you like, promote it to others, and earn a small percentage of the profit for each sale you make.

2. Advertising

This can happen a lot of ways. One great way is selling advertising to businesses because your blog has a good number of page views.

3. Selling digital products 

Selling digital products on your blog might mean selling anything from eBooks as short as a few pages. As long as it’s helpful, there’s often a market for quick and helpful eBooks. But, it’s not limited to this. You can also sell any resource that’s helpful to your audience. It could be any content you can put into a PDF. Write it down and sell it!

4. Selling courses

Depending on your audience and the content you create, you should consider creating courses to walk your followers through step-by-step on how to do something or get better at something else. You might not think you are online course material but you might be surprised. We often ask people what they find themselves explaining to others all of the time. There you have it! That's your course.

5. Selling Services

Consider what questions your readers are asking you all of the time. Can you package some consulting services and sell them? What about your teaching or facilitation? What if you trained others in how to do something in person or online? One of our clients offers services to onboard new clients and has packaged these services to be simple, understandable, and yes, even desirable.

6. Sponsorships

This idea is not often thought about. But, consider selling sponsorship placement on your blog. This could mean selling sponsors on any of the above mentioned ideas or on certain pages of your blog. As long as the brand or sponsor fits yours and they want your audience to see their business, you have an opportunity to sell sponsorships. That actually is you “making money while you sleep”! : )

7. Membership

I’m not going to lie. This isn’t easy. But, if you have the traffic and you’ve written lots of content, then it might just be time to consider creating a space and content that your readers have to pay to access by membership. We've seen many learn to how to take their communities digital and grow their memberships or tribes launch a membership program - both with great success. One community has built a community of tens of thousands of individuals which turned in to over 800 groups around the world. This is when membership has some real teeth.

Now that you have seven ideas you’ve either been reminded of or thinking about for the first time. What now? How in the world will you decide which one to do? And when? Well, I mentioned that I’m here to help!

So, here are three questions you can ask yourself right now to help you pick the right method for you:

1. Which monetization method is reasonable to achieve today (and not sometime out in the future)?

2. Which method gets you the most excited?

3. Do people trust you as a guide?

Now, here’s the biggest secret: Don’t overcomplicate things.Your natural tendency, because this is your passion—will be to overthink it. Don’t! At this stage, it’s way more important to just get started. Just start. Pick one of these ideas and run. You’ll figure it out on the way. I’ll be right here to help as you learn. Remember, to try and fail is to learn. Try some one idea. Even if you only make a few dollars, that’s better than nothing. You never know what might happen after that. Who knows, one of these ideas might actually work in your real life.

Need more help monetizing your community?

You want to have a significant impact on the world AND generate revenue. In order to do that you need valuable resources and a means to deliver those great resources. Download the free eBook: 5 ways to monetize your community.

About the author: Will Rogers is the Founder and CEO of CauseMachine. Will’s career has been spent leading organizations and helping to mobilize communities to shared vision. He has served in various leadership roles to build community engagement and movements teaching him valuable hands on skills and experience. Will has developed business and community engagement strategies for dozens of organizations in nearly 50 countries. He and his wife have two sons and now live in Kentucky after two decades in Colorado.

Are you leading an online community? Maybe it’s through social media or through your own website.

Here’s the thing: whether you realize it or not, you are leading an online community. 

Let’s be honest, managing an online community is tough. How do you keep up with all of the changes? From how to engage folks to what’s the best time of day to post, it’s a crazy role that changes, literally, daily. 

There’s two ways to go wrong in thinking about community management:

1) Be the person who overthinks it. 
OR 
2) Be the person who trivializes it.

I think there’s a sweet spot somewhere in the middle where we can truly engage our people and create fans who truly connect, share, and help folks. Managing a community well doesn’t just happen without intention. If only you had a list of things to focus on? 

Here are 10 community management tips for authors and leaders:

1 Know your audience.

The easiest way to do this is through a survey. Create a survey. Keep it simple. Make it between one to three questions. Ask things like “what do you need most from this community?” or “what’s the biggest problem you’re facing?” 

One digital community I worked with shifted their event survey from asking about opinions on various pieces of the event to asking people how it helped them achieve their goals and what pain points attendees had. People naturally want to talk about their problems. My client also had greater success printing the survey out on paper and collecting responses in person. In this case, it meant a lot of paper. But, they increased survey feedback from 200 replies to over 10,000 replies.

2 Know the data.

The simplest way to know your data is through analytics. For example, do you know what pages visitors are clicking on your website? Study your page views to see what folks are looking at. Once you know the top-performing pages and you understand the content on those pages, guess what? Write more about those topics.

3 Set a clear value proposition. 

Do you clearly state what value you offer your community? Here’s a great test: Can your community state clearly what they get from being part of your community? They can if you’ve clearly stated it. If you haven't already done this, create a list of how followers might benefit from being part of your community. I saw one group post on their event site a section called "Here's what you get". Isn't that what people are asking? Make it clear. Just tell people what they’re getting.

4 Set clear expectations.

Have you ever been in a relationship where expectations are not clearly stated from the start? If you have, then you know, it becomes a horrible relationship pretty quick. Take a moment to write out what your community should expect from you and what you can expect from them. Yes, it’s okay to state what you expect from them as well. You might mention things like contribution and being helpful to the rest of the community, as one example.

5 Assign moderators.

You don’t have to do all of this on your own. Create a team approach by asking others to help you moderate your community, answer questions, and help take the load off of your shoulders. You might find your team members through this who contribute the most and help others in your community. I loved watching as one community engaged specific experts in each of their core content areas and trained them up as the moderators of each of those areas. This took a lot of stress off the main team and allowed for additional expert voices in the community to engage.

6 Encourage content and connections.

Often, we might just wait to see what people are going to do in our community before we engage much. Don’t do this. Take the lead and encourage content, shoulder tap subject matter experts you know, engage in content yourself, and help make connections with others in your community. This will be helpful to your followers.

7 Shoulder tap catalysts.

My guess is, you already have certain people in your community who you can shoulder tap to help engage others. Start by making a list of who can help you intentionally engage. Then, take your list of folks and consider what they are best at—or what they’re most passionate about. Ask them to help you with a specific content topic. 

8 Stay consistent. 

This is so important. It matters much less what your post frequency is. But, whatever frequency you decide, it’s important you stay consistent. Look for a rhythm that fits you. Whether you post daily, once per week, twice a month, let your analytics speak to you as you go.

9 Provide meaningful content.

Content isn’t worth much if it isn’t useful. You live and breath this because you realize how to monetize a blog. Make sure you have tapped in to your community for what they are interested in and what questions they have. Once you have that information, it’s time to talk about those topics. One community has an annual gathering of some of their key experts, partners, and advocates to help them design their content strategy. That group sits down for an entire day of brainstorming and planning. After that meeting, they walk out with an entire year of action plans.

10 Remove bandits. 

Sadly, there’s always a follower or two in any community who end up being malicious. Don’t sweat it. Consider your community and make sure you are intentional about addressing these types of followers. It’s your role to take care of any negative situation. There are times when you need to remove followers from your group. When that happens, see it as a teaching opportunity. Your true followers will thank you and be encouraged to engage even more because they will feel comfortable knowing you have their backs. 

These are the ten (10) tried and true ideas I’ve found helpful to think through related to community management tips for authors and leaders. What would you add? 

Need more help taking your community digital?

You want to have a dynamic and multi-dimensional community which thrives. In order to do that, you need a strategy of both online and offline engagement. This guide will help you think through your approach to engaging a virtual community. Download the free eBook: How to Take Your Community Digital.

About the author: Will Rogers is the Founder and CEO of CauseMachine. Will’s career has been spent leading organizations and helping to mobilize communities to shared vision. He has served in various leadership roles to build community engagement and movements teaching him valuable hands on skills and experience. Will has developed business and community engagement strategies for dozens of organizations in nearly 50 countries. He and his wife have two sons and now live in Kentucky after two decades in Colorado.

So you blog all of the time. Maybe you're starting to monetize your blog. Great. I have bad news. Ready to hear it? No one’s reading your post. Yes, that post you care deeply about. The one you spent days thinking about writing. The one you waited forever and pressed publish with one hand over your eyes because you were nervous and loved it so much. It was your baby. 

I want to be nothing if not honest. No one saw that post. And, think about it, what’s the point in spending all that time if no one’s going to find it? 

I understand. Each post is your baby. You care deeply. You want folks to see it. I’ve written posts that embarrassed me because of the little amount of page views. Then, I’ve had posts that have done pretty well. Here’s the thing: I don’t doubt for a second that you have great content. You’ve spent time polishing that content. And, you know what you’re talking about. 

But, the truth is, for most posts you publish, maybe your spouse or mom reads it. Actually, they’re busy. They aren’t reading your posts either. I said I’d be honest! : ) 

All things in balance, the posts where I’m intentional about creating content with these seven things in mind—the stuff Google will rank you for—has the best chance of getting the most eyeballs on it—both now and long term. 

Here are seven (7) ideas for how to create content that Google ranks you for:

#1 Don’t start with what you want to talk about.

This is a tough one for me. I often think to myself that I have great ideas of what others need to know. But, it always amazes me to see what comes back from them when you ask. For a great mix on doing this well, start by asking your current audience. 

First, start with your followers’ problem. How can you know your followers’ problems? You simply need to ask. Create a simple survey. We’ve talked about some parameters around a survey in how to monetize your blog. Here’s the point: can you clearly articulate your followers’ problem and do you have the resources to help solve those problems? 

Not sure where to start with all of your followers’ problems? Make a list and prioritize the list. Consider organizing the issues or questions into buckets based on how many people share the same problem or category of issues.

#2 Be human.

Use natural language in your content. For example, when trying to use keywords, be sure you’re speaking like a follower would speak. People don’t think like robots, so be sure to ask questions and speak common language your followers would type in search.

Here’s one example: notice in this blog post, I could have titled the post “Google’s Blog SEO Strategy & Algorithms”. Guard against this type of robotic speech. Instead, focus more on how you would talk when searching. You would type something closer to “How to Create Content that Google Ranks You For” or something similar that’s more intuitive to how you would naturally ask the question.  

Now, let’s talk about writing content specifically as it relates to creating content for ranking purposes. Here are a few of the key ideas you should consider as you write content to get ranked for.

#3 Be clear.

Make your content clear, simple, and accurate to what you say you are offering. Always try to use less words instead of more. Think your post is wordy. Then it is. Cut words. 

#4 Use keywords but don’t go crazy.

You can go overboard here. Be careful not to overstuff keywords. Google will know! Make sure they fit what you’re talking about. Again, be as human as possible here!

#5 Your meta description matters.

This snippet shows up in search. Resist the urge to copy and paste the title here. Do a bit of work to make the idea and goal of the post stand out in a few punchy words. 

#6 Don’t forget your images.

Most bloggers overlook this. You’re done with the writing. So, you think you’re done with the post. You’re not. Many searchers will find your post because of the image you use—if it’s optimized. Be sure the file name of your image includes the keyword or phrase of your post. And, depending on what marketing tools you’re using, be sure not to forget the alt image text of your image.    

#7 Consider your posting rhythm.

It doesn't matter the size of your digital community, you need a content-publishing rhythm that works for you and your content. It may be weekly, every other week, monthly—and here's the thing—stick to it. The goal here is more about your frequency than volume of posts. 

Don’t set a standard you can’t keep up with. Readers will follow your lead, but don’t make it difficult to follow you because your posting doesn’t have a rhythm. 

Protip: Don’t write from a blank slate. Try and stay ahead of your posting schedule by at least three to four posts. You can always change up posting based on timing or culture or news. But, I’ve found it’s better to have ideas in the hopper so you avoid the blank white empty space of a blog post. 

Now, there are more than seven things to consider in ranking for Google. But, these are a few of the key ideas you should be aware of and start with as you write great content.

Need help monetizing your community?

You want to have a significant impact on the world AND generate revenue. In order to do that you need valuable resources and a means to deliver those great resources. Download the free eBook: 5 ways to monetize your community.

About the author: Will Rogers is the Founder and CEO of CauseMachine. Will’s career has been spent leading organizations and helping to mobilize communities to shared vision. He has served in various leadership roles to build community engagement and movements teaching him valuable hands on skills and experience. Will has developed business and community engagement strategies for dozens of organizations in nearly 50 countries. He and his wife have two sons and now live in Kentucky after two decades in Colorado.

Are you looking to transform your site into a membership site? Guess what? In order to make this happen, you’ll need membership plugins. With membership site plugins, you’ll be able to create a premium content library and make it accessible only to members you want to see it.

Choosing the right membership plugin is a major decision. Why? Well, in many cases, it’s tough to change course once you start down one path. 

If you’re looking to monetize your blog readers, sell more digital courses, or generate a list of engaged contacts, there are a ton of ways to approach membership within your website. 

I want to help you navigate the membership plugin world properly. What follows is a few key thoughts that will help you think through the proper steps for picking a membership plugin that fits your needs.

First, ask yourself a few questions.

Start by asking yourself if you’re ready to build a membership site, how do you know when you and your audience is ready?

• Is your audience asking for it?

• Do you have a solid quantity of google-ranked content and offerings?

• Would membership offer your followers something they don’t already have?

• Do you have a tribe following?

• What all are you planning to offer your members?

These are just a few of the questions you should be asking yourself to get you started. Did you answer "yes" to some of these questions? It may be time to move on to our second step. 

Second, evaluate your tools.

You’ll need several tools within your membership site. Again, this list isn't meant to be exhaustive but will get you to think about what you should consider. Evaluate the tools you have and the tools you think you will need based on your goals. You may need tools such as:

• Individual memberships and business memberships

• Content management with access per membership tier or level

• Content management type features for member data 

• Integrations with other tools through things like Zapier or MailChimp

• Does it incorporate other community management tools like courses, an online store, stories, events, and so on?

Third, dive into the various plugins.

There are so many plugins available, here are a few to get you started down the right path:

MemberPress : MemberPress comes with many of the features you’ll need to create a powerful membership site. Just install the plugin on your site, enter your payment information, setup what you’re selling, and start promoting your membership site. The plugin integrates well with several services, like MailChimp, PayPal, Stripe, and so on.

aMember Pro: aMember is another plugin that’s been around for years. Now, aMember Pro is not a native WordPress plugin. But, you can integrate it with WordPress. It has the features you might expect from a plugin. It comes with unlimited levels and integrates with many payment systems like PayPal, Stripe, and so on. 

LearnDash: LearnDash was built for creating and selling online courses on your WordPress sites. Check LearnDash out if you’re interested in allowing your followers to access new courses based on the points they have upon completion of certain courses. As you can imagine, this option helps keep followers engaged as well. 

Teachable: Teachable is an all-in-one platform for creating and publishing online courses. You can pick between integrating your online courses into your existing website or host them on Teachable. This is pretty handy. Teachable has lots of learning tools (think quizzes and forums), integrations (think Google Drive and others), and marketing tools (think coupon codes, affiliate programs, and so on) you will find helpful. 

s2Member: S2Member gives you access to one of the most comprehensive membership plugins out there. It includes helpful things like content dripping and one-step registration and checkout. It works well with Stripe, PayPal, and others.

WooCommerce Memberships: WooCommerce Memberships is an add on if you already use WooCommerce. If you’re selling digital products on your website and want to sell memberships as well, you may want to give WooCommerce Memberships a try.

Restrict Content Pro: Restrict Content Pro is a plugin that lets you create a fully-featured membership site. It bundles features you need for your membership site as add-ons. It has integrations like Stripe and PayPal. Like many of the plugins, there’s a free version that gets you started. 

Paid Membership Pro: Paid Membership Pro is one of the best plugins for offering special product prices to certain members. It’s basically like your customers having Amazon-Prime-like experience. It’s worth looking into. You can manage member subscriptions, give posts and pages access, and much more. Set up is super easy.

This is just a few options for membership plugin site options. Check them out and play around checking for differences in each one. You may find your best solution only after you've learned something about several plugins. 

Fourth, launch well.

Once you’ve done your research and made a selection, then it’s time to launch. Scary, huh?! Nah, don't be afraid. Here’s what you can do to make things more simple. Start with a beta team of honest, close friends. Well, they don't have to be close friends. But, they need to be super honest. You'll need 10-20 people to help test things out and give you feedback. You want super honest people who won’t just be nice and say, “Oh, that’s great. I love that.” You need folks who will tell you, “Hey, I’ve seen this on another site I’m apart of, I think you should add this feature or integration.” You get the idea. 

When you make your official launch, think of it as a multi-month campaign with a number of steps and touchpoints. Your launch should include web and landing page with a compelling offer, blog posts, emails, and many social media posts to get the word out there. The more touchpoints for your new launch the better it will stick with people.

Fifth, have fun!

Don’t forget to have fun along the way. Enjoy learning more from your audience and meeting more of their needs. Remember, you are on a journey, this doesn't happen overnight. But, you can improve a little every day! 

Need more help taking your community digital?

You want to have a dynamic and multi-dimensional community which thrives. In order to do that, you need a strategy of both online and offline engagement. This guide will help you think through your approach to engaging a virtual community. Download the free eBook: How to Take Your Community Digital.

About the author: Will Rogers is the Founder and CEO of CauseMachine. Will’s career has been spent leading organizations and helping to mobilize communities to shared vision. He has served in various leadership roles to build community engagement and movements teaching him valuable hands-on skills and experience. Will has developed business and community engagement strategies for dozens of organizations in nearly 50 countries. He and his wife have two sons and now live in Kentucky after two decades in Colorado.

You care about your content. You care about who owns said content. And, maybe you also care about certain views about where your content lives.

Here’s the deal: if you’re looking to engage a community, and you’re concerned about social media platforms and their control over your content and information, it’s not easy to find and build an audience on a platform that isn’t called Facebook. 

Have you looked? If so, you quickly found that it’s tough to connect with an audience outside of the big social channels. 

Whether you're an author or leader with a community, Facebook seems to own the world and therefore, own all of your friends and followers—and your information. We all know the stories of Facebook being caught exposed for what they are doing with every little piece of your information and behavior online. I’ll try NOT to get into that here. 

If all of that wasn’t enough to consider, there’s more. What if Facebook no longer supports your point of view? Could your entire site be removed? Whether you ever get off of Facebook or not, you should know there are options out there. Here’s the thing: you may, after reading this, decide to ride Facebook as long as you can. But, for you who’s reading and want to jump ship, what are your options. 

Here are three (3) ideas if you're looking for conservative alternatives to Facebook: 

#1 Ride Facebook.

I know, not really an "alternative" here. But, listen. As I mentioned earlier, it’s certainly one of your options to get from Facebook what you can. There is something to the fact that your friends—and yes—even your parents are there. So, when it comes to connecting and getting your message out there, it’s one of the best in a lot of ways. Maybe for an intentional amount of time and growth, you may still want to utilize Facebook. 

The big strength of Facebook is the sheer number of people there. But, you must understand, you’re at the mercy of Facebook’s tools and changes. Don’t hear me say you should jump off of Facebook. But, for this who are bothered or interested in other options, or trying to monetize your blog more, let’s at least a peek at what’s out there. 

#2 Use Another Tool.

Now, maybe you’re done with Facebook. Believe it or not, you can launch your community in some other social platform or build out a private community. You can try doing something similar on another social platform like YouTube or Instagram. I know, Facebook owns Instagram, so there’s that. But, point is, it may be worth it if you haven’t tried—and depending on your followers—you may be able to get what you need out of another platform entirely. 

If you want to get away from Facebook entirely, consider YouTube, LinkedIn, or even Twitter. Again, it depends on your most important issue related to Facebook. But, you’re reading this post, so, you’re at least interested in checking out other options. 

With the platforms I just mentioned, aside from LinkedIn, there aren’t a ton of options for groups, building community, or connecting all types of people in general. Sure, there are sites like MeWe and Parler popping up, but they aren’t yet super comparable to Facebook’s audience size. So, how can you build a community that’s also private? Great question. I have some ideas. 

#3 Build a Private Community.

This isn’t as difficult as it may sound. But, it’s no cakewalk either. Yes, you would have to start from scratch. But, maybe you already know how to create content Google ranks you for. And, this would mean having to find a software tool that allows you to do have your community access. When it comes to building your private community, there are at least three things you need to get right.

First, some cautions. Building your private community takes time—a long time. You’ll need a plan and have to set several things like preferences, branding, site structure, membership plugins, and so on.

Again, most of this isn’t impossible to complete. But, you’ll need to have plenty of time to start. Then, you’ll have to re-train your audience to use a new tool instead of Facebook! 

Second, the things you’ll need to do. You’ll need to start with a plan. For example, you will need to find a tool that meets your needs now and allows you to grow. You will need to find a tool that’s easy for your members to use. And, you’ll want to consider on the front end—if you need to hire someone to get it set up, help with branding, and get started may be the right decision.

Third, benefits. If you can jump all of these hurdles, there are great benefits, or trade-offs, to keep in mind. Everything from security, to access, to knowing user behavior, and so on. You’ll have almost total control of your community. You’ll have a much higher sense of security and privacy—because you’ll be the decision-maker for what you do with your content. You control the direction, message, and engagement of your community. There is power in your audience not being “sold” only what and when Facebook wants to sell them. 

I don’t mind telling you, I’ve helped dozens of communities figure this out - if you want to learn more, hit us up, as I understand the deep need for having a private and secure community site. I’ve walked many others through this process. And, I happen to have created a platform, a strategy, and a team to assist.

Need more help taking your community digital?

You want to have a dynamic and multi-dimensional community that thrives. In order to do that, you need a strategy of both online and offline engagement. This guide will help you think through your approach to engaging a virtual community. Download the free eBook: How to Take Your Community Digital.

About the author: Will Rogers is the Founder and CEO of CauseMachine. Will’s career has been spent leading organizations and helping to mobilize communities to a shared vision. He has served in various leadership roles to build community engagement and movements teaching him valuable hands-on skills and experience. Will has developed business and community engagement strategies for dozens of organizations in nearly 50 countries. He and his wife have two sons and now live in Kentucky after two decades in Colorado.