Traffic.

If you want to monetize your blog, you have to have it. Well, technically, you don’t have to. You can still put ads and the like on your site. You just won’t make any money from them unless you have traffic.

So, when should you start to monetize your blog? You can wait until you’re starting to get steady traffic, say 100-200 hits per day, or you can start placing ads on your blog from day 1. It’s entirely up to you.

However.

Traffic may not be the stumbling block that you think it is. My main blog regularly gets 200-300 hits a day. That’s not huge (considering another blog I write for gets around one million hits per month!). So, if I don’t have thousands of hits a day, why would a business want to work with me?

• Because I have a well-established, niche blog with a loyal following.
• Because I have a large circle of influence. 

Let’s break these down:

First of all, no matter what your niche or area of expertise is, there is someone out there who is also interested in that topic. I guarantee it. And, if there’s people who follow you, there will likely be some kind of business out there that caters to that demographic. Those businesses might be very, very interested in working with someone who already has a built-in market.

Here’s an example: let’s say you write a blog about coffee. You are crazy about coffee. Passionate about finding the best beans and the best ways to brew them. You write about new roasts, new brewing techniques. A coffee company would probably love to partner with you–they might offer you free beans in exchange for a review, and maybe extra to give away to your fans. You have a loyal following which are, as we say in the marketing business, already qualified. That means they are interested, ready to buy. They may not be huge in quantity, but those that there are are more likely to buy, simply because they share the same interests, or else they wouldn’t be following.

Second: what’s your entire sphere of influence? Yeah, maybe I don’t get thousands of hits per day, but recently, I added up all of my numbers for all of the social media I belong to, and it came to 12,000. So, it’s not just your blog posts; it’s Twitter, Linkedin, G+, Instagram, and Facebook.

I interviewed blogger Kerry Sauriol (crunchycarpets.com) about this exact topic. Kerry is a mom blogger who works extensively with brands, including big brands like Proctor and Gamble.

Here’s what she had to say on the topic of Traffic versus Sphere of Influence:

When I started blogging it was all about pageviews and unique visitors if you had any hope of attracting advertising, which was about the only chance to ‘monetize’ back then.   For a site like mine it made no sense to even be part of an ad network… back then there weren’t that many…. BlogHer was what I tried but gave up on.   Google Ads too.  I didn’t have the readership to make this a big deal.   I did better with my own outreach to brands and things like text link ads etc (controversial as many feel that these can affect your page rank with Google, but have proven to be the highest click-through rate for brands).

It really wasn’t until the rest of social media caught up with blogging that things became more open to a small blogger like myself when it came to monetization opportunities.   My ‘enthusiasm’ for things like Twitter grew my reach beyond what my blog could do and that was what attracted top tier PR and advertising opportunities.  My influence across many channels beyond the blog is what now attracts brands and PR agencies to work with me. My ability to share my blog stories on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest give me a broader reach.

I firmly believe that a blogger needs to be ‘out there’ online and offline. The power of a mom blogger is our community influence.  We share what we like or dislike with our friends and family.  THAT is what they are looking for. There is no such thing as a successful ‘lone’ blogger.

However, I think in Canada, where you will rarely  reach the same sort of pageview numbers that our counterparts have in the States…. spreading that influence on things like Twitter or building a successful Pinterest following is key to getting noticed by brands and for good monetization opportunities.

I challenge you to look at your circle of influence. How big is it? And are you leveraging it to its greatest potential?

Or, on the other hand, what kinds of things can you do to build your pageviews?

Join me next week when we look at what tools you need to have in place to start monetizing your blog.

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