I often get asked these questions is a blog a business, or can a blog be considered a business? Yes, blogging can be a business only if you are able to treat a blog like a business. The blogging industry is playing a pivotal role in the internet-dependent world today.
Businesses of all kinds are today starting blogging to help build a long-term audience. Bloggers, in contrast, already have a dedicated audience if they are doing it for a long time. So, bloggers only have to explore ways to monetize the traffic on their websites.
But what exactly is blogging, and how can you build a business with it? We’ll find out about that in this article.
What Kind of Business is a Blog?
A blog is a digital publishing business, as you can see with the one that you are reading. This is because a blog will operate mainly by publishing content on the internet, which will include articles, photos, or videos.
People usually start a blog for
- Sharing their opinions or glimpses of their lives
- Educational blogs
- Building an email list
- Selling products or services
- Developing a personal brand as an expert
- Combination or all of the above
Starting a blog is very fulfilling, especially when strangers begin to start consuming your content, but it is also a commitment. Whether you publish weekly or daily, it is important to be as consistent to get the desired results. With the rise of YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, and many other social media applications, it’s true the growth of blogging has been affected, but its growth has not slowed down.
Most blogs start as a sole proprietorship, and users have full ownership of a business. They will handle all the losses, debts, and profits. Some bloggers will decide to form a Limited Liability Company, which will separate their assets or businesses legally from the blog. This protects their personal assets from any liabilities of the blog. A few bloggers will also adopt a business structure or form a partnership between two individuals to allow for the smooth running of their blog.
However, you don’t have to worry about ownership as of now. Let’s start by Simply focusing on building a blog and writing articles about relevant topics.
How do you Know if Your Blog is a Business?
A business can be commercial, professional, industrial, or engaged in other money-making activities. Blogging fits all the three categories.
- Professional- Offer consulting services, like a solopreneur, freelance writer, intent marketer, etc.
- Commercial- promoting or selling products.
- Other money-making activities- Publishing posts that are paid for by companies, offering subscriptions to premium content, and access to other services.
There are millions of active blogs online today that offer these services for their customers. So, you can say that a blog can be considered a business.
After learning about the type of business that a blog fits into, what do bloggers exactly do? I will tell you a little more about the role they play in the internet age.
What do Bloggers do in a Blogging Business?
The business that bloggers do isn’t something you can underestimate. You’ll be surprised to know that bloggers pretty much run the internet today. They produce all the online content that is published today, with over a million blog posts per day, which amounts to billions of posts per year.
Publishing content is not the only source of income for full-time bloggers; they also focus on making money through a number of sources. They can get paid through commissions by promoting other company’s products, displaying paid ads, selling their own services, and much more.
Is Blogging Still Profitable in 2024?
Blogging will be a profitable business in 2024 and much beyond. It has become a great business model, and over 30% of bloggers start a blog to make money. The total number of blogs around the world is estimated to be over 600 million, and you can say that 77% of people regularly read blogs. So, the business model has huge potential if you do it properly.
In the past, a blog was just like a diary entry or a hobby. However, today, it has changed, and the number mentioned above is continuously changing. It will be safe to say that the number of bloggers will grow or decline based on the country and the industry. That is why I will discuss the boiling question of why you have clicked on this post in the first place.
There are endless possibilities for a blogger to make as much as $2000 per month, while some also earn five or six-figure monthly incomes. As long as people continue to search for information online, the blogging industry will be profitable and relevant. And if you are able to do it correctly, then it can be a highly successful and rewarding venture.
Pros and Cons of Blogging as a Business
Blogging comes with tons of benefits for aspiring authors, professionals, and entrepreneurs. A blog can help advance your career, build your negotiation skills, achieve a good lifestyle, and more.
Here are some pros and cons you should be aware of:
Pros
- Great flexibility- Bloggers have complete control of how much time and resources they have invested into the blog. Putting in more hours and funds will give better results, but no one is forcing you to be fast.
- Unlimited income potential- Earning with your blog is fully up to your time perquisites. Successful bloggers can make over six figures a month through blogging.
- Fewer requirements- A traditional business requires a lot of permissions, licenses, and documentation to begin. When you are starting a blog, all you need is a hosting provider and blogging platform.
- Build your authority- Having a popular blog will allow you to win the trust and respect of the tech-savvy generation today.
- Partner with relevant brands- There are a lot of big companies that want their brands to be promoted through bloggers. Bloggers will get several incentives like free products, cash endorsement, etc.
Cons
- Results take a long time- A blog will take 6-12 months before it will take off. Less-driven bloggers will quit during this timeframe.
- Ever-changing space- The blogging world is constantly changing, and you have to be always on the lookout for new trends and movements.
- Need good writing skills- Don’t get me wrong, but people who don’t have good writing skills can run profitable blogs. But they will have to hire writers, which makes the business extra risky.
- Niche saturation- Profitable blogging topics or niches are crowded with competitors. Finding a profitable niche is the biggest challenge faced by a new blogger.
How to Start a Blogging Business in 2024
If you are ready to build your blog, then the process below will help you in this venture and guide you through the process.
1. Pick a Niche for your Blog
Selecting a niche for your blog is not very fun, but it is a crucial stage that can either propel you or be the reason for your doom. It is an important step as it will allow your readers to know what you are writing about. If you don’t select a good niche for your blog, then a reader won’t come to read your blog.
Bloggers who are making good money today have stuck to a topic, especially at the start. This has allowed them to build authority amongst the audience in the niche. If a blog has different topics, then it will be hard to build an audience for your blog.
Picking a blog can be quite challenging, but it is one of the easiest as well. Choose a niche where you have expertise or have some knowledge that you want to explore.
2. Decide a Business Structure
If you are planning to create a blog that will turn into a business, you need to take an important step and decide on your business entity. The two most common options are:
1. Solo proprietorship
Several bloggers will stick to sole proprietorship, which means you are the sole owner of your business and are responsible for all the assets and liabilities. There is no legal paperwork for running your blog as a sole proprietor.
You may have to check with your local government if your business needs to acquire a license. Some countries require bloggers to obtain a general business license to operate in their jurisdiction.
2. Limited Liability Company or LLC
LLC is a costlier proposition compared to sole proprietorship, but it comes with some advantages. For once, it will protect your assets in case your business goes through a legal or financial rough patch. This type of business is taxed lower when compared to sole proprietorships.
3. Get a Good Blogging Platform and Hosting
Starting a blog may look easy, but you need a versatile blogging platform to get going. The blogging platform is a home for your blog, and you need to select a blog that gives you security and reassurance that readers will easily find your blog and walk around without having to wait ages to reload any pages.
WordPress is considerably one of the best platforms that have to consider when choosing a good blogging platform. It offers excellent performance and the best reliability. You may consider going for a free plan offered by it; however, that won’t help in the long run.
If you are looking for a reliable option, then Bluehost is an ideal hosting provider to help you get your blogging up and going without much hassle. The provider is capable of handling the demands of both beginners as well as experienced users. To top it off, it is recommended by WordPress as a powerful hosting provider in the market.
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The provider is highly reliable, safe, and affordable and offers a free domain once you sign up for it. This is one of the best perks that comes at such a price, with excellent support options.
Bluehost has a good website builder where you can customize each aspect of your website without needing any technical knowledge. It has a large list of templates where you can base your entire website. The tool has good digital marketing tools with great social media marketing, advertisement, and content creation possibilities for your website.
Bluehost comes with loads of hosting and dedicated servers for your domain names. You can start a blog with $2.75 per month, alongside the outstanding features to give you the desired performance. This is great if you are a hobbyist and not doing it as a full-time gig. In case you want more features, then it is easily scalable, and it allows you to manage multiple sites without a major hurdle.
4. Bring Your Blog Live
Once you have selected the niche and finalized the blogging provider, the next step is to get your blog to life. After you have installed WordPress with Bluehost, you can customize things by following its simple interface and instructions.
You can also ask someone on the Internet to get you going. This is not great if you are short on resources. However, the simplistic nature of Bluehost allows you to create it without any knowledge of websites.
5. Write Quality Content for Your Blog
Most bloggers fail with their blogs as they focus on quantity over quality. They consider that posting more content means more traffic, but that is not something that works in 2024.
Blogs need an amazing piece of content that will actually make people read your blog and want to come for more. However, this is not only something that will help you stand out to build trust with your audience.
A good blog needs good SEO capabilities to help rank higher on search engines. Bluehost has SEO-friendly features that help create URLs and meta tags for your posts. It also has Yoast SEO that helps efficiently rank your blog with utmost efficiency.
6. Promote Your Blog
Getting traffic for your blog on Google is tough at the start, so leveraging traffic from other channels, like social channels, is important for promoting your content. However, if you are consistent and persistent, you can become a successful blogger.
Even if you have amazing content with SEO features, you have to promote it everywhere. WordPress can help you reach your full potential and check your statistics to see important metrics and find ways to improve them.
7. Monetize Your Blog
Everyone plans to make money through blogging and quit their conventional jobs. However, it is important to know that it is not possible to make money right from the beginning. You have to consistently put in effort to get traffic to your blog.
You can monetize your blogs using different methods. The most common way to monetize a blog with Bluehost is through advertisements. Affiliate marketing or setting up an eCommerce store is another way you can earn money through the platform. Apart from this, you can sell courses, do paid promotions, consultation services, etc.
Can a Blog be a Business in 2024?
If you are still reading this blog, then you are very much interested in starting a blog and making a living from it. Blogging is very much alive today and is a great tool to earn money today. Even if you see the rapid growth of YouTube, Twitter, and other social channels, blogging is still part of people’s lives, and it will forever be as long as there is the internet.
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