Why you should treat your blog as a business

We all started our blog to share our passion with the world. We all want to gather a like-minded audience around us, we all want to educate others, and we all want to share our thoughts or work with as many people as possible.
And we all want to make some money out of this. And making money means you're running a business

Most of us are blogging alone, without a team, meaning we are all solopreneurs. We are responsible for our content, for the marketing and promotion of our blog, for the interaction with our readers, etc.
You are the CEO of a company with many divisions. Being CEO also comes with responsibilities, such as:

So, it all comes down to getting the right 'business' mindset. And this also means setting clear goals, strategizing your decisions, and treating your blog seriously.

A successful blog starts with finding the right niche, understanding what your audience is looking for, and giving them what they want.
Your niche should be specific enough to attract a dedicated following but also broad enough to allow for diversification.

Think about opening your own restaurant. You will not sell 'just food'; you will not open a restaurant serving vegan dishes, steaks, Chinese food, pizzas, and seafood on the menu. No, you will probably niche down to one specific segment of dishes like steaks and become the best. And later on, you can always put new dishes on the menu, like skewers.
Also, when you have such a wide variety of dishes on your menu, your clients will not know what you are specialized in. And you can't be the best in everything.
The same applies to your blog; focus on one niche and become the best. Later on, you can always broaden that niche.
By defining our niche, you also know who your audience will be. And it is much easier to please a known audience than to please everyone on this planet.

If you plan to make money from your blog, you also need to know how you will make money from it. It may look very trivial, but many bloggers forget about this aspect (me included).

You should join an affiliate program if you plan to sell affiliate products.
If you plan to sell courses or do consulting, you should have at least something to sell.
You should focus on at least one of the monetization strategies (advertising, affiliate marketing, courses or ebooks, subscriptions) from the beginning.

You may have the most fancy storefront, but if you don't have items inside your shop, you won't make any money. People may come and admire your shop window (your blogs), but they won't buy anything because there is nothing they can buy.

One of the many positions you will occupy as your blog's CEO is being your blog's marketing department.
Marketing is essential to growing your blog business and reaching a wider audience.

Every business needs to spend time to market and promote their brand, and blogging is no different.
You may have the best restaurant with the most delicious food, but if nobody knows there is a restaurant, you won't see any clients and have no revenue.
The same goes for blogging: you may write the most brilliant content, but if nobody sees it, it is useless.

Don't only rely on revenue from ads (by optimizing tour blog for SEO), but also promote your blog on different social media channels. You know your target audience, so you should know what social media platforms they visit most. Start promoting your blog accordingly (it can be Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.).
And again, focus on one channel at a time. You can't be an expert in everything.

A good content strategy is crucial for maintaining consistency and quality. As a business, your blog offers valuable, relevant, and engaging content that meets the needs of your readers.
Depending on your niche, you will see some seasonality in the number of visits and income. You can cover this by writing evergreen content or content for every season of the year.

Think of it as a clothing shop; you won't only sell summer clothing. If you do, there will be very few sales when it's snowing outside.
The same applies to your blog. If your niche is gardening, most readers will come in the spring and summer. You can cover this by writing some posts about what you can do in your garden during winter. Or how to grow vegetables indoors.
You can also diversify your content by writing different blog formats such as how-to guides, case studies, interviews, etc. This will keep your audience engaged and also attract different kinds of readers.

The above is all about planning; you also need a strategy to make money. Attracting readers is not your only target; you also have to make sure they buy one of your offers.
In the near future, I will write an article about creating a great funnel for the things you have to offer on your blog and why your blog needs a USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

As with every business, quality is key.
If a blog is poorly written with spelling mistakes and bad photos or your content is not relevant or low quality, people won't continue reading and certainly won't come back or subscribe to your newsletter.
Be sure you have some quality control for every post you publish.

Would you return to a restaurant where your steak was burnt and served with sour mushroom sauce? No, that's for sure. The same applies to your blog. You have to make sure every blog post passes your quality control.

Running a blog as business involves continuous learning and developing news kills in fields as content creation, marketing, data analysis, and SEO.
This not only enhances your capabilities as a blogger but also can be valuable in other professional contexts.
You will also grow as a person by interacting with other people, negotiation sponsorship deals, meeting colleague bloggers, etc.

As your blog business takes off, you might be able to hire team members or outsource tasks. You will not be a solopreneur anymore but the CEO of a real business!