Blog Monetization Myth #3: I can’t monetize without social media.

How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger: 7 Ways to Monetize Your Content

This is the third post in which I bust common blog monetization myths with the hope of empowering you to take more action and earn from your platform sooner rather than later.

Here are the first two:

Today’s one is a big deal because I hear it all the time and it’s often even stopping people from actually starting blogs.

Most bloggers are introverts and so am I. That means we don’t really want to be the face of the brand or to take pictures of ourselves often or to share every little detail from our daily life and feel like an influencer.

We would much rather avoid any video content and photos and just write blog posts, optimize them, use email, take courses, listen to podcasts to learn more about the industry and so on.

Social media can be draining. It can be too much most of the time and we just compare ourselves to others. We see how slowly our following is growing and we end up posting because we have to, not because we want to.

Not to mention all this actually takes us away from the real business activities. The income generating blogging tasks such as content creation, content optimization, content marketing, email marketing, affiliate marketing and so on.

Well, I’m here to tell you there are other ways and you can indeed grow a blogging business without social media, without Facebook or Instagram or TikTok.

That, of course, is only in case you don’t want to show your face there and don’t want to keep up with others or be an influencer in any way. Because that’s how I am.

If you enjoy any of these channels and creating content regularly for them sounds fun and it doesn’t take you away from your actual blogging tasks, then go for it.

But if you’re looking for another way, this post is for you. I actually have two articles on that topic that you might want to check out after this one.

The first one is from 2022 when I was just done with Instagram yet again and explained how social media for business is draining me, why I’m done with it and what I’m doing instead.

I shared how I’m making my blogging business more interactive but without socials. As well as how social media hurts us and the price we pay for endless scrolling and where to promote your stuff if not on socials. Check it out here.

The second one is from the beginning of this year and it’s all about how I promote a new offer without social media. That’s in case you have paid offers in your business, most likely digital products.

I used the membership as an example and talked about the exact ways I was and am promoting it directly and indirectly, how to give potential customers many points of entry and how to do all that naturally without being too salesy or annoying people.

Now, you might be eager to hear some actual ways to grow your blog and make money from it that don’t include social media. So let’s get into that.

How to Grow Your Blog Without Social Media

You still need to have blog traffic to promote your content, to increase your domain authority and to monetize strategically. It’s just that all this is happening without Instagram or Twitter or anything like that.

It does involve Pinterest though, which is not social media but a key component of a blogging business, I believe.

You can use its search field to find keywords people are looking for and create blog posts around that. You can also directly share affiliate links on it, which is a way to directly monetize your content on Pinterest. But mostly it’s a way to bring traffic even to a new blog.

Also, it’s how you can bring old blog posts back to life because on Pinterest it doesn’t matter when you published the piece of content you’re promoting.

Next, your email list is your biggest asset. And while it will take time to grow it, the people on it are your biggest fans.

Many bloggers avoid having an email list for years but I do believe it’s another essential component of a blogging business. At least if you want to build lasting relationships, actually give people a way to be part of your community and if you’re going to have paid offers to promote to them eventually.

Another one of the big things you have to be doing to promote your content and grow your blog as well as email list is creating strategic and optimized content consistently.

There is no way around that. It’s what blogging is all about ultimately.

As that content gains traction in search engines, you can get more visitors to your site.

Google can start trusting your site more and increasing its authority which will eventually attract brands that want to work with you and will lead to other collaborations.

The people who find those posts will find value in them, they can read more of your articles and can sign up to your email list. Then they might be part of your sales funnel and be presented a small initial offer and later a higher priced product.

And as your blog traffic grows thanks to your content, you can also monetize with ads, focus more on affiliate marketing, monetize your email list directly, create digital products or scale in many other ways.

You can also guest post on other sites and build your expertise in your niche as well as do link exchanges with other bloggers or get featured on other platforms in different ways.

I have a post on blogger outreach where I share strategies on how to do that.

If you are ready to start other projects, you can also have a podcast like this one or a YouTube channel if video is your thing. That’s not social media and while it takes time, a lot of it, and creating a lot of content in a completely different format, it can lead to growing your audience and landing partnerships and traffic to your blog and so much more.

You can also directly monetize those platforms, the podcast and the YouTube channel.

So these are some things that you can consider if you want to grow your blog traffic and income but don’t want to be on social media. There are no shortcuts though, it’s not something that happens overnight. All of the things I mentioned are part of your long-term strategy except for Pinterest which can actually bring you short-term traffic.

But all of these are proven strategies that get results over time and which can lead to building a business that produces a consistent revenue month after month which is ultimately our goal here, right?

And if you are looking for specific ways to monetize your website as soon as possible and want support along the way, you know the Blog Monetization challenge is happening right now inside the membership. Here’s the enrolment page so feel free to join us. I’d love to have you there.

Prefer to listen to this article instead? Check out the podcast episode below:

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