An Idea For Monetizing Your Blog

Monetize Your Blog With An Ecommerce Store

Have you tried everything to monetize your blog with little to no luck? 

I'm sure there have been others who have said what I'm about to say, but I don't see it too much from bloggers.

Why not make your blog part of an ecommerce store?  Then you can spend some time blogging about the products that you have for sale as well as other things you are interested in.  Mix it up a bit.

You know how everyone talks about niche marketing, right? 

Consider this,  you only have so much time in a day.  Do you, as an individual, have time to run more than one website or blog?  

Maybe if you own a big company, you can assign people to tackle multiple niches.  But if you are a one woman or one man show, maybe it is better to focus on a single site?

Many Relatively Inexpensive Solutions For Ecommerce

There are many Ecommerce providers.   For example, there is 3D cart,  BigCommerce,  Shopify and Volusion and many other Ecommerce solutions. 

With many of them, you can get a store front for as little as $20 or $30 per month.  It's relatively low risk. 

Some Words Of Wisdom Based On Experience

Spend some time checking out your shopping cart solution before you invest in it.  If the platform is hosted by another company, take some time to make sure they are updating their shopping cart product all of the time.

There is always a new way to improve your shopping cart.  If your provider is not making constant upgrades, you might shy away from them.   Things change quickly on the Internet.  


You don't want to be stuck with platform that doesn't update very often.  You will fall far behind feature rich providers very quickly that way.

Very important: Be very wary of shopping cart solutions that charge a percentage of your monthly sales.   That's not good.  You only want to pay a fixed monthly fee that you can easily keep track of. 

There are enough providers that operate on the fixed monthly fee to choose from. 

You should only choose the percentage model if you get MASSIVE value in return.  In other words if they are selling stuff for you.    No,  I don't know of anyone that does that, before you ask. 

It's Hard To Move Once You Choose

You'll want to be very careful about your choice because once you are established, it is very difficult to change providers, without having problems.   For example:  You'll need to create a lot of redirect links.  That is work.  

It will have a big impact on any search engine traffic you have been getting.  Once you change carts, the search engines will take some time to update.  It may not initially be as good as what you had. 

For these reasons, choose wisely in the first place.  Make sure you have a good provider.  Do a search for complaints about all providers you are considering.  That might provide some insight you would not otherwise obtain.

The sales people from each platform sure aren't going to tell you about those complaints.  Therefore, seek them out on your own.  

 

Support And Sales People May Not Be The Best To Ask About Promoting Your Store

Remember, that the tech support and salesman probably don't know that much about Ecommerce.  If they were really skilled at it, they would probably being doing that instead of selling or providing tech support.   

Therefore,  the advice you get from anyone at your Ecommerce provider company should be taken with a grain of salt.   Beware of extra services like paid SEO and DataFeeds or PPC services. 

Usually a company is good at one thing, and not so good at these others.  They may also just be looking to sell extra services whereby they take more value than they give. 

If you need help in those areas, go somewhere else.   Unfortunately, these things are difficult to work out in a positive way for you.  They usually end up costi

ng you money with little verifiable ROI.  So be careful when anyone tries to offer you these things.  This goes for non Ecommerce platform companies as well. 

Many people are good at selling the sizzle.  But if there is no steak in their product, that sizzle does little to no good!  

Positive Side

Selling directly from your own store has some benefits.   Affiliate programs have a lot of problems.  They don't always track correctly and you can lose many sales via the telephone as well.  

Most affiliate managers would like you to believe otherwise, but they really cannot (or are not willing)  to control these things.  You will most likely lose out on sales that you rightfully deserve as an affiliate.

If you sell directly from your website,  you can be confident that you are getting all the sales you earned. 


I hope you found this information helpful.    If you have comments or questions, use the section below to share them or ask.

 

Negative Side

It's not for everyone.  Competition is fierce.  Costs can vary.  You have stock and keep track of inventory, collect taxes, AND promote your online store.  

In addition, you will need a merchant account and security certifications.   There is plenty of work involved. 

In the end, you will have to weigh all of your options carefully before deciding. 

Sincerely,

David Snape