10 Ways To Transform Your Blog Into a Brand

How I became a business owner overnight

In case you were wondering whether it was possible to transform your blog into a brand, yes you can. You can absolutely transform your blog into a brand and I’m going to show you how in this post.

A few years ago, I started blogging as a hobby, I had a lot of free time on my hand and I was always surfing the net for information.

At that time, I was really crazy about makeup and fashion, so I opened a free WordPress blog and started sharing makeup tips that I had googled and I would copy and paste them on my new blog.

I even included pictures that I had saved from Google. You couldn’t blame me, I had the passion but no knowledge.

Later on, I started hearing about bloggers who were doing well with their blog and the one that struck me most was how Nigerian blogger, Linda Ikeji made millions regularly from her blog.

That prompted me to start researching how I could also turn my blog into a money-making machine. And it led me to understand that if I really wanted to succeed with my blog, I had to start creating original content people would love to read.

Eventually, in 2019, I started another blog, this time on a paid platform and with a niche and my own ideas and also with my writing game. This one was sweeter and easier because I had a bit of focus on my content.

But one thing stood out to me during my research. I found that many bloggers always referred to their blog as their business. They called their subscribers clients and their content their products.

This really changed my mindset about blogging and changed how I approached my blog altogether.

With my blog, I have been able to sell my services as a web developer and social media manager. I have also been able to position myself as an expert in my niche.

How do you transform your blog into a brand?

1. Focus on Your Niche

To transform your blog into a brand, you have to focus on a particular niche. Every successful business owner has a particular market that they serve. You cannot enter into a fashion design shop and buy ready-made food.

What I’m saying is this, you have to figure out what you want your blog to be about. This will allow you to focus on the business of that niche.

For instance, my blog is about online business branding, automatically, my business is about helping people set up their online business and create a brand around it.

2. Write For Your Audience

If you want to successfully transform your blog into a brand, you have to write for your audience. The mistakes many bloggers make is that they write for themselves. Or better still, they write what they would like to read.

You have to understand that you are not your target audience. As much as it is important to write on what you are passionate about, you have to make sure that it is what your audience will enjoy.

Having an ideal reader helps you to narrow down who the reader actually is and what their problems might be so that you can write out a solution for them in your blog posts.

3. Build a Community

A huge part of being able to transform your blog into a brand is to build a community of loyal followers or audience.

According to Wikipedia, a community is a condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common. This means that your community must consist of people who have the same interest as you.

Your community is the first group that learns about your new product, a service you are launching, your new blog post or your youTube video. They are generally like your fan base.

To transform your blog into a brand, build an audience. And to do this properly, you have to first identify the platform you want to use. There are many of them. You could open a Facebook group, a Telegram group, an email list or a social media following.

For instance, my Facebook group, The Digital Entrepreneurs’ Community is a community I started to help creative entrepreneurs learn to build a successful business with digital technology.

Let me leave a disclaimer here, don’t open a group, hoping that the members are mandated to buy anything you sell. They will only buy if they trust you very well and that’s up to you to make happen.

4. Have a Business Plan

A business plan is absolutely important if you want to successfully transform your blog into a business.

I’ve learnt from some successful bloggers that you actually need a business plan for your blog.

When I say a business plan, I don’t mean such as the one you write when you’re trying to get a loan of a million dollars for your business. Just a guide to help you transform your blog into a brand.

A simple business plan will contain information on the following and help you figure out how you will build a successful brand

• What’s the purpose of my blog?
• Who is my blog serving?
• What will set me apart from other bloggers?
• How will I attract my target audience?

5. Write High-Quality Content

Do you want your blog posts to show up on search results and get clicked by people who are in your target audience? Then you have to write high-quality content.

Many people believe in stocking their blog posts with keywords will help them rank at the top of Google search results page. But the truth us, Google prioritizes relevance over keywords.

If people are clicking your blog posts and spending time on it, no matter how low you are on the first page, Google will rank your page higher than those who cluelessly stock their posts with keywords.

So next time when you’re writing a blog post, make sure that you are not only optimizing for keywords but you are writing what people actually want to read.

6. Develop a Posting Strategy

Develop a posting strategy for your blog posts so that you will not only be productive but will also have enough content for your readers to read when they hop on your blog.

For me, I have a content calendar for all my blog posts and my categories. I have 6 categories that I write about. They are blogging, branding, web development, digital marketing, social media and design.

In order to avoid burning out, I created a content calendar under each category. And since I post every week, I have at least 4–6 topics on every category.

So during the week, after posting one article, I start developing my outlines for the next article. And after a while, I flesh them out, add my introduction and conclusion posts to it.

7. Learn From Others

Learning from others is something that I value a lot. I watch a lot of videos and read blogs on a regular basis. My research skills are top-notch.

I always tell my blogging students that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, you don’t need to figure everything out on your own. You have to actively learn from other people.

I mentioned earlier that when I started out, I did a lot of research on how to make my blog better every day.

It was this research that led me to understand that it was easy to transform my blog into a full business brand.

One thing you should keep in mind is that it’s absolutely alright to learn from other people. Don’t be too proud to let people know how much you don’t know and be humble enough to learn from people.

8. Use Third-Party Tools

I am a sucker for third-party tools. I love tools a lot because they make me very productive. I have a whole lot of tools and mobile apps that I use to stay creative and productive.

I use tools like Canva to create designs for my social media. I use Snapseed to edit my pictures, I use Inshot to edit my videos for Youtube. I use Google Analytics to measure how my blog is doing and so many others.

9. Leverage Social Media

You definitely have to leverage social media if you want to successfully transform your blog into a business. Social media is where your target audience is.

From sharing your blog posts to social media or repurposing your blog articles into social media content, you can build a brand on social media.

Choose 3–4 social media platforms that you think your audience is and start sharing your content there. You need to show up on social media always, create a posting strategy for your social media as well so that you can show up properly.

10. Market Your Brand

Now that you have taken a few action steps, it is time to market your brand. It is time to position yourself as an expert in that niche.

Start by creating a marketing strategy 9yes you need to come up with a strategy for everything). You need a strategy for social media marketing and other kinds of marketing.

Run Facebook ads and target your custom audience, install Facebook pixel on your blog so that you can retarget people who come to your website and leave without taking any action.

Apart from online ads, you can also pitch to people on social platforms and in your network or community. Get started with these steps as quickly as you can, don’t procrastinate and let go of any self-doubt that you may have.

You can transform your blog into a business if you take the right steps.