According to Problogger, any business blogger with creative content that gathers 800-1000 clicks per day can make up to $10,000 a year. Undoubtedly, this can be done through the number of views generated in the blog.
If you’re not able to generate that kind of revenue, then you might need to do something different. Clearly, this is the best way if you want to convert your traffic into dollars.
Sometimes, running AdSense ads or serving as an affiliate marketer isn’t enough. The simplest and most sustainable way to increase revenue is by venturing into ecommerce.
Why should you sell online?
Ecommerce is growing at a rapid pace. More than 21% of the world’s population shops online. Obviously, millennials make more than 54% of their purchases over the internet. 26% of shoppers had made a purchase decision in the last 3 months based on recommendations from micro-influencers. This shows that having a small and a loyal group of online followers can pave the way for a natural transition into ecommerce.
If you already run a website with good organic traffic, there is a significant probability that people will engage with any products you choose to offer.
What can you sell?
The options are endless. The key is to stick to your niche. Most successful bloggers start off by selling ebooks. Eventually, they expand to video courses relevant to their audience’s main interests, with some bloggers going on to become massively successful ecommerce entrepreneurs.
Many online entrepreneurs start out with a drop shipping operation. This is done before building out their own line of products. This can help you learn the dynamics of an ecommerce operation and build up a customer base without making a big commitment at the outset. The important part is finding products that fit well into your niche. Post that, it is just a matter of letting your dropshipping partners take care of stock and deliveries. With convenient dropshipping services like Oberlo, it’s easy to connect with manufacturers to market and sell their products.
For example, if you’re a travel blogger, you can pick out products related to your niche. Say, for example, sleeping bags, tents, and flashlights—to sell on your blog. The key is to do good research on the dropshipper and ensure they can fulfill all your orders.
The advantage of dropshipping is that you don’t have to hold any physical stock of the product. Every order that comes into your website is sent to the dropshipping service and is fulfilled by the manufacturers themselves. This may not be the best long-term strategy, but someone getting the hang of ecommerce can benefit greatly from the experience before moving on to a more sustainable business strategy. If you are adventurous, you can even try your hand at creating your own range of products.
How to sell?
If you are looking to sell products through your blog, utilizing an embedded buy button is a great option. For one of the most convenient ways of implementing a buy button feature, you’ll just need Zoho Commerce to act as your store’s back end. You can easily upload products to sell on your site and create “Buy now” embed codes for each product.
Your website visitors can just click on the buy now button and directly checkout through Zoho Commerce. Since Zoho Commerce is a SaaS product, there is no coding required to build any aspect of your store. You can upload products directly and set up shipping and payment options as needed. This allows you to have the complete functionality of an online store without any of the hassle.
How to monetize with the buy button?
Once you’ve decided on which products you want to sell, you’ll want to ensure that you integrate them into your existing site in an effective way. Here are a few strategies for building visibility and buzz for your ecommerce project:
Identifying where to place your products:
A simple audit of your website will help you identify which blog posts or web pages are most relevant to your chosen products. These pages should have information related to the benefits or usage of the product, which should flow naturally into your pitch.
You can also use data from Google Analytics to identify your best performing pages for organic traffic to increase the visibility of your products.
Run an email campaign:
Bloggers who have a high level of engagement with their email list should announce their products with an email blast for high visibility.
Building buzz around your product:
Reach out to your readers and request that they review your products or show some love on social media. You can incentivize them with discounted or free product to help get the word out.
Run social ads:
Facebook and Instagram ads are cheap and can help greatly in targeting your audience niche, especially if you already have a solid following on either platform.
Provide support:
When you enter into ecommerce, it is crucial to have a good customer support system. Set up a dedicated email address and give timely support to provide an all-around high quality customer experience.
If you have a significant amount of traffic coming to your website, then Ecommerce is one of the most sustainable ways to both monetize and build your brand. The Zoho Commerce buy button provides a convenient user experience by letting your followers seamlessly shop from your existing website without making any substantial changes to its interface. If any of this sounds good to you, then perhaps it’s time for you to start your journey to becoming an independent Ecommerce entrepreneur.
1 comments
Very lucid, helpful blog. It is a good how to do kind of a manual for starters.