Hey lovelies, I’m back with a new blogging tips post. As we have now entered Q4 of the year, the chance to make a big income from your blog is now. Q4 includes many of the big consumer holidays of the year, making it prime time to book in sponsored work and make more affiliate sales. In previous years, I’ve made more money in Q4 than Q1-3 put together. Today I’m going to share with you EVERYTHING I know. I will also be sharing every free/ purchased resource I’m currently using. Disclaimer there are some affiliate links used, I only share resources I believe in.
Before I even get started, everything I’ve learnt about money making is from Emily and her money making guide (AF). I couldn’t recommend it more. If you’re looking to create a blog that makes money this is the course you need to invest in.
Start Improving Your Domain Authority Now
I recently got my Domain Authority to 30, I’ve wrote about it here if you wanted to have a browse. Once my DA hit 30 I almost tripled my rates. Yes, you read that right. It means I’ve been able to apply for more sponsored content pieces through twitter or campaigns. It really has made all the difference, especially with Christmas content.
It is nice to aim for 30, but with 3 months left of the year it may not be possible to up your DA that much, aim for something reasonable to you and your blog. Make sure that you’re using good keywords so that you can improve your organic reach. It is possible for Christmas posts to rank on the first page of google very quickly – this has happened to me on multiple occasions.
Grow Your Mailing List
As a blogger having a mailing list is a must if you want to skyrocket your sales. You do not need hundreds of followers to do this either. It’s about understand your audience, why they follow you, building a relationship with your users and using this your advantage.
If you’re a fashion blogger, you can use a mailing list to showcase your new looks, include affiliate links and so on. How you would use your mailing list changes niche to niche, but ultimately it’s about understanding your readership!
Make sure that your welcome sequence is something that will get people waiting for your next correspondence. It makes all the difference.
Reach Out To Brands & Create Lasting Brand Relationships
When it comes to making content in the last quarter of the year, you need to be reaching out to brands yourself. Pitching yourself and making new brand relations. Sponsored work wont always come to you, and sometimes working on gifted content leads to a lasting relationship down the line.
I know that everyone will bang on about not working for products, but in the past this has given me relationships with brands that have become some of my best paid collaborations. It’s down to your discretion with what you’re happy to work for but it’s not always about the short term payment. A lasting relationship means you can be working with a brand for 4-5 years. In my case I’ve already booked in again with 4/5 of my big clients from last year.
I highly recommend utilising twitter and the prrequest and bloggerswanted hasthtags.
Start Preparing Content Now
The best way to get on-top of the seasonal content is to start working on it now. Start looking up trends for the season, use the Pinterest trends page to find things that are already popular. You can use this to make content that will hit off instantly. Make sure you’re scheduling and regularly posting if you want your audience to be involved. It’s a well known marketing tip that if someone sees something online 7 times or more they are more likely to purchase it!
Optimise your old Christmas/seasonal content if you have it and start editing affiliate links and refreshing them. If you can get your older posts to the first page of google alongside creating new content that will hit off, you’ll be doing incredible.
Affiliate Marketing
Undeniably affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make extra money in the last quarter of the year. It can be done in so many ways. You have cyber weekend which is one of the best time to produce content that is full of affiliate links. This is a great way to bring in sales on affiliate programs like amazon affiliates, or through fashion/lifestyle programs.
Gift guides are an incredible way to do this as well, and with the right Pinterest Marketing you can make a-lot of sales! Obviously some niches will do better than others, for example blogging related resources tend to sell less for me in the last quarter of the year, but my amazon sales and fashion related sales skyrocket.
The platforms that you share your affiliate links on can really make a difference in sales. For example twitter is lucrative sales platform for me when it comes to fashion/lifestyle/books but the same affiliate links make 4 times the income for me on Pinterest. Knowing what platforms to share your links on makes a big difference.
If you want to learn more about affiliate marketing do feel free to browse my affiliate sales ebook – shameless self promo here.
I’m currently working really hard on my mailing list and trying to get my Domain Authority to 35 before the end of the year so that I can improve my rates and make more sales from mailing list. What are your financial goals for your blog for the rest of the year? If there’s any particular content I could make to help you with your blog, leave a recommendation!
If you enjoyed this check out How To Set Financial Goals and How To Start A Mailing List As A Blogger
You always share such a helpful tips and valuable information. These are all the things I really need to work harder on. I’ve been focusing on growing my mail list and putting high-quality content out there. Still trying to get my head around affiliate marketing and the best way to do it.
Antonia || Sweet Passions
Hi Kayleigh
Some good tips there to get bloggers Q4 ready. True, Christmas is an awesome time to capitalise & this blog comes right in time to get us ready for the season.
Cheers
I love all these tips Kayleigh! These sort of posts are amazing for those newbie blogger’s starting out, even blogger’s like me who’ve been around for a while! x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
Great post Kayleigh, this is so helpful for people (like me) who are new to blogging- or at least new to making an income from it 🙂 thanks for sharing!
A great post Kayleigh to help those who wish to monetize! Thanks for sharing!
These are amazing suggestions. Posts like yours are invaluable to new bloggers. Thank you so much!
Hi there.
As always a really useful post. Full of practical tips and the stuff is bloggers all need to know. You are my ‘turn to’ for blogging advice these days.
Thanks,
Abi
I love your blogger tips posts. They’re always so honest and insighftul and give me that little boost to work harder on my blog. I’ll start to implement more of these tips x
http://www.dellalovesnutella.co.uk/
Thank you for this! I’ve been really trying to improve my DA but nothing seems to work 🙁
Firstly how on earth are we in the last quarter??? It’s madness where this year has gone.
Secondly this is really inspiring advice, having watched you grow its been really inspirational and I am always ready to learn more about taking my blog to the next level.
Without your guide, I don’t think I would have even considered affiliated sales as a route for myself. This weekend I celebrated my first sale! So thank you!
I shall be putting some of this in to practice x
I love your posts like this, Kayleigh, they’re so helpful. Affiliate marketing is something I’m useless at (I got my Amazon Associates account revoked for the umpteenth time recently) even though I have your book and have read it cover to cover! I guess I need to figure out what my niche is and take it from there. And I’ve been pondering a gift guide (my first) for this Christmas, so we’ll see if I actually manage it 🙂 Fab post, thank you again for your help x
This is really helpful. I’m not sure I’ll get there this year but it’s a great goal to aim for. Thanks for the tips
Reaching out to brands is something I haven’t done yet. I want to increase followers and views before doing that.
These are fantastic suggestions! I really don’t know much about DA because it’s never been something that’s talked about in the US. I only recently began to look into it I’m doing my best to try and make my blog run faster, because that’s the number one thing lowering my number haha. I’m all for long-term brand partnerships!
I love all the resources provided here for new bloggers like myself! It’s invaluable to know what really works and is worth your investment. I feel like domain authority isn’t talked about enough and I’m always searching for more info! Thanks for sharing
Thank you for the helpful tips! I’ve just started taking my blog more seriously. So I hope to make any sale through affiliate links, especially during Christmas.
Valerie | avecvalerie.com
I think I’m going to reach to some brands to increase income because I have never done that haha. I did some reprainig and it helped increase the views a lot. Thank you for sharing!
I’m still working on starting a mailing list. I know it’s so bad I don’t have one yet, but I’m hoping to start one before the year is up. These tips were very helpful!
Great tips, it’s always good to try and get organised ahead of time. I’m really looking forward to building my traffic up again now I finally have Pinterest working in my favour again x
Sophie
I haven’t reached out to brands yet but I will be. So far I’ve been working on DA with guest posts and ads, I’ve been doing affiliate marketing and promoting my own products. As soon as I create my media kit I will be reaching out to brands I’m confident about. Thanks for sharing this helpful post!
This is very useful information! I would never think of looking for brands by hashtags!
This is some great advice. I feel like every time I start seeing my DA move forward, there’s a shift and I fall back again hahaha! Not much, but it’s that small leap from 8/9 to 10/11 that has been challenging me. I have the Moz Chrome extension and I see many bloggers sharing one specific DA when it reports another (lower) one, so I know that I’m not the only one that saw the impact recently. But it still sucks hahaha