How to Grow your Blog in Q4. | Blogtober

The last quarter of the year, from October-December, is when most bloggers make the most of their money. Thanks to all of the holiday shopping, Black Friday deals, and Amazon Prime day. There are a lot more people searching for products to buy, which means more views for your blog and hopefully more income!

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

If you’re not taking advantage of all these opportunities to grow your blog and your income, you’re missing out! So in this post, I’m going to go over a few ways you can grow your blog in Q4!

• How can you make money blogging?

Before we answer the question of how to grow our income, let’s go over a few ways we can make money blogging.

The 3 main ways to make money in Q4 are;

1. Affiliate marketing
2. Sponsored posts
3. Selling your own products
   

Briefly, I’ll explain what these are.

1. Affiliate marketing

This is the first way many bloggers start out making money, and one of the best and easiest ways to grow your blog in Q4!

How you can start out with affiliate marketing is by signing up to become an affiliate for a store or a product you’ve bought. The easiest one to start with is Amazon since they sell everything,  but you can pick pretty much any of your favorite stores. Almost every store and product has an affiliate program.

Once you sign up and get approved, you will be able to get special links to products that have a special “affiliate tracking code” in them. This is the link you can promote on social media, and put in blog posts.

When someone clicks on your link, the tracking code will realize they came from your special link and redirect them to whatever product you recommended. If that person then buys that product, you get a portion of the sale!

In some cases, even if the person didn’t buy the product you sent them for but they buy something else, you get a portion of that sale instead!

There’s a lot more that goes into affiliate marketing, but that’s the basics.

 

2. Sponsored posts

Sponsored posts are when you reach out to a brand (or they reach out to you) for a collaboration.

They send you a product to review or test out, and you post a blog post or social media post with that review. In exchange you could get;

• Free product only
• Free product, and a one-time payment for the post
• Free product and a portion of each sale you make
• A combination of both!

What you get really depends on the terms you agree to with the brand and how many followers you have. 

 

3. Selling your own product

If you’re far enough along into your blogging journey that you know what type of product you want to sell, this can be a great way to make money and grow your blog in Q4!

It’s really just like it sounds, you create a product that you know your audience wants and you find a platform like Etsy or Gumroad to sell it on!

 

Now that we know how best to make money in Q4, let’s go more in-depth on some of the best ways to grow your blog this year!

1. Grow your affiliate income

Since more people are going to be looking to buy gifts and other things for the holidays, the end of the year is the perfect time to grow your affiliate income!

Here are a few ways you can do that.

• Gift guides

People love reading gift guides around the holidays! Are you can do so many different types.

• Gift guides for women/men
• What to get your boyfriend/girlfriend
• The perfect gift for mom/dad
• What to get the person who has everything
• White Elephant/ secret Santa gifts
• Gifts under $10 (or any amount)
• The perfect gag gift

The great thing about these posts is the are simple to make, will bring you a lot of views, and can bring you some sales as well!

All you have to do is research some gifts on Amazon or some other store and make a list of products that you’re an affiliate for! Then, once people click on those links if they make a purchase- you make money.

• Fashion guides

Photo by Alisa Anton on Unsplash

 

I have been loving writing these on my blog lately! So many people love Fall and winter and look for clothes to include in their wardrobe for the end of the year!

So you could do posts like;

• Fall fashion guide for women
• Cheap Halloween costumes
• A specific type of clothing guide (Ex: Cutest sweaters to wear, the best Fall boots for your wardrobe ect..)

 

2. Sponsored posts

Now that the holidays are coming up, many more brands want to get their products out there in front of customers! Which is great for bloggers trying to make money!

Getting sponsored posts is not easy, but they will be made slightly more easy by the fact that brands are usually more willing to work with bloggers and online business owners to make sure they get the most exposure possible to their products.

Here are a few ways you can try to get sponsored posts;

• Reach out to brands

Research the brands that you know and love and reach out to them through their PR email. Or, if you can’t find an email, reach out to them via social media.

 

I don’t recommend pitching yourself to brands in their Twitter DMs, but telling them who you are and what you do (i.e. you’re a blogger looking to work with their brand) and asking if they have an email you can send a request to.

You want to be professional when reaching out to brands!

• Search the Twitter hashtag #bloggerswanted

Social media has made it so much easier to reach out to brands and find people to work with. The hashtag #bloggerswanted on Twitter is used specifically to help brands get in touch with bloggers! So take advantage!

 

3. Participate in blogging challenges

Not only can you grow your income in Q4 but you can grow your blog views as well! By taking part in blogging challenges such as Blogtober or Blogmas, you can increase your blog views!

• What is Blogtober/Blogmas?

These are challenges created by bloggers to increase the number of posts the produce, and a way to increase the income as well!

The challenge is to post every single day in October (for Blogtober) or every single day in December (Blogmas). You can take either challenge or really push yourself and try to do both!

 

Conclusion

There are a lot of ways you can grow your blog in Q4! From increasing affiliate income, working on sponsored content, or growing your views! I hope you’ve found a few ways to maximize the end of the year hustle and bustle!

 

About the author:

Hi! My name is Sarah and I’m the owner of the blog Businesswomenthrive.com. My mission is to help women build their blogs and live a better life overall! I write about blogging tips, mindset, and productivity tips!

 

Find me on social media here:

Blog: www.businesswomenthrive.com
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/businesswomenthrive/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/B_WomenThrive
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/businesswomenthrive/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNbedpbAzcH3gkTNY7-Iseg