Growing from BLOG to BUSINESS

In my experience (both my own + working with other clients who worked from blogs to offers) setting up a business page either as default where your blog is located today or as main domain off of which your blog resides doesn't matter all that much in terms of converting blog traffic to buy more.

What works better is optimizing they key content on your blog (top 20 or 30 pieces of content to start with) so that they readers move from that content to a relevant offer (one of your products or affiliate offer). What often works well is moving free content readers into a sales funnel (course, tips program, highly desired resource, etc...) which then captures their interest and places a paid product(s) in front of them through the sales funnel.

Capturing their interest can happen through inserted links right in the content, an opt-in box in line with body content or immediately following the body content - this is where you want to experiment. I have had very good results going back and taking my top 20 blog posts and revising them to put offers/sales funnels in front of them and take them into paid offers.

Jeff

There are a couple things to think about.

1. New Coke vs Coke classic. The moron that thought new coke was a good idea was eventually fired. Coke lost hundreds of millions.

If you've built an online brand or avatar then keep it. They are hard enough to do the first time without doing it twice.

2. It sounds like you need to do exactly as JBSmith said, that's actually the same advice that I would have given too.

3. Then it sounds like you need to build a list and build your funnel.
Not an upsell downsell funnel that pisses everyone off, but a simple funnel leading to a big ticket which is where all the money is.


To your success.

NO! Start your new venture apart from what you already have. Test, test, test!

You don't change anything cause you feel like it.

Research copyblogger

He did what you're trying to do

His online property is now worth millions

In the past I always wrote my content in a way to sell my products. Sure I give value first but structure every single piece of content...from title with targeted key words...to potential problems of my readership...right down to a "call to action" telling them to click a link below the post body that takes them to my lead capture page (that redirects them to a relevant sales video that reinforces everything that I promised them for visiting my capture page...a solution to their problems etc).

You can put banners on your blog but people like to get told what to do (if they believe what you are telling them...will help them).

Hope this makes some sense to you.

How do you know you're going to sell more if you change? How do you know they are not buying from you because you're not a business but a blogger?

I'm with Enfusia and the don't change crowd. It ain't broken, so what are you fixing?

How much of your traffic comes from Google, organically? (If you ever choose to change and you get traffic that way, you need to be extra careful: one little change can cost you all that traffic. Realistically, all... Going from #1 to #11 in Google is that significant.)

I would listen to what Jeff (JBSmith) said above. If your audience is the least bit loyal and engaged, you should be able to change your home page from time to time without serious negative fallout. I have done that without major problems. I would "warn" your audience that change is coming at least a month in advance, though . . . then you're not surprising anyone when it happens. Of course, you can still have snippets or "teasers" of your latest blog posts right on the home page for those that want quick access.

All this goes without saying that you should test and track your changes to see what the actual effects might be.

Yes, I am in the camp that says to relocate your blog to the "inner site" but that's just me. If your platform is WP and you have a flexible theme, doing this should be quite easy and painless.

The best of luck on your site, whatever you choose.

Steve