How to Sell Products as a Mom Blogger

By Wendy Piersall from Mom Blogging For Dummies

One of the five common business models that most successful bloggers use to earn their revenue is selling a product. If you have your own products to sell, or are primarily dedicated to selling others’ products via affiliate marketing, then using a mom blog to drive sales is very effective.

Blogs naturally do well in search engines, and can make it easier for you to rank well in the quest for effective search terms (and that can be quite competitive). This kind of blog is also an excellent way to communicate directly with your customers and put a personal face on your business.

Your most effective content will be tutorials and how-tos that utilize the products you’re promoting. If those approaches aren’t applicable to your product line, then reviews also work well. Additionally, quality product photography is absolutely critical and should be professionally done. When it comes to online retail sales, your goal should be to get your readers to your sale confirmation page in as few clicks as possible.

This kind of blog is very similar to one you would use to promote your own services, but there is less focus on building working relationships with your potential customers. Instead, your main goal is to get people to your product page and to get them to make a purchase right away.

Most blogs that are devoted to product sales don’t carry any advertising, because they don’t want to distract visitors from making a purchase.

This kind of blog is the most difficult to diversify in terms of where your income comes from. That limitation leaves you a little vulnerable to changes in the industry, economy, or even changes in how the search engines rank your site, which can and does happen. Two possible defenses are

You can diversify what you sell; for example, you can teach classes or host events that use your product line.
You can pursue complimentary sponsorship opportunities; for example, you can promote your favorite sewing machine brand if your online store sells fabric and notions.

The best way to promote this kind of blog is by creating valuable content that other bloggers will want to share with their readers. This means your blog posts can’t just be about selling products. Instead, they should focus on being informative, entertaining, or educational.

Additionally, intermediate to advanced level search engine optimization skills are going to be very important to your success. You will want to optimize your content for the right keywords, and also optimize your product images so that your blog can be found via Google’s Image Search.

You don’t need large amounts of traffic to be successful with this kind of blog — instead, you need small amounts of traffic but visitors who are highly interested in your products. And finally, occasional giveaways of free products will draw attention to your blog and help you find new readers.

To summarize, here are four recommended ways to be successful with a blog that promotes product sales:

Create useful content that your potential customers will value and want to share with others.
Learn intermediate- to advanced-level search engine optimization.
Pursue sponsorship opportunities as long as they are complimentary to your business and offer value to your customers.
Focus on finding the right kind of traffic rather than large amounts of traffic.

For a good example of this kind of blog, check out Paper Crave. They not only feature their own products, but products from other websites as well — even from sites that would actually be considered their competition. Paper Crave focuses on stunningly beautiful paper products, so they have built a loyal following thanks to their great taste in design.