Monetizing Your Christian Blog: Refocus your Mindset to Serving, Not Selling

Imagine you could use your passion for sharing the Gospel to create a profitable Christian blog. Sure, it sounds like a dream but it requires more than faith - you need strategy, planning, and most importantly, patience. This episode offers insights into the reality of monetizing a Christian blog, and why focusing on serving rather than selling to your audience is the key to success. We share why it's imperative to focus on organic traffic, the importance of mapping out a plan for your blog and bust the myths about overnight blogging success. 

But bear in mind, blogging isn't just about making money. It's about using the digital platform to spread the word of Jesus. We'll explore how you can effectively use your blog as a tool for ministry while also earning an income. You'll learn how to stay organized and motivated while managing multiple income streams. Through this engaging conversation, we hope to equip you with the knowledge to make a difference in the lives of your audience and bring them closer to Jesus through the power of blogging.

Here is the link to my YouTube series on monetization: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsRAeIZqdGTF0K9_URyAOClAFKYdqeTUT

If you are interested in taking your digital discipleship to the next level through blogging, YouTube, social media, and/or online Bible study groups, be sure to join my private FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/kingdombloggers
You can also follow me on YouTube where you will find a variety of helpful tutorials for navigating each of these important platforms: https://www.youtube.com/@KingdomBloggers

Transcript

LeeAnn Fox: 0:02

Welcome to the Kingdom Influencers podcast, where our mission is to get more Jesus online. This podcast will equip and empower ministry leaders as well as regular everyday Christians to take the message of Jesus Christ throughout the digital realm. I'm your host, LeeAnn Fox, digital Ministry Coach and the creator of the Kingdom Bloggers Ministry, and I am so excited and honored to be a part of this journey with you. Let's get started. Hey there, leanne from Kingdom Bloggers. We are continuing on with our onboarding series for Christian bloggers. We are going to talk about the truth, about monetizing your Christian blog. So I know many Christian bloggers get started on this journey with hopes and dreams of creating a consistent income source, and there's nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, many come into this with serious, significant misunderstanding about how everything works and hopefully, up to this point, I've kind of dispelled some of those misunderstandings just about how blogging works in general. But I really want to talk on the monetization part because I mean, let's be honest, we all could use a little extra money in our pockets. These days, the economy is crazy. Blogging is definitely even Christian. Blogging can definitely be a significant income source for your family. I do this full time. Yes, I do have courses that teach blogging, but, honestly, the majority of my income doesn't come from my courses. It actually comes from my face-based content and so but it didn't happen overnight and that's the important thing, and so I'm going to kind of just run through a few things to help you understand how it all works so that, hopefully, you can utilize this in your planning. We already had the video on why planning is so important, but it is so very, very important, like there's important and they're so very, very important, right? Because, like, totally more important, it is so much more important planning if your goal is to monetize, because without a plan, no business will succeed. So here it is.

LeeAnn Fox: 1:59

I've talked about quite a few times the importance of your main goal being traffic organic traffic, not traffic. That is what we call forced. So forced traffic is where bloggers share threads. Please don't ever do those. Those are a very big waste of time, actually hurt your website and your growth in the long run. You want to focus on things that are going to bring you organic, that's, people who find you because they're looking for you, and so that's where SEO comes in, and all of that your organic traffic is literally the foundation for the monetization that you hope to accomplish.

LeeAnn Fox: 2:34

You know, a lot of times people go about monetizing in a way of I need to promote stuff. People in general don't like salespeople. That's just like stop promoting stuff to me, right, as a reader? I'm saying that as a user. When you reframe your mindset to serving your audience, the monetization, the sales and everything just happened naturally. So I do have several videos below on the topic of monetization.

LeeAnn Fox: 2:56

I actually have a whole series on monetization, so I encourage you to watch that playlist to help you dive a little deeper into how all this money stuff works in blogging. But, first and foremost, you should not realistically expect to see any income in at least your first six months, maybe even 12 months, and there's a lot of bloggers out there who are like how I made $10,000 in my first six months or how I did this or how I did that? Are there some success stories? People who do get lucky and find success in that way? Yeah, I mean, things happen, but generally speaking, that's not the majority of the way it works. There are multiple ways to earn income and you need to understand all the different ways that income can be earned so that you can diversify your income streams, which is very important, but you also need to understand the foundation of sales right, like just how, how to go about it in a way that people will actually like, appreciate and be more willing to want to buy. So just an overview. I'm going to go over a few things, and then I do definitely encourage you again to watch those videos that are listed below, because they go in more in depth in each stage of the process.

LeeAnn Fox: 3:57

So, first and foremost, during your first year of blogging and so for me, the definition of first year actually is two One you literally just started, like you literally just learned what a blog is last week, and you're coming here because, like I want to start blogging, I don't know what I'm doing. That's a new blogger first year. But also, if you've been doing this for a long time and you just haven't been doing it right, it hasn't been working, then you are a new blogger for the purposes of this training. The first 12 months from this day forward, for those of you who've been doing it a while, just focus on your traffic, stop creating products, stop trying to promote affiliate links, stop trying to do the monetization. Get back to the foundation, which is serving your audience, not selling to them. When you build a foundation based off of serving your audience's search queries, you will build a foundation that will sell itself.

LeeAnn Fox: 4:45

An easy example of this without going in too much of a consequence. Again, I don't want to go into detail, except other videos have already created that go into very specific detail in each of these. If I am Googling a new Bible for new believers because I want to buy a new Bible as a new believer and I find your content that gives me five recommendations, most likely gonna buy one of them. So it's a money-minded search query, but I'm not thinking about the money, I'm thinking about that. My audience has that need and therefore I am providing I'm serving them. I'm serving them. The answer In that answer yes, they may need to buy something, but when they went on that query they already had the intention of buying some.

LeeAnn Fox: 5:20

What doesn't work is if you write a blog post about prayer and in that you're like, by the way, if you're a new believer and need a new Bible, buy this Bible. The person came to this particular blog post because they had a question about prayer and you're trying to sell them a Bible. That typically doesn't work and so, again, get out of the mindset of promoting product, because when you get into that mindset, you become a salesperson and your focus becomes the sale, not the servant. And as Christians, we are called to serve. When we serve in obedience, the blessings come from that, and so that has been the foundation of everything I've done here at Kingdom Bloggers. Everything I teach in my courses to my mastermind, like the foundation, is to stop trying to sell stuff to people, stop trying to make money and start serving your audience and God will reward you on the flip side.

LeeAnn Fox: 6:06

First and foremost, please, during your first year and I know times are tough Now there are side hustles you can do. There are things you can do separate from your blog that can bring more significant, like quicker income, but that's not what we're talking about here With your blog, then one year focusing just on your solid, organic traffic foundation, because then when you start adding those affiliate links or putting products maybe that you've created into the post, they're gonna sell themselves. The truth about monetization is that when you approach it with a sales mindset, you're going to have an uphill battle and you're always gonna be selling and never actually serving your audience. And so I could go on and on and on about this, but the truth is you should not expect to earn any significant like. You might have a trickle here or there if you're putting affiliate links in from day one. As that traffic grows you may get a hit here and there, but for the long-term kind of goal-oriented strategy, you're just. The expectations should just not be there. That way you're not disappointed.

LeeAnn Fox: 6:59

I had so many new bloggers say you know, I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I've been blogging for three months and I'm just not making any money. And I'm like and I kind of don't understand what the problem is here, because it's just an unrealistic expectation. Without traffic, there are no people. Without people, there is no sale. Okay, and so when you come into this, just understand you gotta do your legwork, you gotta build that foundation before you can expect to see any monetization type success with it. And then from there you'll have a better idea of the things your audience needs and wants and so forth, and that will help you build your next plan, the next phase of creating products or finding affiliate programs to join that truly do serve the audience that you are currently serving. I hope this made a little sense.

LeeAnn Fox: 7:44

This may have discouraged a few people who were like I'm gonna start a blog, I'm just gonna make money right away and it simply just, it just does not work that way. And so I have some ladies in my mastermind who you know they've been going through this for a couple of years now and you know it's two, maybe three years into it and they are now finally starting to see the financial rewards of their labor. But oh, you may think that that's a long time Kind of it is. But it's also a less stressful time. When you were in the money mindset you're constant I gotta promote my book, I gotta promote my products, I gotta pay for ads and do all these things. And it's very stressful because you're not really getting the return that you hoped for. But when you do it in this slow and steady, organic way and those sales start happening and you can get ads on your site and all this stuff, that money just starts like the money doesn't sell us up.

LeeAnn Fox: 8:30

The products, the affiliate links, everything Sort of work on autopilot. You can go away for a month and come back and you're still gonna have deposits in your bank account, even if you never got on social media or published a single blog post that month, and that's the goal you should strive for. Work smarter, not harder, is what I like to say. And so just understand that Monetization is not gonna happen right away, it's not gonna happen overnight, and it takes a concerted effort of laying a solid foundation for you to actually start seeing the success that you hoped for. All that sort of I mean I guess it was kind of discouraging, I'm so sorry. I just I wanna be truthful, I don't want you coming into this blindly, but once you've done that, I can tell you the success starts happening and it is such a relief, you know, for me reaching media volume traffic requirements. Now I have that pay deposit coming in every single month and it's significant.

LeeAnn Fox: 9:17

My products I have Etsy Store, I have products on Gumroad, of course, affiliate links on my website in addition to the ad revenue, and so I really don't stress Like I could go away for a month. There's been months that I have published no new content. I rarely publish my content to social media. Now I'm on social media but I don't share links to blog posts there, and every month the traffic to my site and the income generated from that increases exponentially. So that is what I hope for you.

LeeAnn Fox: 9:44

That is what is possible, but again, it comes back to your planning, time management and knowing what your goals are. By the way, please like this video. Make sure you're following us here at Kingdom Bloggers, and in the notes below you will see the links to the monetization series, as well as a link to my Facebook, if you haven't already joined that, and come there and ask questions, get support. Thanks for joining us again today. As you leave, remember that if you're not using the internet to take people towards Jesus, the enemy is using it to take them away from him. Bye-bye, god bless, and have a great week.