In the world of blogging and content creation, the dream of successfully making enough to quit your day job is often times just a dream. In my previous article titled “Make Blogging Great Again in 2017“, I covered five of the most common reasons why people fail to find financial success with blogging. More than anything else, it’s a lack of direction and thinking that simply ‘creating content’ is enough to get the job done.

With all of this in mind, I thought it would be a great resource to follow up on that same concept, but with some actionable tips on how to actually make more money with your expertise, and existing site content or blog. No matter what your current niche market or audience is, there is always a way to monetize your content and turn it into a real money-making business. Implement any of these methods into your business today, and find continued success through 2017 and for many years to come.

Package Up Your Best Content in a Book

Having written over 3,000 articles over the past several years, I have a lot of online content. Some articles are great, some mediocre and the rest might fall somewhere in between. The great thing about site content is that it can rank in the search results and send you traffic for years to come. The bad thing is that most of your best content will get lost in the mix and often not seen by new visitors on your site.

However, just because you’ve created some awesome content in previous months and years, it doesn’t mean you should just let them get lost and never be seen again. Instead, turn your previous and best content into updated premium content that you can sell for a profit and use to further promote your brand and expertise. Sometimes this can be as simple as just grabbing your best blog content and turning it into a physical book, then getting it live on Amazon.

This is something John Chow did with his blog — he already had all the content in place, and just needed to hire someone to throw it all together and format it into a book. You can now find his book on Amazon.com.

Sure, you likely won’t make millions (or even thousands) from selling a book, but it can do wonders for your personal or business brand. Of course, Jeremy has a book of his own as well — though it’s own personal story, he could likely do the same thing with a collection of his best content on the blog.

You’ve likely already spent hundreds of hours creating original content for your website or blog, why not update it and turn it into something else that can keep working for you?

Start a Membership Site or Online Course

A book is a great way to get your name out there and to build a professional brand for yourself, but if you are really looking to turn your best content into real dollars, launching an online course or membership site is probably the best way to go. Best of all, a once complicating process is now easier than ever.

With video now in more demand than ever before, turning your best site content (text) into online video is a great way to bring an immediate premium and value to your content. For example, instead of creating content with just screenshots and text walkthroughs of how to do something, just load up any screen recording software like Camtasia or Screenflow and start recording. Throw together 5-10 videos and soon enough you will have more than enough content to sell it at a premium. If you are really advanced and know what you are talking about, you can create a multi-module course or even a full blown membership site where you can charge monthly access and offer new content drip-fed to your audience.

Another highlight to all of this is that you don’t need to be as technical on the backend setup as you would need to be in previous years. Solutions like Kajabi make it extremely easy to create an account, upload your video content and then drag and drop create your membership site to your liking. This type of set up is ideal for anyone who is already an expert at what they do, or already has content in place and not looking to learn how to be a web developer or coder in the process.

To see an actionable case study on how this can apply to anyone, check out this high school photographer who went from selling to local clients, to now having an online business that generates over six-figures per year. All because he took his best content and services, packaged them up and is able to now sell them online and use webinars and Facebook ads to grow his brand.

This same concept works in nearly any niche market out there, and it really doesn’t matter how specialized or tight-focused your services are. Jeremy, for example, has thousands of live posts on his blog that get accessed thousands of times daily. However, he also has several video courses that walk users through the many phases of online marketing and building a business online. His ShoeMoney System video course, which is available on Udemy, has now been accessed by over 20,000 students from different countries around the world!

If these aren’t two perfect examples for why you need to start creating online videos and teachable courses, I don’t know what it.

Launch a Podcast to Reach New Audiences

Since we are focusing on new methods for creating content and reaching as wide of an audience possible, it would be a huge mistake to not talk about podcasting. This is something I personally dove into a couple years ago with the creation of my Rise of the Entrepreneur podcast. With over 80 episodes in the books, I can say it was definitely worth the time, effort and work to put something like this out there. The world of podcasting is still very unsaturated and brings your content to a whole new world of potential listeners versus the same audience who is just browsing sites and blogs within your niche.

However, you would be wrong to think podcasting alone will make you a millionaire. John Lee Dumas and Pat Flynn are two well-known podcasters that are earning over seven-figures a year thanks to their podcast, but they are the exception.

When I started my podcast, I went in full knowing I wasn’t going to get rich off it. Heck, I haven’t even tried to make any money with the podcast, and have simply used it as a branding and marketing tool instead — all while providing my audience with a completely new form of content and allowing them to connect and engage with me in a way text content simply couldn’t provide. This is huge for brand loyalty and engagement.

With all of that being said… podcasting is an awesome platform for turning your best content into something even better. In my case, the Rise of the Entrepreneur is all about interviewing other entrepreneurs and sharing their stories. You can listen to Jeremy’s episode here. Just think about the value and ROI from when you interview experts within your space, and then they share that same content with their audience — it’s huge!

At the same time, podcasting is a lot more than just episodes and interviews. Some podcasts are simply websites in audio form. This can be as simple as writing a killer post on your site, then hitting the record button and simply going live with a podcast episode of you reading your latest site content.

No matter what you are doing with audio or podcasting, the opportunity and reach in this space right now is huge. Platforms like iTunes, Spotify and Google Play have hundreds of millions of users just looking for content. Go live with a podcast of your own, then funnel them right back into your website, blog or lead funnels.

Run Free / JV Webinars and Pre-Sell an Idea

Something we’ve also been seeing a lot lately in the online marketing and “guru” space is online webinars. You can’t go on Facebook without seeing video ads for upcoming webinars and free training events. Of course, nothing is really free… especially when they are being promoted by marketers, but it is definitely a legitimate platform that continues to work well today.

The concept here is simple… create and run a webinar to your target audience and show them how to accomplish something. Spend a good 30-45 minutes covering why this is important for your audience to learn and how your audience can implement it themselves. Then in the last 15 mins show them your premium solution, software or membership course that will give them the guidance and tools they need for success. It’s the perfect upsell for high-ticket items, and it’s also targeted to an audience that already has full engagement into what you have to say and likely already has trust in what you have to offer.

Yes, this model works extremely well if you have a product or something to sell… but what if you don’t?

Simple — it also works for anyone who is planning to launch an online product or course as well. I’ve seen a good amount of people with a blog or online audience start running webinars with nothing to sell and simply talking to their audience for 30-45 minutes and just doing Q&A. Then at the end of the webinar, the host simply says “If I was going to make an online course or membership site, is that something you’d be interested in?”. More often than not, it’s a resounding “Yes!”.

The goal here is to create and pre-fund your next project, based on your audience’s need… and basically getting them to pay for it before it’s even created. It sounds silly, but it’s working like a charm for so many people right now. Not only does this eliminate the guesswork and potential to launch a failed project, it’s also 100% pre-funded before you even start.

You are Awesome at What You Do… Now Get Paid for It!

Now that I have your attention and hopefully got you excited, it’s time for you to start looking at your existing content and how you can turn it into real dollars. If you are still struggling with this process, take a look at these helpful blogging tips on how to better understand your audience and profit from them while offering extreme value.

Each of the monetization methods above are working extremely well for bloggers and brands of all sizes around the world. The only real difference between those who are profiting the most from their content and those who are just creating content is their willingness and effort to put these plans into action.

You know you are an expert at what you do — now it’s time to sell your premium content and get what you deserve.