In episode 41, I’m sharing a few tips for selling your products and services on your blog without being spammy and turning off your readers. I give you eight ideas to consider. Stay tuned because each of these will grow into its own show at some point. Like this abbreviated holiday week,  I’ll be a bit shorter too. So here they are:  a set of tips that you can act on in the coming new year.

I talk about:

* Making your offers relevant to your readers

* The importance of being authentic and trustworthy

* Helping your readers find your offers easily

* Where your offers might work best and how to create add-on products

* Keeping an eye on those blog comments for future ideas on new products and services

* Making your readers feel special

* Using affiliates on your blog

Transcript

You can download the transcript of this show at: the-wp-ecommerce-show-transcript-november-23-2016

Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 41. Bob Dunn here, also known as BobWP on the web. I’m flying solo today and I’d like to chat with you about selling on your blog. Now I’m not talking about this in the case of having a blog on an online store. It’s more around the whatever you sell on your blog, whether its products or services: your own or someone else’s.

There is a whole lot more on this subject than what I’m going to touch on in this short podcast, but from my own experiences, these are a few things to think about.

I have always been some kind of a content marketer, no matter how I was earning my money. And I have always loved giving our readers tips, tools and advice and, more importantly, building relationships with them.

But what I think we start wondering at some point, especially when you are looking at all the time you spend writing content, is what will happen the minute I start selling stuff on my blog or promoting myself? Will my readers abandon me if I try to sell to them?

What you have to remember here is that selling your readers things they need and want will not send them away or piss them off. One does not need to jam it down their throats or put in it 70-point red font. The key here is to make sure your offers land in the right place, at the right time. It’s all about strategy— with  some common sense thrown in.

You may ask yourself: how do I possibly move people from eager consumers of my free content to real customers without any backlash? One way is to repurpose, enhance, package and sell your content in an information product. But it goes even more beyond that. What you need to do is lead your readers who are already fans to take the next logical step. And that is to buy something from you. 

Ask yourself these three questions

Do you make it easy for your readers to purchase services and products from you?

You know, the same ones you offer day in and day out—on your website and through other sales venues?

Does your blog content point them in the right direction? 

Do they even know what you sell? 

Many of us answer those with, “Damn right they do”. We assume it. But we don’t always know for sure. And we take it for granted that they constantly peruse our site to see all the cool stuff we offer through our products or services. But in reality, unless you are a product filled site, chances are what you offer may not be as obvious or easy to find as you think they are.

It’s time to put yourself in your reader’s shoes. When they land on your site,