Your blog isn't just supposed to be a blog.
That's if, like many of us, you want to build it into a business that succeeds. If you haven't thought about what it would be like to have a very successful, time consuming blog, maybe it's time to plan for it. There are a number of reasons why to do this.
First of all, and most obvious, is that once you get to this point, you won't be able to organize things and you won't have time to do everything you need to do. Blogging takes a LOT of time and effort. If you really want to make a killing off of it, do you really think you'll have enough hours in your day to do all of the things you do right now?
There are a few really easy ways to improve your infrastructure.
Create Your Own Guidebooks, For Yourself
Everybody who blogs has had to learn things the hard way - whether it was putting together a crappy ad campagin, throwing up a poll that nobody answered, marketing an article that nobody cared about, or running ads on their blog that never made enough money.
You need to create guidebooks for yourself of everything you do successfully. For instance, if you want to hold a contest for your blog, wouldn't it be nice to have a document put together of who you need to contact to get the word out, where you submit your contest information, and what sites you would advertise on? It's a lot simpler to do that than to have to remember these things again and again.
The only thing that many bloggers have recorded is their traffic stats and their earnings. Well, great. It's lots of fun to monitor those things. But, these are simply outputs of your inputs. When you want to relearn your inputs, you will need to go back and do it all again. Every blogger overestimates how much of this stuff they can remember and organize in their heads. In reality, they are wasting loads of time because they fail to view their blogging career as a systematic business.
If Your Blog isn't a Business, Nobody Will Treat it Like One
Imagine a wise CEO who had worked with a company for 15 years just got up and left. Do you think his shoes would be easily to fill? What about all of the things he had learned along the way which he hadn't written down?
If you turn your blog into a business, you make it easier to sell it. Your ability to sell your blog is highly dependent on its track record, and proof of how and why it will continue to succeed. If someone comes along wanting to buy your blog and finds out you can provide them with all the tools they need to keep it running the way it was, its value will skyrocket. If you can put an intangible value on your blog above projected earnings and stats, you'll be in a good place.
Prepare to Delegate Duties
Making money online doesn't have to mean minimizing costs.
Those were the words of Yaro Starak, an extremely successful online entrepreneur. He knew through his experience that if you don't plan to be a business down the road, you won't ever be. You need to be able to take your guidebooks and records of your blog and put them in somebody else's hands if you need them to work for you. If you don't have these things, you won't have the time or energy to delegate. And as your blog grows bigger, you will miss more and more opportunities to grow. Eventually, you will learn things the hard way and delegate powers long after you should have done.
You don't have to learn things the hard way. Listen to other bloggers who have already 'made' it. Ask them questions. Hear their story. Plan, from top to bottom, to run a business of that size one day. Once you see your blog as a business, others will too.
