I have my work and life-things, and then I have this blog.

And the thing is, blogging doesn’t stop at just writing blog posts and promoting them. Sure, that’s what takes up the bulk of the work and time, but if you want to grow your blog and make real money, and not just a few hundred bucks here and there, you need to be meticulous about your business plan.

You need to plan, you need to create outlines, you need to test your ideas, create your products, and then sell them. And among all these seemingly different things, you end up spending hours and hours doing work that has nothing to do with actually writing your posts.

That’s a lot of work even when you’re blogging full-time. But if you’re a side-blogger like me?

Well, you learn, hopefully sooner than later, that you need to be good at managing your time.

You learn to batch your work. Maybe you reserve Monday nights for designing Pinterest graphics, Tuesday nights to plan out a content strategy and write down outlines for that week’s posts, Wednesday and Thursday nights for writing the posts, weekends for the special projects like creating products or designing landing pages, etc.

My schedule may look different from yours, but at the end of the day, we all learn to be efficient with how and on what we spend our time.

So, in today’s post,  I’ll share with you 10 things you can do over a weekend that will help you grow your blogging business. 

1. Create a Free Email Course or Challenge for Your Audience

A free course or challenge can do several things for you:

• attract email list subscribers.
• help you understand if there’s a demand for a larger product (acts like a minimum viable product or MVP.)
• double as a sales funnel if you end up creating a larger product.

The difference between a course and a challenge

Whether you create a free email course or a challenge depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

The main difference between a course and a challenge is that inside a course you’re teaching your audience how something is done, whereas, in a challenge, you’re helping your audience do something in real-time… sort of.

For example, I have a free course where I teach my students how to start a blog. I teach them everything they need to know to find a niche, come up with a content strategy, set up and launch their blog, create a plan of action to drive traffic, get subscribers and start making money. I give them all the necessary information on how to do all of that, but my students are responsible for actually doing the work in their own time, at their own pace.

A challenge works differently. Ideally, a challenge isn’t necessarily about teaching someone how to do something (although a challenge could have that component as well), but to actually help someone do it. So, the biggest difference between a course and a challenge is how a task is accomplished.

For example, let’s assume that Maya is a health and nutrition blogger and she specializes in a low-sugar diet/lifestyle. Now, let’s assume that a majority of Maya’s readers have trouble cutting sugar from their food. However, Maya knows exactly how to help this demographic, so she can create a 30-day challenge with daily prompts that will help her audience go from high sugar to low sugar diet, gradually, over this 30-day period.

How to create a free course or a challenge

Whether you’re creating a free email course or a challenge, you’ll need access to an email marketing platform and some type of landing page designer.

Most email marketing platforms come with landing page templates so you don’t really need to worry about that. For example, my recommended email marketing platform — ConvertKit — can help you create a sequence for your free course and then connect it to a landing page where you can collect signups. The same applies to a free challenge as well.

If you need help with the technicalities, I have a tutorial on ConvertKit sequences and landing pages that you can check out.

Tips for creating a free course or a challenge

Ideally, a free course should be a sequence of 5 to 10 emails, with the course content divided up in 5 to 10 bite-sized sections.

Anything less than 5 modules (emails) will not be enough for it to be an actual course (a course is meant to be more content-heavy than a regular blog post), and more than 10 modules will be too much for a free course.

As for a challenge, it depends. You could create a 7-day challenge or a 14-day challenge or a 30-day challenge or anything in-between. It takes however long it takes.

Aside from that, you could use a completely different format for your challenge. For example, an email sequence works best for a 5-10 day email course. But if you have a 30-day challenge, then maybe it’d be better to create a worksheet with prompts for 30 days than actually create a 30-email sequence.

That’s an idea, but at the end of the day, you have to decide on the format based on what is ideal for what you’re trying to accomplish.

2. Create a Free or Paid Service

What kind of services you offer depends on what your skills are and what your blog is about.

For example, let’s take our imaginary blogger from the previous section — Maya. She is a health and nutrition blogger with a focus on a low-sugar diet. Maybe she wants to create a program with x-number of coaching or consultation sessions. She could create a free 30-minute consultation service as an entry point to her paid program.

Or, instead of offering free initial consultation, she could do what I do! I have a 40-minute blog-consultation service that I sell as a one-off service. If someone needs a lot of help, they can book multiple sessions with me, but I don’t have a package of x-number of sessions. And that’s why I don’t offer it as a free service.

You could easily set up something similar in your blog, and then send out an email to your list, letting them know that you’re doing this free (or paid) thing.

How to set up a service in your blog

There are plenty of ways to do it. Personally, I like to offer paid products or services through WooCommerce — an eCommerce platform made specifically for self-hosted WordPress platforms.

There are booking plugins available for WooCommerce. The one I’m currently using is this WooCommerce Booking plugin. It’s a free booking plugin without too many bells and whistles, but it’s sufficient for my use. If you need advanced features, there are plenty of premium plugins you can choose from, each with their unique sets of functionalities.

You can use the same method for setting up free consultations as well (you’ll be creating a free product), or you can use some kind of calendar plugin or app to accomplish the scheduling part. Calendly and Acquity Scheduling are a couple of scheduling apps that are used by many.

3. Create a Bottom Tier, Evergreen Product

These are some of my favorites!

It’s easy to create and set up, and since they’re meant to be cheap, a lot of people buy them too.

Set up an evergreen funnel, and once you’re done, you can just forget about it, and let it do its thing. Easy passive income!

I’ll give you a couple of examples:

Sell a mini-eBook or mini-guide:

Just a few days ago, I came across an eBook — more like a mini-guide, actually — and it was only $15. I had no idea what to expect, but the topic was intriguing and the price super affordable. So, I picked it up! It was $15 well-spent.

The thing about this eBook/mini-guide is that it’s only about 20 pages long, so nothing too fancy with zero fluffs. The messaging was to the point and only what’s necessary.

You (and I) could totally whip something up like that within a weekend, set up a sales page for it, and start selling!

Sell a webinar:

This one was ingenious.

This blogger had an opt-in form with some freebies. Once I signed up for the freebie, I was redirected to a sales page instead of a thank-you page. And the product she was selling was so cheap ($19) that I could not just not buy it!

It was a 40-minute long pre-recorded webinar, and full of some actionable tips on a topic I was interested in, so of course, I was happy to have made the purchase.

You could set up something similar easily. If you don’t have a high-quality camera or if you don’t want to be in front of the camera, that’s fine. All you have to do is create some slides and then talk through the slides. Use a screen-recorder app (Loom, Camtasia, etc.) to record your slides and voila! You have a product! And it’s totally doable within a weekend.

A real-life example from yours truly:

One of my bottom tier products is a Canva template bundle that I sell to subscribers who sign up for certain freebies on my blog. I only started doing this a couple of weeks ago, and after tweaking the landing page design and copy several times, now, for the last few days, I’m seeing almost daily sales for this product.

The bundle is only $19, so it may not seem like much. However, imagine if I sell two or three of the bundle every single day… how much would I be making every month? You see, it adds up! And once you have set it up and you have tweaked the landing page until you know you have something that converts, the whole thing runs on autopilot!

Selling tips for your bottom tier product

Ideally, people are more willing to give you their money when they get something for free first.

So, here’s what I suggest.

Write a blog post related to whatever product you have in mind. Create a simple content upgrade for it. Next, set it up with your email marketing platform (I recommend ConvertKit) so that when someone signs up for the free content upgrade, they are taken directly to the landing/sales page for your product. (Make sure to deliver the actual freebie too. With ConevrtKit, you’ll have to set up an automation for this.)

Additionally, you could set up a landing page for the freebie alone and promote that landing page across your promo channels (Pinterest, social media, etc.). The more you share your freebie the more email signups you’ll have, and the more people will see your sales page.

Pay attention to your landing and sales page design and copy. A lot of the time if you think you have an amazing product and yet they’re not selling, it’s because your landing and sales pages are not attractive enough. Both the design of these pages as well as the copy matter when it comes to selling more. Do some A/B testing with the design and the copy until you have something that works.

4. Create Landing Pages for Your Existing Freebies

Another thing you can do over the weekend is to create landing pages for your existing freebies.

For example, if you have content upgrades attached to your blog posts, you could create additional landing pages for them and share them on social media and Pinterest.

The thing is, the more you show up in front of people in various formats, the more people will take action. So, offering freebies within your blog posts is one way to get in front of people and prompt them to join your email list. Landing pages are another way to do so, and if you’re not taking advantage of this method already, you should start now!

Learn how to start growing an email list with landing pages in this post.

5. Move to a Self-hosted WordPress Platform If You’re Not There Already

If you’re a serious blogger and want to earn serious money, you’ll eventually want to have features and functionalities in your blog that you simply wouldn’t have in any other blogging platform other than self-hosted WordPress platform.

I understand that sometimes new bloggers start their blog on different platforms because 1) they’re tight on cash and need a free platform to get started, 2) they don’t realize the limitations of other platforms 3) they’re afraid they need to be “techy” to work with WordPress.

If it’s #1 for you, trust me, it’s one investment you’ll want to make as soon as you’re able. A decent hosting — the GrowBig plan with SiteGround hosting company, for example — will cost you less than 80 bucks for a whole year if you’re a brand new customer, and if you think of the potential benefits of moving to a self-hosted WordPress platform, this is a rather small investment.

Make this investment ASAP!

If it’s #3 for you, here’s the good news: with Google and YouTube videos, nothing is too techy. You’ll find tutorials for absolutely anything you can think of online, so don’t let it keep you away from a platform that’s right for you and your business.

And if it’s #2 for you and you simply didn’t realize the benefits of self-hosted WordPress over other platforms, then well, better late than never!

This weekend may just be the right time to sit down and do the transition. Here are the steps:

1. Sign up for a hosting company. I recommend SiteGround and their GrowBig package if you’re a relatively newer blogger.
2. Set up WordPress on your hosting. This post has a step-by-step tutorial.
3. Install and activate a template of choice. The Elementor page builder plugin with the Astra theme is a great pair. Alternately, you can purchase premium templates from StudioPress or, if you’re into feminine and elegant look, Restored 316 has some great themes you can choose from.

Finally, move your current blog to WordPress. SiteGround offers free site transfer from certain platforms, but if your platform is not supported, do a Google search for how to transfer a website from XYZ platform (insert your blogging platform here) to WordPress, and I’m sure you’ll come across a ton of tutorials.

6. Do an Audit of Your Blog and Make a List of Things to Fix or Improve on

Often we set up our blog and that’s it, we forget to analyze the quality of a site constantly being updated with new content and new software (which happens in the background). I’m very much guilty of this myself!

A slow weekend may just be the perfect time to sit down with your site and do an audit.

• Is your blog fast enough? If not, what can you do to make it faster?
• Are all the information still current? Things on your “about” page, the email address in your “contact” page, the social media URLs, do they still apply?
• Do you have broken links on your site?
• Are all plugins running in the background up to date?
• Are you regularly backing up your site?
• Do you have a caching plugin in place?
• Are you using an image optimization plugin?
• Is your site secure enough?
• Do all the navigation links still work?
• Can you rearrange your homepage for better conversion?
• Can simple design tweaks improve your blog’s conversion?

These are some of the things you can check over the weekend and fix or update as necessary.

7. Create Templates for Your Blog

Templates will save you HOURS, trust me on this. It’s always a good idea to have digital templates that compliment each other that you can just pull up and start editing as necessary.

You can have templates for Pinterest graphics and social media graphics. You can have templates for your blog’s featured images. You can create a template for a guide or eBook or workbook so that when you’re making a lead-magnet or opt-in freebie or an info product for sale, you can take out a template and start editing, instead of having to design something from scratch every single time.

You can set aside a few hours this weekend and design a set of these templates that you can use over and over again with Canva – my favorite graphic design app.

Alternatively, you can purchase Canva templates from my blog shop! 😉

8. Create a Resources Page on Your Blog

A resources page is where you list tools and other things that will be beneficial to your audience. Having such a page help both you and your audience.

First of all, if your audience needs to find something you recommended, they can go directly to this page and find the said resource.

Second, it helps you to keep track of everything you’re recommending so that if someone asks, you can direct them to this page.

Finally, if you do affiliate marketing, this page is a great way to list all or most of the products you recommend. My resources page is one of my top-performing pages when it comes to selling products I’m an affiliate for.

Once you’re done creating this page, make sure to link it in your main navigation menu so that people can find and access this page easily.

9. Pitch a Guest Post

Guest posts can be a great way to tap into new traffic. Find some blogs that will be a good match for the kind of post you want to pitch.

Ideally, it’s not smart to pitch to another blog that’s on the same niche as your blog. Instead, find blogs that compliment your niche.

Also, do your due research before pitching. See if they accept guest posts. Some blogs don’t. And those who do may have strict guidelines for pitching. Also, make sure that you’re guest posting in a blog that has good engagement and social shares. Writing a guest post is a lot of work, and you don’t want to pitch to a blog that has no engagement or conversion.

10. Create a Shop On Your Blog

Having a shop on your blog can add a viable earning stream to your existing earning streams. For example, I sell Canva templates on my shop targeted to bloggers and infopreneurs since they’re my ideal audience.

You could do something similar. Creating templates or printables or other digital products do not take up a lot of time, and you could essentially set one up over a weekend. You could start slow with just a few products, and then create more as you go.

I have my shop set up with WooCommerce. You could do the same if you’re on a self-hosted WordPress platform. I have a detailed tutorial if you need some help with the WooCommerce setup.

So, what do you think? Will you consider doing one of these over the weekend? If so, which one and why? Let me know in the comments!