10 ideas on how to monetize a blog and improve the website for free.

So, how to monetize a blog? It’s not that hard to make money with blogs. Monetizing a blog can make you a nice extra income while you do what you do anyway.

Today, I will analyze and give my 10 ideas on how an Estonian real estate blogger could improve her website and monetize her blog. You are most welcome to look at your own website with a fresh perspective and apply these ideas to your blog.

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10 business boost ideas for real estate blog Sendid Miljoniks

Sendid Miljoniks (translation: Cents to Millions) is a great Estonian real estate blog for anyone who aspires to start flipping apartments or is already flipping apartments and wants to avoid the blogger’s mistakes.

This time I focused on the real estate blog’s website and decided to design a new first page. I will explain step by step, what I did to clarify the message and how to make money with the blog.

Here’s the before and after of the Sendid Miljoniks website when I implemented the 10 ideas I am about to share with you.

To improve this post’s readability, I used Google Translate to turn the original website into English. The blogger Ännifriid is a brilliant writer. The somewhat weird translations in this post are caused by Google Translate.

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7 Ideas to clarify the message for readers

#1 Reduce unnecessary clutter and add clarity to the top menu

At the moment, the menu shows the logo of “Sendid miljoniks” (translation: Turning cents into a million). The logo position is great and people are used to logos being the first thing they see on the page in the top left corner.

People are also used to that when they click on the logo it brings them to the home page. Therefore the next item “frontpage” is unnecessary. So my idea number #1 is to turn the logo into a link to the home page and lose the “home page” from the menu.

#2 Use the KISS principle – “Keep it simple, stupid!”

I love to KISS. KISS means “Keep it simple, stupid!”. It’s beautiful, but it’s not always easy – especially if it’s your own business.

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

At this point, there is no need for two different menus, as it might be confusing for the visitor. I would delete the black bar and bring the Instagram logo down into the main menu. This way, it will feel lighter on the eye and easier to grasp what really matters.

#3 Describe the real value to the visitors

Sendid Miljoniks is a great blog for anyone who aspires to start flipping apartments or is already flipping apartments. The catchphrase “Flipping to Financial Freedom” is short and perfect. It tells the story in one second.

The founder Ännifriid is sharing her journey through her blog and Instagram channel. Both are visible on her website, but neither has a clear title or intro. Adding an intro would give more clarity for new website visitors. The intro title could also include the value people get from consuming her content.

The blog goes deeper into interesting incidents and the blog is where the whole channel started. Therefore, the title above the blog posts could be either simply “Sendid Miljoniks Blog” or “Blog with Insights and Experiences”.

The Instagram channel offers insights to what’s currently happening, so the title could be “Fresh Posts on Instagram” or “Latest Stories on Instagram”. In the big picture, the Instagram channel brings the readers to the website. So Instagram in this case is the #1 source of traffic for the website. This becomes important later in the monetization section.

#4 Check that your website is responsible for all devices

In the case of Sendid Miljoniks, most of the traffic comes from Instagram. This means that most of the readers will visit the website using their phones. Yet, I am checking the website on my laptop and you can see that I fixed a content alignment issue above. It can be a time-consuming pain in the ass to take care of all the details, but it’s necessary. Of course, you can focus on the most used devices, but you shouldn’t forget the other devices. Here’s a good quote that helps me get the annoying things done too:

How you do anything is
how you do everything.

T. Harv Eker

#5 Make your Corporate Visual Identity work for you

What’s CVI and why does it matter?

If you use your Corporate Visual Identity (CVI) right then you will give the right feeling to your visitors and followers. I used to believe that CVI was an unimportant wishy-washy hoax invented by design agencies to charge you 10k for a useless document.

But I’ve also discovered firsthand how important CVI actually is. CVI is the first thing people notice about you before even reading a word. CVI gives people the first impression about you. The first impression tells the potential client:

• Who are you?
• Can they trust you?
• Does it feel “right”?

We are all humans, and we all have a deeply wired subconscious need to trust the people we do business with. If something feels off subconsciously, we won’t risk getting hurt or killed by that person. We just want to avoid them without understanding why.

What bothered me about the CVI on this real estate blog?

I have been following Ännifriid on Instagram for a while now. When I visited her website for the first time, I felt that something was off. This time the mismatch in style between her Instagram channel and her website wasn’t too bad, but enough to feel that something is not quite right.

You see, on Instagram reels and stories Änni’s super warm, friendly, and helpful personality shines through. She just leaves a super lovable impression with her caring storytelling and femininity in its best possible meaning. She has great taste in style and makes apartments look super nice.

Yet if you come to the website, the font gives a sense of bossy authority, and the colors are mostly cold. If there were no pictures of a smiling Änni, it all would seem like a government website.

How to design the right CVI for you?

How to choose CVI fonts?

If you want to seem traditional, use serif fonts and
if you want to be modern, use sans-serif fonts.

How to design CVI buttons?

If you want to show authority, use buttons with sharp corners, if you want to be friendly use rounded buttons.

How to pick the right CVI colors?

Make the colors speak who you are. Here are a few color palette creator websites you can use for free:

• If you already know what you want use coolors.co
• If you want to see the colors applied to the website colormind.io
• If you want to get colors from one photo use canva.com
• If you want to see the colors applied to different assets use palettemaker.com
• If you want to find your new favorite colors use khroma.com

In Sendid Miljoniks case, I would use the following colors.

1. Main color 1: A warm pastel mix of pink and yellow – #FFF7F1
2. Main color 2: A clean and light white – #FFFFFF
3. On buttons: A lovely and feminine pink – #FFD6D6
4. For texts and accent: A stylish mix of blue and green – #155E7E

#6 Make it super easy and valuable for the reader

The catchphrase “Flipping to financial freedom” is perfect. Let’s make it even easier for the reader to understand in 3 seconds, what the website is all about and how it brings value.

I would simply add “Hi! I am Ännifriid Põder and this is my journey”. It gives a personal one-on-one feeling to the reader, makes you instantly connect, and dissolves any potential resistance.

I would also add after the main title, “I hope that I can help your journey by sharing my experiences and failures.” This is relatable for the target audience and gives a feeling of transparency, honesty, and helpfulness. This sentence makes the reader understand, that they may save a lot of money thanks to learning from the blogger.

#7 Make it interesting for the reader

Adding a simple progress bar, makes the reader feel that the journey is ongoing and the curiosity will bring the people back to the blog to see how much the progress bar has moved with each flip.

It’s always super interesting to know, how much money somebody is making by doing what they do. So I would add the numbers to show the profits over time $223k / $1M or maybe passive income $1200 / $6000 mo. Wouldn’t you want to know what the blogger’s goal is and how much she is making now?

Returning visitors is also a very important metric to monetize a blog. So let’s speak about monetizing. 😉

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3 ways on how to monetize a blog

Here are a few examples tailored for the best real estate blogs on how to monetize their blog. Find ways to use these ideas for monetizing your blog to increase your income.

#1 Win-win-win affiliate collaborations

As an interior designer, one definitely starts to love some shops and service providers more than others. The reasons may vary, from getting cheap yet tasteful interior elements to having the nicest people in their teams or whatever.

If you have your favorites anyway, why not set up an everybody-wins collaboration?
You would help the shop by bringing in more clients and revenue.
You would help the readers get better deals and discounts with your coupons.
You would get rewarded financially for doing the marketing for them.

For monetization, you can either charge a fixed monthly fee for passive income or get a commission on each sale. Or even better – negotiate both collaborations. All you need to do is to make a post about the store and add a simple trackable link to the e-store and add a discount coupon to the call to action section.

I would add to the top menu a button named “Favorites”. If you want to go one step further, you can also share bad experiences. It would warn your readers to avoid bad builders or scammy shops that deliver bad quality products. Be authentic with it – money is not everything and being untrustworthy will kill your business in the long term.

#2 Offer premium content as a course or monthly subscription

You know you. Some people are great teachers and speakers. If you enjoy helping others succeed, then you can most definitely ask for good money for it.

I would add another site to the website called 17 Flips. The number would grow with each sale. Again, this is something that shows the blog is active, that number creates curiosity, and the curiosity makes people want to pay more and more with each flip. So you could also add gamification to it, by increasing the cost of the course with each flip.

Maybe, a ridiculously fair price would be $17 for 17 detailed overviews making each lesson cost only $1. If people would get in now, they would get all the future overviews for free. Another version would be the monthly subscription for premium content. It would make more money over time and bring people back to the website. However, the long-term cost might make people less likely to subscribe.

I personally, would love to read a more detailed overview of each flip with the budgets, and the names of builders, and I would be more than willing to pay for it.

#3 Offer your services to other flippers and investors

I would add a third page named “Services”. There you can offer one-on-one consultation calls to fellow flippers, interior design projects, or even full apartment overhaul projects to investors. Offer, whatever is your gift that comes naturally easy for you.

3 Bonus ideas: How to find more real estate projects to flip

If you want to find good projects to flip, then I have three ideas on how to do that.

1. If you have enough cash, set up a form for people to offer their apartments for flash sale. You will get to buy the ones you want at below market price.
2. If you don’t have cash, offer to real estate owners that you would renovate the apartments and houses for them. In return, you will share the additional profit. More money for them and no cash flow stuck under the real estate.
3. If you don’t have enough cash, you can let investors and readers lend you money. They have seen your work, they trust your blog, and they are rooting for you to succeed. They will get interest on their money and you get to flip more real estate.

Take action now!

Reading is fun, consuming information is easy, applying it is what matters. Ideas are worth nothing without execution. So, now that you have taken 7 minutes to read this blog do this one simple thing to improve your business.

1. Go to your website
2. Take a paper or open a text document and write the title:
   “10 Ideas how to improve my business”

Leave in comments below a takeaway that you will apply in your business with a link to your website. If possible, add before and after pictures.