Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. At no extra cost to you, I may be compensated for purchases made via these links; thank you for your support of this blog.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, and I may be compensated for purchases made via these links. Thank you for your support of my blog.

I’ve been thinking a lot about ways to grow my businesses. As someone who is self-employed in a well-established industry, I can look to my professional organization and industry leaders for best practices and ideas to grow my primary income.

On the blogging side of things, the water isn’t always as clear.

Inspired Bloggers University

Because the Mister and I have the big financial goal of paying off half our debt this year, I knew that monetizing my blog would be one way to help increase our household’s income, but how do I do it? I needed to find some tools to grow my blog and get more education to plan for and create profit.

I started researching, and earlier this year, I found Tabitha Philen’s Inspired Bloggers University. I wish that I had found her years ago.

• I relate to her because she grew a profitable blog in order to get her family out of debt. She’s from the South, and she’s honest about what works and doesn’t work for her.
• Tabitha isn’t stingy with her knowledge. She does a lot teaching via live video so you can ask questions right then rather than waiting days for an email or Facebook comment to be returned. While she obviously sells courses to grow her blog, she has a lot of rich, practical content available to her audience for free.
• I found that her information was geared to help you grow your blog whether you’re a brand new blogger or have been working on a website for years, and I was pleasantly surprised to get my first blog payout before I even finished working through the first course I purchased.

Blog Success Planner

Obviously, the Mister and I live on a pretty tight budget, so I try to soak up as much knowledge as I can without opening my checkbook. Last week, I was pleased to get an invitation to a free webinar from Tabitha called “Planning for Profit.”

During the webinar, one of the points that really stuck with me is that I need to be way more intentional about my blogging if I want it to consistently grow and be an income stream for my family. Tabitha and I could have been having a one-on-one coaching call because she was highlighting all the areas I knew I wanted to grow:

• Planning an editorial content calendar
• Learning to work on a blog niche
• Being more strategic with affiliate marketing
• Growing an email list
• Focusing on which social media actually grows my blog traffic

Then she introduced a product to help me plan for and organize all of the moving parts of blogging – the 2017 Blog Success Planner.

Don’t let the word planner fool you. There is so much more to this product than a planner than just a calendar. I think this is the tool to build a blogging business plan.

You can use the Blog Success Planner to orient your blog as a business by setting office hours, learning to track income and expenses, plan strategic content, and contact and pitch marketing campaigns to brands.

Tabitha offers two formats: a digital format with editable pdf pages and a professionally printed format. Whatever your preference is, this is the tool to help you take your blog from hobby to business. All the tools you need are included….I’ve even heard it referred to as the blogger bible.

Planning for Profit

Now, I have a confession to make.

By itself, this planner would be a bit too much for me to implement. Nearly 200 pages of blogging strategy and planning is a little overwhelming initially.

Luckily, Tabitha thought about that as well, and she’s offering a course, Planning for Profit, to help you learn to use your planner and get strategic about making a profit with your blog in 2017. Because she doesn’t want you to just purchase the planner and then have it sit on a shelf collecting dust; she wants next year to be successful.

This is perfect for someone like me, who wants to work at her own pace but still have the accountability of classes to keep me moving. The first live video lesson starts Monday, November 6.

If you don’t want the course, you can get the planner by itself. But I personally opted for the digital planner with the course because I really want to use my blog to help my family get out of debt, and the Blog Success Planner + Planning for Profit course are definitely the tools I need to grow my blog.

I hope that you’ll join in with the planning for profit movement – purchase your planner and join us for class. Let’s make 2017 a great year.

Do you have questions about the planner? I encourage you to head over to Tabitha’s site. She has a helpful FAQ and more product information about her Blog Success Planner and course to help you determine that this is the tool you need to make your blog more profitable.