Ways You Can Monetize Your City-Specific Blog

Have you been thinking about launching your own city-specific blog, but you’re unsure how you would monetize and grow your new business? 

In a recent post, we talked about the importance of creating a blog for the longevity of your business, but we also know that having a blog (especially a niche, city-specific blog) is one of the best ways to monetize your business as well. 

In this guide, I will walk you through exactly how you can monetize your city-specific blog with the help of City Living Network. Here at City Living Network, we help you create a niche, city-specific blog in just 30 days. From ideation to the launch buzz and everything in between, City Living Network is determined to help the next generation of entrepreneurs and editors-in-chief start their dream careers – from the comfort of their homes! 

If you're new around here and want to learn more about City Living Network, read this post. 

This guide is going to be geared towards helping you understand how you’ll be able to monetize your city-specific blog and we’ll talk about why a niche blog can actually help you make more money than you’re even imagining right now! 

When we talk about monetization, we’re talking about how you’re going to make money from your blog or how you’ll gain an income from your blog.  

A big question we often get asked is, “Can you actually make money blogging?”

Luckily for you, you’ve come to the right place. Here at City Living Network, we have years of experience working in journalism, managing a budget, and monetizing online. And that experience shows with the successful growth and management of Laguna Beach Living.

But the truth is, it takes time to build an income with your blog. 

First things first, be warned – you cannot be a lazy blogger and expect to make thousands of dollars a month. Running a successful blog takes time and when done correctly, can be your full-time job! If that sounds like your dream come true, keep reading. 

So without further ado, here’s how you can monetize your city-specific (new!) blog. 

1. Offer advertising on your blog for local brands

Working with local brands for advertising on your website is the first thing that we teach you at City Living Network. With a city-specific and niche blog, you automatically have an edge! And you have a tremendous opportunity to work with local brands to reach new audiences, both in their communities and beyond. 

With a city-specific blog, you’re going to become an expert in your niche and in your city very quickly. You’re going to start driving the attention of locals and visitors alike to your new website. 

And at the end of the day, that can massively benefit your local community and their businesses. 

In the first month of running Lexington Living Magazine, Emily was able to land a year-long advertising campaign with a local laundromat, getting paid $3,000! YUP. That was in the first month of consistently publishing content about Lexington and reaching out to local brands for advertising. 

Why is this so easy to do with a city-specific blog? 

Because of the concept of ‘niching’. 

You’ve probably heard the word niche thrown around before, but what it means is that you’ve chosen a specific topic to blog about. In this case, that very specific topic or ‘niche’ is your city. And with the help of City Living Network, you’ll also be able to launch a sleek, modern, and competitive website that is going to appeal to your readers and your potential advertisers. 

So, you’ve become the new expert in your city. 

Instead of traveling through and writing a one-off guide about your city, for example, “72 Hours in Laguna Beach”, you’re going to be publishing article after article about your city. And when people start searching online for your city, your blog is going to be at the top of their search results. 

This is one of the ways that you’ll be taught to use SEO to grow your blog. SEO stands for search engine optimization, and what that means for you is that you’re thinking about the ways that users are using Google or other search engines to find things and that you're optimizing your blog to be at the top of those results. 

The more you talk about a certain topic, the more Google is going to trust you as an expert in your niche, and therefore, the more likely you are to show up higher in the search results. 

That top position on Google is going to be your biggest draw to monetize your blog with local advertisers. 

Selling space to local advertisers

You can sell space on your website to local advertisers. And since you’re amongst the top search results on Google for your city, that means local brands in your area can also benefit from getting more clicks and more eyeballs on their ad.  

And the best part is, here at City Living Network, we teach you how to create advertisements that truly work with your website, and that don’t come across as spam. We don’t encourage any of our cities to use Google Advertising or platforms like Mediavine that litter your site with ads you don’t control for 0.1¢ per click. Instead, we help you land $3,000 advertising deals with local brands that help you create a network within your community! 

At City Living Network we also give you the exact templates you need to send pitch decks, media kits, and emails to potential brands in your area! Talk about maximizing your opportunities! 

The fastest and best way to monetize your new city-specific blog is by working directly with local advertisers and brands in your area! Use your niche and your expertise to your advantage and make sure that every ad on your site is powerful, effective, and beautiful! (I know – who knew ads could actually be beautiful! But trust us… they can!) 

2. Use affiliate marketing to promote your city's best shops, restaurants, and stays

Some brands aren’t going to have the budget to work with you right away, but if you know that the brand or business would be a great fit for your audience, and you’d really like to work with them anyway, you can use affiliate marketing OR a referral program with a discount code - which works amazingly well for in-person shopping! 

Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where you get paid a portion of a brand's sale as a commission for referring the customer. You tell your audience to shop with a brand and when they check out, the brand pays you a portion of the sale! (At no additional cost to your audience) 

Affiliate marketing can be done through platforms like Awin or ShareASale but when you’re working directly with local businesses, hotels, and restaurants, we have an even better way to help you promote the brands in your area and still get paid for your hard work. 

A City-Wide Referral Program 

We’ve essentially established a form of a local affiliate program through the work of referrals. 

If someone wants to advertise their shop on Laguna Beach Living, they can offer our readers a % off their purchase by mentioning Laguna Beach Living or another discount code that we agree to. Then when customers shop online or in-store, they can mention Laguna Beach Living, get a discount on their purchase and the brand can easily track the commission brought in from our blog.  

The brand can easily see how many people have shopped thanks to Laguna Beach Living because they’ll be able to see who used the coupon! It makes in-person affiliate marketing possible! Since you can’t really do affiliate marketing for in-person purchases. 

If this sounds overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be! When it comes to monetizing your city-specific blog, it’s all about creating relationships and community. If you feel like a brand isn’t sharing the commission with you, you simply stop promoting them and they’ll quickly see how important it is to maintain a relationship with you for their own business! 

3. Offer your skills as a writer, photographer, or social media star to local businesses

You’ve launched and now you manage an incredibly successful blog! You have skills that you can offer back to your community. Whether that’s helping a local business with photography for their new product launch or writing a blog post for a local dog walker, there are plenty of skills that you can offer back to your community. 

With Laguna Beach Living, we love to offer our services around new launches in Laguna Beach. If someone is opening a new restaurant or a brand has a new product they want to launch, we help create buzz, write content for social media and arrange photoshoots with local photographers! Then if they’d like, we’ll promote the launch on the blog and our own social media channels to bolster views. 

This is all a service you can offer once you’ve launched your city-specific blog in your area.  

I’m going to say this a million times because it is the most important thing when it comes to creating an income from your blog – but creating an income from your blog really is all about the connections and community that you create. You need to be out there networking in your community. Send some emails, yes, but also make appointments to go in and talk to these local businesses. 

Some of the services that you can offer when you’re pitching local brands and businesses in your city can include:

• Photography for the launch of a product or overall business

• Assistance with social media graphics, captions, or promotion (take what you’ve learned about social media management and marketing and share it with your community!) 

• Posting on social media for them or managing their social media for them

• Copywriting for their websites, products, or blogs (you’re quickly going to learn the importance of having a blog – why not teach a local business in your community how important blogging can be as well – and then offer to write some blog posts for them every month!)

• Writing email newsletters

• Help with branding and making their branding look more professional, up-to-date, and beautiful

Be creative and think of the skills that it takes to run your city-specific blog. Then turn that around into services and skills that you can offer to your community!

Luckily, with the help of City Living Network, you’ll learn how to do just that! In no time you’ll be a buzzing local business that people want to advertise with and hire for help with their own online presence. There is so much you can do with a city-specific blog! All you have to do is get started. 

4. Create an eBook guide for your city

Once you have a wealth of content on your blog, you can start to tailor that content to someone coming to visit your city with a city-specific eBook and itinerary. Having a city-specific eBook or guide that your audience can download can help you monetize your blog in two ways. 

First, you can sell the eBook. Usually, a guide like this could be sold for anywhere from $27-$97. The price will depend on how much information you’ve shared, how detailed the guide is and what your audience is willing to spend on a guide for your city. 

Then, you can offer advertising spaces in the guide to local businesses in your community. You can offer to design beautiful ads for the guide that will advertise the best local eatery, where to buy the best souvenirs, and what hotels your audience should stay in – for every budget! You should update your guide 2-4 times a year depending on how popular it is, and how long your advertisers have paid to be featured in it. 

When it comes to offering a guide like this, my biggest advice is to make sure you don’t overwhelm it with ads. If you have a lot of businesses that want to advertise in your book, raise the prices of the ads themselves! You really don’t want to overwhelm your guide with ads because that’s going to come across to your audience really quickly. 

Luckily for you, we talk extensively about advertising, managing budgets, and not overwhelming your website with ads within City Living Network. 

In a nutshell, by creating a city-specific blog, you’re creating a niche path for yourself that is going to help you stand out from your competition. These are just 4 easy ways that you can create a lasting income with your own (new) niche blog.

Don’t believe me? Read this blog post that’s all about how to create a creative business in a seemingly oversaturated world. 

And if you’re ready to create your own city-specific blog, schedule your free consultation with City Living Network’s founder, Lindsay DeLong here.