Originally published in 2009. Updated in 2025 as part of the Personal Branding Blog relaunch under Brown Brothers Media.
This is the final post in a series about blogging your personal brand. I’ve written a post for beginners, as well as intermediate and advanced users. Please review those posts before reviewing this one.
By the time you reach the expert stage of blogging, the basics are second nature. You’ve already built an audience, refined your voice, and developed a rhythm that works.
Now it’s about leverage — using what you’ve created to open doors, build partnerships, and turn influence into opportunity.
This guide focuses on the next phase of personal branding through blogging: expanding your reach, creating income streams, and positioning your platform as something bigger than a website.
Each of these steps will help you strengthen your authority, attract the right connections, and move from being a consistent creator to a recognized expert in your field.
1) Podcast your brand on your blog
Whenever I talk about podcasts, I typically think of video, but many bloggers choose to record their voice or an interview through their phone, computer, or a recording app and then publish it. You can do the same, and there are services that will aid in the publishing process, such as Spotify for Podcasters, Podbean, or Buzzsprout. Audio podcasts are great for people who are more comfortable speaking than being on camera or who don’t have the equipment to shoot video.
Video is still one of the best ways to interact with your audience, especially if you’re charismatic and personable. People can get a sense of you from reading your posts and social updates, but when it comes to real interaction and emotional connection, video is king. Purchase a webcam or a camera that connects directly to your computer using a USB-C connection. If you want to be professional and possibly interview other people for an online show, consider a good external microphone, a small audio interface, and an HD or 4K camera.
Once you’ve created your video, upload it to YouTube, Vimeo, or TikTok, using optimized titles, descriptions, and keywords. Finally, you’ll want to use the embed code from the video on either sharing site to use on your blog. You can either post the video as a standalone post or include a written transcription along with it.
2) Lifecasting
The most effective live streaming platforms today include YouTube Live, LinkedIn Live, and Instagram Live. I recommend getting comfortable doing audio or video podcasting before you decide to do live video. When it comes to live video, you have to be authentic, and be cautious as to what you say and do.
When you sign-up for one of these services, you are given your own branded web page, where you can use your phone or your webcam to film yourself or other people. While you are lifecasting, people can view this page and see you live, while having the ability to type messages to you. It’s your ability to get to know your audience more and visa versa.
The end result of your time spent lifecasting is a video recording that you can embed on your blog as a post. If you choose to do this, you should give a summary of how your session went!
3) Start your own mailing list
If you want to start a mailing list, then make it different than your blog. A lot of the best bloggers use mailing lists to give their most loyal subscribers additional tips and strategies for signing up. Typically, your readers or viewers that care enough about you and your material will signup for your mailing list to receive more content. Before starting a mailing list, you should think about how busy you are and if you’re able to spend time on such a project. Also, you’ll want to decide how many emails you want to send in a specific period of time and the value that list will receive.
Your mailing list and blog should market each other, which means you’ll want to add links to cross-promote both and any other products or services you want to sell. I recommend the following email marketing services: ConvertKit, MailerLite, and Substack.
4) Place advertisements
There are many different kinds of advertisements you can place on your blog to drive revenue (passive income). Before you start reaching out to potential sponsors, create an “Advertise” page on your blog where people can see available ad sizes, expected reach, and pricing packages.
To find advertisers, search for brands relevant to your niche and look for companies actively running campaigns on Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, or Meta Ads. You can also reach out to readers who comment frequently or share your posts since many represent businesses that may want to collaborate.
Here are a few common ad formats:
- Text links
- 300×250 sidebar banners
- 728×90 header banners
- Sponsored posts or reviews
- Newsletter sponsorships
You should charge based on your monthly traffic, subscribers, and overall blog authority. To measure your analytics, use Google Analytics, Fathom Analytics, or Plausible.
5) Setup an affiliate program
Affiliate marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts. You only get paid for when you people click on advertisements on your site and pay for a company’s products or services.
There are many affiliate programs available, such as Amazon Associates, Impact, ShareASale, and CJ Affiliate. Don’t expect huge returns unless you already have a lot of inbound traffic to your website. The money you make from affiliate programs (possibly with other bloggers) will help fund your ongoing blog initiatives and upkeep.
6) Poll your readers
As a blogger, you should be interested in what your readers think of your blog, the types of posts you’re doing and any topics they would like to learn more about. Also, you may just want to poll them to gather quick feedback, to measure your success or out of curiosity. The best polling tools now are Google Forms, Typeform, and SurveyMonkey, all of which integrate easily with WordPress or email newsletters.
7) Build a team blog
A team blog is a blog that has multiple authors. The are a lot of benefits of having multiple contributors to your blog, such as having a variety of voices, more content and saving your time for other purposes, such as marketing the blog. If you’re an expert blogger, you should have a strong network of fellow bloggers to select for your team blog.
Using Wordpress, you give bloggers permission to write entires and then submit them for your review. You should give them the right to use their avatar, name and a link to their own blog.
Team blogs with multiple authors often evolve into business media platforms, such as TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, and HubSpot Blog. You can do the same!
8 ) Use your blog at a platform
A blog can lead to bigger and better things. The most notable are speaking engagements and consulting gigs. By showcasing your interest in receiving those opportunities, you are more likely to garner them. So setup pages with those titles on your blog and if you’ve spoke or consulted in the past, use endorsements, video and a topic outline to show people what you’re made of.
You can also use your blog to sell more of your products, services and introduce people to other sites you own. Your blog will allow you to promote anything you want!
9) Write an eBook / book
After writing hundreds of blog posts, you will naturally want to tie your writings into a book of some sort. Some of you will try and get a literary agent and a publishing deal in order to get your ideas out there, while others will draft an eBook that captures many of your posts.
You can sell the eBook and market it on your blog or on platforms like Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing or Gumroad. If you’re interested in having a physical book, you’ll want to have more original content for that, but the eBook doesn’t have to always be original.
10) Start more blogs
When a single blog (or team blog) isn’t enough, you can always start multiple blogs. Obviously, it’s going to take up even more of your time, so think through your current situation before you make the jump. There aren’t too many bloggers who are willing to have yet another blog to build content for. The ones that do, usually do it on a completely different topic to satisfy their other passion.
Conclusion
Once you’ve reached this level, blogging becomes less about keeping up and more about leading the conversation. The challenge isn’t finding your voice anymore — it’s deciding where to take it. Every post, podcast, partnership, and project you launch should reinforce the brand you’ve worked hard to build.
Keep experimenting, but do it with purpose. Focus on quality over quantity, strategy over noise, and relationships over quick wins. When your blog reflects both your expertise and your evolution, it stops being just a platform and starts becoming your legacy.
This article is part of Personal Branding Blog’s Legacy Series — highlighting timeless insights from our archive. Learn more about our story here.
