Why I Turned My Blog Into a Business

When I started freelancing, I started exploring my business options when I realized I would have to start paying taxes and tracking my expenses. Last year, I was working full time, blogging and side hustling in my spare time. I didn’t worry too much about things, except for putting away 30% of each paycheck towards taxes. But I wanted to eventually turn my blog into a business. 

A few months ago, I was able to quit my full-time day job and enter the freelance world. That’s when I started really thinking about what I wanted to do with my business. Essentially, I was already acting like a sole proprietor because I was working for myself.

Aside from freelancing, my blog itself started bringing in an income. I started earning income in several different ways:

Thanks to my previous work experience (outside of blogging), I knew I had several different options about registering my blog as a business.

More specifically, I wanted to turn my freelance career – that is partly tied into this blog – into a registered business. I also wanted to bring everything together into one business as it all related to each other.

There are many different options when it comes to freelancing. I could remain a sole proprietor. It was the easiest option as there aren’t really any start-up fees associated with this.

Ultimately, I decided to register as an S Corporation for various reasons.

 

As a freelancer and an entrepreneur, I decided to register my freelance business and blog as a business. Here are some of the reasons I decided to do this!
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure for more info.

I can group everything together

I work with a number of clients. Some of my clients are related to my Pinterest business and some are related to my career niche outside of this blog. Out of all these clients, some require a W9 up front and some just pay me through PayPal. I’m partnered with ad networks, affiliate products and have my own product.

Essentially, I’m all over the place! My social security number is everywhere and I prefer to have it in as few hands as possible.

By creating a business, I can group everything together and have it all in one place. I can eliminate the use of my social security number and use a federal employer identification number instead for everything!

I can also lump all my income and expenses into one account. This makes tracking everything much easier.

Separation of finances

This is the main reason I decided to register as a business. With every company I work with – as an independent contractor or as an affiliate – usually requires giving out my social security number. While I know everyone has the best intentions, I grew tired of giving out my social to everyone.

By creating a registered business, I was able to apply for a federal EIN and use that instead. This special number replaces the use of having to use my social security number when filling out paperwork, which in turn creates less risk.

This provided better protection for myself and helps separate my personal finances from my business finances.

I look – and feel- more professional

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a sole proprietor, I wanted to build a brand for myself. Whether it’s creating products or working with other brands, I feel more comfortable acting as a small business owner.

Related reading:

Tax purposes

One of the best advantages of forming an S Corp is avoiding double taxation. This means that I can’t be taxed twice. Instead all the profit and loss will be passed down to the individual.

What does this really mean? Basically, let’s say I’m a regular corporation. If I have to pay 30% in taxes as a business and as an individual, I would have to pay these taxes twice. That’s crazy! By registering as an S Corp, I can avoid paying taxes on the corporate level.

Aside from avoiding double taxation, a business owner can reap other benefits. An S Corp can avoid self employment taxes as well, which means saving nearly 15% of your income!

Deducting my expenses

As an S Corp, I can deduct my business expenses. While this is similar to a sole proprietor, I like creating a firm line between my business expenses and personal expenses. I don’t want things to get blurry and I prefer using separate checking account for my business and my personal life.

It’s also way too tricky to go back through my personal checking account and try to remember what was a business expense and what wasn’t.

Luckily, GoDaddy Bookkeeping helps me track everything. I can link in my PayPal account and my Capital One 360 account, and all my income and expenses are tracked for me. This makes filing my taxes much easier and less stressful when I have everything in one place.

Cons of registering as a business

The setup cost to be a sole proprietor are pretty non-existent. This is why so many freelancers remain as is, as it essentially costs nothing when getting started.

When registering as anything but a sole proprietorship, the setup fees vary. As I registered for an S Corp., the fees are pretty high. I had to pay for a city and county business license and then pay to file to be an S-Corp. This can be intimidating to someone who has no experience with this kind of thing.

Luckily, I was pretty comfortable deciding what direction to go in and knew the S Corp was the right fit for myself.

Other Ways To Turn Your Blog Into A Business

Now, while going from sole proprietor to S-Corp was important to my business, there were a few other things I did as well.

Used A Custom Domain/Self-Hosting

Luckily for me, I had always had a custom domain for my blog. So I didn’t have to change anything. But, if you’re using a free site, like WordPress.com or Weebly, you’ll want to make the change to custom domain and self-hosting

If you are thinking about starting a blog, this tutorial will help you start a blog today. You’ll also get a FREE domain name for a year! I was able to quit my job and blog full time, all within my first year of blogging. I’m really glad I took a chance and started a blog! I invested a small amount of money to start my blog using Bluehost, and I made $13,000 in 6 months of blogging. That’s the best return of investment ever! 

Along with getting hosting for your blog, you’ll also need a theme. While you can get them for free through WordPress, I prefer these:

This really showed off how I was a professional and why I was in control of my own business.

I Grew My Email List + Social Media

As I turned my blog into a business, I also started focusing heavily on building my email list and social media accounts. You can’t get clients and customers without being known. People won’t want to work with you if they don’t like or trust you.

By being active on Pinterest and building my email list, I was able to have a larger audience to earn money from. Some of my best customers and clients have found me through social media or been signed up on my email list forever!

I Monetized More

If you’ve read quite a few of my blog posts, you’ve probably seen how I make money online. Not only do I have affiliates with a ton of products/courses/services that I use and trust, I also sell my own products and services.

By diversifying my income, I knew I’d be able to earn more money from my blog, as well as try new things without fear of a huge dip in earnings.

Bottom line

Being able to decide if I want to be a sole proprietor or register my business is a great problem to have. None of this would have been possible if I had never started this blog.

I still can’t believe I made over $13,000 in only ten months working part-time. That’s crazy! 

Have you thought about registering your freelance business or blog as a registered company? 

If you are thinking about registering your blog as a business, seek out professional advice. What worked for me might not be the best option for you!

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18 Comments

  1. Hi Kristin, I have a question and I’m not sure the answer. I have a blog with a certain name and I want my business to be named something similar but not exactly the same thing because I also want to sell things. My question is, does my business name have to be the exact name of my blog if I want to write off certain things for my blog? Thanks for your help!

    1. Kristin Larsen says:

      It’s really up to you! My blog is not the same as my business name if that helps!

  2. This is super helpful – thank you for laying it all out! Besides registering as an S Corp, did you do any of the below? Or, were any of these included as part of the S Corp registration?

    -Apply for a business license
    -File for a DBA
    -Trademark your blog name

    I am getting my website off the ground and I want to make sure I have my bases covered before I get too far into everything. Any advice on these things would be MUCH appreciated!

    1. Kristin Larsen says:

      Definitely check with your local government, as I’ve found the rules are totally different when applying for your biz license and setting up your S-Corp. Depending where you live, you might have to register in your city, county and state. Trademarking is totally different. Check out USPTO.gov to make sure your TM name is available!

  3. I just started my blog and I know if I want to establish a career someday, I will have to be aware of registrations and taxes. I live in Sweden so I imagine things are different. All I can say is that I’m scared. I want this to be my life but I’m also extremely anxious about the business side of things and all the legal matters. I’ve never done taxes. I’m 22 and I have no idea how it works at all

    1. Kristin Larsen says:

      It’s totally ok if you don’t know what you’re doing – it takes time! Just be patient and keep learning as much as you can 🙂

  4. Almost everyone is talking about the goodness of affiliate marketing and blogging in today’s new era. Have you ever heard of Affiliate Summit? If so, perhaps you might want to attend our upcoming event at the Marriott in New York City @ Times Square this upcoming July 29-August 2, 2016 if you plan on being in NYC or near the big apple. They discuss everything affiliate marketing such as blogging, PPC, SEO, social media marketing, e-mail permission based newsletter marketing, affiliate programs, new advertiser-publisher partnering opportunities and more.

    You mentioned “S-corp” in your blog post above. Did you register your business blog as an S Corp” so you can get potential affiliate tax advantages? If this is so, I didn’t know you could do that. How much did it cost you to achieve business blog registration?

    1. Thanks for the heads up! I did create a company and register as an S Corp vs an LLC! When it comes to taxes, I am the worst person to ask about specifics. I will be using an accountant this year 🙂

  5. Congratulations on being official!

    I’m just curious, how come you didn’t form a LLC instead of the S corp? Is it because of the double tax situation? I’m in a similar situation but I was leaning towards a LLC so I wanted to ask since you obviously did the research and took the leap!

    Thanks!

    Jay

    1. Hey Jay! Yes, that was the main reason. The S corp allows you to receive a salary as well as dividends. The dividends are taxed at a lower rate, which is very appealing 🙂

  6. This post was very informative. Thank you for sharing!

    1. It’s because you are sooo busy!! 🙂

  7. Im not making a ton of blog money but there is definitely some coming in and I have not even thought about becoming an official business. I usually owe taxes every year so I hold off on doing my taxes until April.

    With that being said, i am going to run all this by my CPA then and see how he feels about it. Thanks for sharing.

    1. Ughs, I just started my taxes and it’s such a pain. By the time I finish it will probably be April 🙂

  8. Look at you all legit! 🙂 My accountant told me not to do it for some reason years ago. I still have no idea why. I was always pretty bad about not running a very effective system of separating business and finance stuff. No wonder doing my taxes is such a peach each year. I won’t miss that part of freelancing. 🙂

    1. I’m doing my taxes now for last year and things are outta control! I did a horrible job tracking things, never again!

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