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Hi everyone!
I am posting this today because I get a lot of questions about blogging anonymously and whether people should start an anonymous blog. Over the years of blogging, many people also ask me, “can a blog be anonymous and make money?”
I’ll be directly answering your questions as if I’m texting or emailing a friend, so you’ll notice my writing is very casual here.
Before I answer your questions about anonymous blogs, I am going to give you a little bit of background about myself and my first personal finance blog, Finsavvy Panda. I’ll also mention a bit about my second blog, which is anonymous today.
By the way, feel free to leave or drop any comments and/or questions you have about anonymous blogging. I’ll be sure to answer you!
I also have my FREE 7-day e-mail course that will teach total beginners, like you, how to start a profitable blog and use Pinterest to gain tons of readers and followers. This is the course I wish I had when I started using Pinterest for my blog.
Can Anonymous Bloggers Make Money?
The short answer is, YES, you can make money and earn an income with an anonymous blog!
Finsavvy Panda blog was earning a healthy income by blogging anonymously for almost 2-3 years! I’ve been blogging for 4 years now and it’s not really an anonymous blog today.You can follow my blog incomes here while I was blogging anonymously. I was an anonymous blogger for several years before I decided to fully come out.
My second blog about lifestyle, which I started in the last quarter of 2019, remains anonymous today and it’s earning a real income. You’ll see here that my second blog alone earned $8,130.98 last month with Mediavine ads, not including any affiliate income, since the time of writing this post:
As you can see, it’s very possible to earn money blogging anonymously, and I see many bloggers do it all the time!
How Can a Blog Be Anonymous and Still Make Money?
A blog can be anonymous (and still make money) – for real! 🙂
It all depends on what you decide to write about and your blog monetization strategy.
By the way, when you arrange and setup your payments, you will obviously have to use your real name if you want to get paid. There’s no such thing as getting paid anonymously – I just wanted to make that clear.
It’s no different from your bank asking you for identification. But you can rest assure that this information is private and only known between you, the bank and any companies or affiliates you work with. You can also learn how bloggers get paid here.
Popular ways to make money blogging anonymously include:
- Display ads on your website
- Affiliate marketing
- Sponsored posts
- Selling your own products (yes, you can still do this with an anonymous blog)
If you’re looking to make money blogging, the first thing to do is choose a niche. But if you haven’t started your blog yet and want an overview, I have this start a blog checklist for you to follow. I also have a post on how to come up with the perfect domain name (AKA your blog name).
Next, you just need to be blogging about topics that people are searching for. You can find a list of 100+ blog topic ideas for here for different niches.
Whether you choose to blog anonymously or not, you always have the choice to connect and engage with your audience. But this is not necessary especially if your readers are directly searching for a solution to their problems on search engines like Google, and even Pinterest too when users are looking for beautiful inspiration like a DIY project or recipe. For those, I recommend learning some SEO and Pinterest traffic tips. You can start learning SEO from websites such as Moz or Ahrefs.
For me, I personally find that connecting and engaging with your readers can be fun and meaningful compared to just directly answering a question.
Everyone is different so we all have different approaches to what matches our style of blogging when it comes to creating content for people. The most important part is to just get started with your blog and learn a ton of new things along the way. You will learn to adapt to a style that you are happy with, whether you choose to be an anonymous blogger or not.
If you need help setting up your blog anonymously, I highly recommend The Treasure Map To Blogging Success in 30 Days. This beginners guide will walk you through setting up your blog and what to blog about that earns an income to the steps you should take to make your blog profitable. You’ll also avoid silly mistakes that beginner bloggers, and even intermediate bloggers, make all the time!
My Anonymous Blogs as Examples
Here is an example of how my first blog progressed from anonymous to revealing my name. Followed by an example of my lifestyle blog that remains anonymous today.
After going through these two blog examples, I will talk about the mistake I made as an anonymous blogger, why and how I decided to reveal myself on my first blog, along with a list of the pros and cons of being an anonymous blogger. And then finally, how you can start and setup your blog whether or not you decide to remain anonymous.
Finsavvy Panda was an Anonymous Personal Finance blog:
My first website, Finsavvy Panda, was once an anonymous blog due to me being introverted, shy, and not knowing what to expect on the online space. I was a total newbie and naive person, so I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I started a blog.
Not only that, but the very being of Finsavvy Panda is actually very different to how it is today.
Anonymous Finance Blog with Net Worth Reports:
When I first started that blog, I didn’t have my blog income reports yet. I was initially publishing my “net worth” reports as an anonymous blogger to keep track of my savings, investment accounts, rental properties, loans, my spending, etc. I was always very passionate about finding ways to build wealth so it was a blog where I was explaining how I was saving, investing, spending, and earning extra money to increase my savings and net worth.
As you may know, your personal net worth is a private topic (at least for most people) and it can come off as quite sensitive. I was getting traffic to those pages, some were dead in the grave, and a few of them were considered my top traffic posts (I had no control over that thanks to Pinterest 🙄), but I slowly unpublished and deleted many posts one by one, including my articles about my investments, as time went on.
There were a lot of times where I had no idea what the heck I was doing when it came to writing articles. One thing for sure is I didn’t want people to know my “net worth” or my investment details with my name next to it since I decided to reveal who I was on the blog. People who followed me from the very beginning will probably know more about me. It’s something I can’t undo unfortunately. But to be honest, everyone’s busy with their lives, so no one cares and it doesn’t really matter at this point.
Shift from Anonymous to Non-Anonymous Blogging:
As a result, today I keep it more general and talk about “how I saved my first six-figures” with a budget binder solution instead of publishing net worth reports. After unpublishing over 30 posts (yeah, I spent a lot of time writing those), I decided to publish a more general post about “how to become a millionaire in your 20s and 30s” including an article on “how to build wealth.” I also included a mix of articles that were about saving, budgeting, and earning extra income.
Even being more general like that still kind of makes me feel uncomfortable – along with those blog income reports which started off as earning “extra money” and is less sensitive compared to net worth reports – but I slowly learned how to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.
Despite the engagement and e-mails I was getting from my readers, talking about my own personal assets, mostly my investments, made me feel super uncomfortable (way more uncomfortable than the extra money from blog income reports) especially when you are debating whether or not to reveal yourself on your blog! To be honest, I didn’t even see what was coming when I first published my blog income reports!
However, I see many personal finance bloggers log their net worth reports down to the details, so it really depends on you, what you want to blog about, and how you approach it. Some things that make one person feel comfortable may not be the case for you. As long as you can sleep at night, you can do whatever makes you happy.
The thing with blogging, and anything in life, is you just never know where your blog will take you. You just sort of go with the flow and perhaps one day you wake up and decide to do something different. You’ll realize that things will never go according to what you anticipate. I never really imagined myself becoming a full-time “blogger” or revealing my name on Finsavvy Panda. I also never imagined myself starting a lifestyle blog, but it looks like I did! I really don’t know what I’ll be doing next!
My lifestyle website is an example of an anonymous blog today:
If you’ve been following me recently, you’ll know that I’ve mentioned many times about my second blog in the “lifestyle niche”, which covers many topics under the sun.
From foods and recipes to beauty, crafts, motivational quotes, and many other topics, I have the freedom to blog about whatever I want without feeling restricted to only topics related to money and personal finance.
I also get asked many questions about lifestyle blogs, so I will probably create another separate post about it soon when I find time.
Anyways, there are many reasons why I wanted my second blog about lifestyle to remain anonymous.
Blogging Anonymously Gives You Peace and Freedom
For one, not only does it give me the freedom to blog about any topic that I find interesting (and it allows me to learn more about different blogging niches), but it also gives me peace and I can do and write whatever I want without feeling any pressure from anyone.
I also enjoy SO many other things outside of the personal finance world, so I thought starting a blog where I could blog about any topic I find interesting would work for me. Plus, I get to learn and gain more knowledge in the blogging world along with other topics in life, which allows me to speak from my personal experience.
Blogging Anonymously is Fun and Enjoyable When You Need A Break From People
This is more so if you’re a shy introvert like me who needs a break from time to time.
Just like you, I actually enjoy and appreciate other things in life such as crafting things (I was going to start a DIY crafting blog instead of a personal finance one), beauty, healthy food and recipes, exercising to stay healthy, travelling, experiencing and tasting new foods, self-development, and anything random that is related to being crafty or artistic, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy talking about money topics along with how I earn an income with my blogs, and I love teaching my readers about it, but I have to admit it can feel restricted when you are boxed into one space – for me, that was personal finance and money matters.
I’m not all about money and I do need a lot of breaks. I just want to save, build, and earn enough so I could have the financial freedom to enjoy life without having to go deal with a 9-5 job.
Blogging Anonymously with a Lifestyle Blog Feels Like an Escape or Getaway
I am naturally a very self-conscious person, so I wanted to remain anonymous with my second blog, and I don’t want to make the mistake of revealing too much about myself like how I did with my first blog.
Not just that, but now that people know who I am on Finsavvy Panda, I didn’t want my second blog to be tied along with it. I’ve already published blog income reports on Finsavvy Panda (I started logging them when I was an anonymous full-time blogger earning $10,000+ per month), and I don’t want people visiting my other blog knowing it’s me.
That second blog is supposed to be my escape where I can relax and do whatever I want without feeling any pressure. It’s flexible and I can do whatever the heck I want. It also allows me to learn and do testing with peace and quiet.
Blogging anonymously without a name or face to your blog allows you to enjoy and do testing in your own time without an audience or people following you.
My Mistake With My First Anonymous Blog
When I started my personal finance blog, Finsavvy Panda, I felt that I was already revealing too much about my life in the aspect of money matters. It somehow went towards that direction without me realizing it. I didn’t care at that time because I thought I was going to remain anonymous forever and no one would ever know – not even my family or friends!
As a new blogger at that time, I was very naïve and didn’t know any better. Plus, it was hard for me to make my points without being vulnerable or telling my real life stories and experience.
This is especially true for those of you who are highly emotional and sensitive like me. Despite being emotional, sensitive, and empathetic, I actually don’t like showing my emotions or sharing my personal life to people IRL. I get really scared and hide away.
People from work, and even my friends, have used words like “enigmatic” or “mysterious” to describe me, but I only appeared that way because I was always so self-conscious about myself. I know, it’s kind of ironic how I’m even typing this out.
By being an anonymous blogger, I thought I could display my true feelings and emotions as long as no one knew who I was. But over time, it was hard to hide my identity as more and more readers reached out to me. This is even more true when I recently shifted my blogging mindset from a “fun and playful hobby that makes money” to a blogging business. I give more details about mymistakes in my blogging lessons learned here.
Why did I decide to reveal myself on my first blog?
Within my first year of blogging, I was getting a lot of emails and questions from my readers about how I was able to increase my savings, earnings, pay off my loans and save money within an X period of time. I was even getting questions about how they can start investing. As time progressed, I was getting a lot of questions about how I was earning money with a blog.
This is how my blog looked when I was still blogging anonymously:
As more readers were reaching out to me with real legitimate questions, I felt strange for hiding myself in my shell as an anonymous blogger.
I was like a walking contradiction. A big part of me wanted to reveal myself to people who were connecting with me because in my view, it’s more genuine, authentic, and real.
But at the same time, I was afraid to reveal myself due to my low self-esteem issues. I was not confident in myself because I always felt like I’m responsible for every person’s results and outcome, but I eventually learned that’s not how I should feel. That’s probably why I spent a lot of my life with something called imposter syndrome, which I still stress about, but I am learning to get over it.
Deep inside of me, I really wanted my readers to get to know me better and vice versa so I could help them, but my lack of confidence held me back. I was confused and didn’t know what to do during that time.
Those were real people who email me and ask for help/tips like how any friend would. I really wanted to treat them like how I would with my friends, and that’s why I tried my best to stop being so shy and decided to open up a little more.
This didn’t happen over night. It took time and a lot of courage from my end. I’m still very shy by nature. But eventually, I slowly revealed myself, and some parts of my life related to my money matters since that’s what I blog about, as my readers made me feel a little more comfortable in my skin.
As you can see, overtime as I got a little more comfortable, I decided to reveal myself several years later. So, today I don’t really blog anonymously on that blog anymore.
I have to admit that I’m still uncomfortable, but I am learning to let go by trying not to be so shy and sensitive. The truth is no one cares, so you do you, and just be happy with whatever you choose to do. By acknowledging that, it’s how you grow and develop as a person too. 🙂
Pros and Cons of Being an Anonymous Blogger
Now that you know a little a bit about me, how I am, along with my two blogs, here are the pros and cons of being an anonymous blogger.
By the way, these points are very general. You should NOT read these points as black and white answers.
For example, just because you’re an anonymous blogger, it does not necessarily mean you won’t be able to connect, engage and build a relationship with your readers. You can, but it’s not the same compared to revealing your name and face. Think of it as a scale, so it can be a mix of both. It depends on a lot of factors and the things you decide to do with your blog.
Anyways, here are the general pros and cons of being an anonymous blogger.
Anonymous Blogger Pros
- No pressure from anyone
- Write about topics that may be sensitive
- Have fun with your blog and do whatever you want
- Be as emotional as you want and let your feelings/thoughts out about a particular topic or subject without being judged
- You can still earn a healthy and full-time income (it’s dependent on your strategy and what you do behind the scenes)
- Great for testing and learning new things in the niche you blog about without anyone following you
Anonymous Blogger Cons
- Your website may appear very mysterious, and sometimes even come off as a fake person hiding behind a computer screen
- You may be alienating your readers who land on your page (it can become hard, though not impossible, to trust a site with no name and no face)
- Could be more challenging to build relationships with peers in your niche
- Due to all of the above, this may make it a little more challenging to get mentions, or backlinks, to your website when you do outreach. Not impossible, but can be more challenging especially when getting mentions on websites isn’t an easy task to begin with.
The great thing is you can always start your blog anonymously, and choose to reveal yourself slowly as you become a little more comfortable. It’s all up to you and what you want to do with it and how you want to monetize it.
How Do I Set Up an Anonymous Blog?
You can go to this easy step-by-step tutorial on how to start your blog and create your Bluehost account.
You can also take a minute to create a new email account to register your blog and hosting. For example, if you decide to come up with a blog name like “hungryforgoodfood.com”, then you can create a gmail account: hungryforgoodfood@gmail.com, so you can use this to register your new blog.
Also, remember to purchase the “domain privacy protection” if you want to set up an anonymous blog. It only costs an extra $1 per month, and it will hide any personal information along with ensuring you won’t appear in WHOis.com and other web directories online.
You will see this “domain privacy protection” option when you sign up for your blog. It’s a box that you can check off when it comes to adding extra features.
Even if you don’t decide to blog anonymously, I highly recommend adding this extra feature! You really should.
And if you already signed up for a blog but you don’t have the “domain privacy protection” feature added, don’t worry. You can always add it now or later, so it’s not too late.
Once you do start your blog, you can always feel free to email at ling@finsavvypanda.com and let me know you started one!
You can also shoot me an email and ask me any questions about registering or starting your blog – whether it’s anonymous or not. I’m always happy to hear from you! 🙂
