How To Make Money Blogging
In order to make money blogging there are a few things you need to know, this post tells you exactly how to make money blogging.
I started a blog a little over a year ago and now I am a full time blogger who helps other bloggers make money online. The question I get more than any other question (even from non bloggers) is " "how do I make money online?"
My answer is almost always the things I am going to talk about in this post. Which is how I use my blog to make a full time income online. This post is for people who have already created their blog, but If you are looking to create a blog for less than $3 a month, click here to go to my post explaining how you can create a blog for less than $3 a month. It is the perfect post for anyone who wants a blog but hasn't started one yet.
If you found me from Pinterest and are curious how I can make this much blogging than you have already figured out more than half of my job, I spend 5% of my time actually working on my website and 95% of my time using Pinterest to get my website in front of the right people, yes I basically get paid to use Pinterest.
HERE IS WHAT I DID TO START MAKING HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS MY FIRST MONTH BLOGGING:
1. Create Simple Monthly Goals
When I started this blog I had no following for it on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Google +. But I knew I needed to set social goals to push me hard to engage and grow a community for my blog online. Because your community is how you make money. It was hard set goals about how much money I thought I wanted d make, and how many followers I wanted to get when I had absolutely nothing to compare my blog to.
Because I didn't have anything to compare my blog to this made setting goals even more important. Goals allow you to have something to work towards. When you go into a task without a goal you often don't have the motivation to continue. For me knowing that I wanted to make $250 my first month blogging was enough to motivate me to do everything in my power to make that a reality.
However I knew I needed to create achievable goals. Earning 1,000,000 a month when you have nothing to sell and no followers may be impossible, but earning a few hundred dollars is not.
My goals now a day are much larger than they were back then but here are my original goals for my very first month blogging:
- Earn: $250
- Twitter Followers: 500
- Pinterest Followers: 1000
- (I didn't plan to focus on Facebook and Instagram followers)
- Facebook Page Likes: 70
- Instagram Followers: 50
- 12 months later and now my goals look much more like this:
- Earn: $20,000+ A month
- Schedule 30+ pins a day
- Write 2 Monthly Newsletters
- Keep active in my Facebook Group
- Create a new email opt-in every month
- Grow my Pinterest Following 500 a month.
2. Increase Your Following on One Social Site at a Time.
I see so many bloggers spread themselves so thin on every social media network because marketing agencies want "high interaction" to sponsor them. Sponsorships are not the way that you are going make the most money. Sponsorships should really be a small portion of your income because you can make way more money through affiliates, and creating your own products.
Spreading yourself too thin as a blogger really limits how you can grow as a blogger. I decided to focus on Pinterest, and Twitter when I started my blog because I knew If I used Pinterest correctly It can bring your blog a good amount of traffic from people in your target audience. (you can click here to learn how I met my goal and got a lot of traffic from Pinterest).
I am now happy to say a year later that focusing on Pinterest more than any other social media site has been the right decision. Pinterest is the only reason I make money, and get traffic to my blog. If you are new to blogging, but really want to increase the money you make blogging there are a few things that I recommend
Boardbooster: Boardbooster allows you to Loop pins, which deletes old pins and reposts them but it won't delete viral pins. This makes your page continue to be active even when you aren't activity pinning. Since starting to use Boardbooster I have increased my income by nearly 500%. I highly reccomend joining boardbooster even if you only use the entry level subscribtion. You can sign up for Boardbooster here.
Tailwind: Tailwind is a Pinterest scheduler that is completely different than Boardbooster instead of re-pinning things you have already pinned with Tailwind you can find new things to pin by using group boards called Tribes, or searching within Tailwind. By using Tailwind Tribes I have increased the amount of views I get on Pinterest monthly from 40,000 to upward of 1,000,000 views a month. Tailwind is amazing and has totaly changed my life. If you want to find out more you can sign up for a free tailwind account here.
I also knew that Twitter was a great way to start branding myself, I could grow a large following on Twitter faster than other social media networks. This would help my blog more professional because I was connected to a large target audience. The more professional your blog looks the easier it will be to make money.
I talk a ton more about how to create the perfect social media strategy when first trying to make money with your blog in the mini course 30 Days to Blog Success. It tells you exactly how to dive into social media from the beginning (the easy way) when trying to make money blogging.
So start with one or two social media sites at a time. If you need help deciding which ones are right for you always assume Pinterest is number one, and then the second one should be what you think people would be most likely to click on a link to your blog from.
3. Start with One Affiliate Program.
I see posts being re-pined on Pinterest all the time with titles like, "50 Great Affiliate Marketing Programs" and "The top 20 affiliate programs" too many affiliate links take away from your content.
No one is going to want to keep coming back to a blog when every post just sounds like a sales pitch to get you to go somewhere else and buy something or sign up for a service.
Posting too many affiliate links is going to take away from your earnings because people will not take you seriously. They will easily be able to tell you are just trying to make money, and that you aren't actually offering any advice, or stories for your viewers to read.
Affiliate marketing is one of my favorite topics to talk about in my mini-course because it is a way you can start making money ASAP because as soon as you sign up you can start selling, there is no time you have to invest in creating a product. Because Affiliate marketing is so powerful I talk about it tons in my mini-course, so if you are interested in how to jump into affiliate marketing I think the mini course 30 days to blog success will be very helpful!
To make good money with affiliate programs you need to focus on one or two and push them. You should create a whole post about the great things that product or service has to offer not just include a link to it in every post.
Affiliate marketing is over half of my income, and i still stick to the basics that I talk about in my mini-course. A few of the things I do to be successful blogging, and with affiliate marketing is:
Only use a few affiliates.
Be transparent with your readers.
Use the affiliate because you honestly love them.
I create a mini-course to help other bloggers turn their blogs into a full-time income in a short period of time (I did it for myself in 30 days) and in that mini-course I talk tons more about affiliate marketing. So....
If you are interested in turning your tiny blog (or not yet blog) into a full time business in just 30 days, my mini course "30 Days to Blog Success" is for you!
4. Offer Services
So many bloggers are worth so much more than they know.
I see food bloggers all the time and wonder why they don't offer services bring in more money. A few of the examples I talk about in my mini-course for food bloggers are: online video cooking lessons, personal recipe creation, 30 minute meal cooking classes online, (there are many more for all kinds of bloggers in the book).
Services I offer are:
Blog Auditing: where I go do a 4+ page report of someones blog and tell them exactly how they can make money with their type of blog, what they should be doing to get more traffic, what images they can post to create more shares.
Social Media Auditing: Where I create a complete a 4+ page complete review of bloggers social media to tell them, when they should be posting, what content they should be sharing more, what content they should be sharing less, what social media they should focus on growing next, what they can do to wok less on their social media.
Everyone has knowledge that someone else doesn't have and wants. The options are endless. Fashion bloggers could offer services helping their readers organize their clothes for that season, or for an event, or personal online shopping. There are so many ways to make money blogging with services.
I brought up offering services to one of my clients and she said, "I don't have enough readers to offer services." She was wrong, one reader is enough to offer services. All you have to do is put some extra time in your schedule and set up a landing page. You have knowledge someone else wants.
Offering services is a great way to make money blogging.
5. Only have 1-3 Advertisem*nts
Advertisem*nts are a great way to earn extra money blogging. However ads really take away from a blog when they are all over the place. I have a few ad's on my page. One ad under every post and one in my side bar. These ads are enough to earn me a little extra income but they don't push readers away.
I recommend only having 1-3 advertisem*nts on each page of your blog.
6. Don't Post Just To Post
I mentioned this earlier in the post, that some bloggers feel the need to have something new go up every single day. Don't do this. Posting every single day will not make you money blogging. The way you make money blogging is posting good content that is full of information and is actually giving something to your readers.
I only post 1 to 3 times a month depending. I have found sometimes the weeks I only post once I get the most traffic and make the most money blogging.
7. Stay Educated on Blogging
I think a great way to stay educated on blogging is to take courses, and I personally think that my min-course 30 days to blog success is a great way for newbie bloggers, or people who want to blog to learn how to build a profitable money making blog from nothing in a month.
If you are interested in turning your tiny blog (or not yet blog) into a full time business in just 30 days, my mini course "BLOX" is for you!
I know many people want to start making more money before summer comes around so they can travel with their families and take of extra time off while its warm but they have no idea where to start. BLOX success is a day-by-day guide to starting a blog, and making money with it oh and now it comes with new extras:
One-on-one coaching ($200 Value).
Step-by-step guide for how to become a successful blogger. ($150 Value)
Access to a private group only for people who have read the book. ($190 Value)
I see clients all the time who stopped seeing growth in social media, and blog traffic. I often ask them, "Do you keep on SEO information?" "Do you use Pinterest as a learning tool to get help from other bloggers?" and I often get the response of "no". The reason that people fail as bloggers is because they don't stay up to date on their affiliates, good ways to advertise, and how to optimize their social medias.
To make money blogging you need to stay educated on all things blogging!
8. Build an Email List
As a blogger the only audience you own is your email list. Every person on that list is there because you did something right to make them stay. All the people on your email list want to hear what you have to say. To make money and especially a passive income as a blogger you need to build your email list so you have someone to offer a product or service to. A great way to build your email list is to put a call to action in every one of your social media bios and offer content upgrades to people who sign up.
A call to action in your social media bio could sound something like this, "Learn how I keep 3 growing toddlers going to be regularly every night (link to sign up to your email list here). Then you would set up an automation through your email service (I recommend MailerLite they are free and offer automation) to send them an email with your tips after they sign up.
9. SELL A PRODUCT
From almost the start of my blogging career I have offered things like printable blog schedules, and mini-guides that people could purchase. In the beginning this was just a 10% portion of my income because I had no idea how to market them to my audience.
After about a year and a half this is now how I make a little more than half of my monthly income. which to me is the perfect amount because it allows me to have a diverse income. I know that if one day suddenly 99.9% of my buyers stop buying, I will still have enough money to support my family and not have to go back to work.
I have had the most success with my mini-course which is helpful to get a lot of people a way more information than this blog post, however this is because of the quality information it provides for bloggers or people who want to start a blog.
If you want more information on how to generate a FULL-TIME INCOME online with a blog, photography business, or Etsy shop I know that 30 Days to Blog Success can help you. I think that if you are interested in making a full time income online and getting to work from home there is no better resource on the market.
10. Start a blog if you want to blog!
I know that you may have seen this blog post shared somewhere and were like, "How in the world can she make that much money blogging?" I promise you it is not as hard or expensive as you think it may be.
You may be thinking, "I have nothing to write about" or "I would have no idea how to start blogging" or a plethora of other reasons why you "can't" start a blog. I promise you can blog about ANYTHING and blogging can change your life as long as you do one thing: have a self-hosted blog.
I literally made no money blogging until I became self hosted with WordPress, so if you want to do it you need to be self hosted. Don't worry it is far less intimidating than it sounds I will walk you through everything step-by-step in my FREE how to start a profitable e-mail course.
11. STAY TRUE TO YOURSELF
I see so many bloggers post about everything under the sun even though they really want to be a fashion blogger, or they really want to be a mommy blogger. To make money blogging you need to stay true to yourself. Talking about something you don't care about to get people to click affiliate links, or get more traffic makes your blog seem more unprofessional and boring.
You are going to be more likely to have a good audience that sticks around if you stay true to yourself. Your audience is there for you not who you pretend to be.
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