How To Make Money Blogging

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. This is one way that bloggers make money, but it is at absolutely no extra cost to you if you choose to make a purchase based on my suggestions! If you would like to read more about how this works, check out my Disclosure Policy!

I have been blogging for a while now and I am slowly figuring out the keys to making a little money on my blog! I am not an expert, but as I am sharing as I learn. Making money was my goal in the beginning of this blog. I am working on paying off all of my debts. Any extra money that I make from this blog goes straight to my debts that I am paying off.

I know that this seems like such a crazy idea, but it actually works, if you do. You can actually make money even with pretty low viewers. While I am writing this, I only have about 40-50 viewers a day on my blog and I am still making some money! CRAZY! I actually got up to 210 in one day this week! That was cool for me, but I am on the road to hopefully getting to the point where that is more of a constant.

As I build my blog and help people build theirs, so many people have asked me how you can possibly make money on a blog. Let me tell you, it can be easy, but it is also super complicated until you get the hang of it. I recommend taking one course on blogging, but don’t get too caught up in the details. If you love it and you keep writing, eventually the income will follow. Do what you love. Teach what you love

Here is my of how to make money from a blog:

Being consistent.

I didn’t actually start making money until I dedicated at least 20-30 minutes a day to my blog. I have spent a lot of months pretty scattered. Posts would publish whenever I got the chance or whenever I was truly inspired by something, not regularly. Some months I didn’t post at all other than my Debt Free Journey Reports. I let those months go to waste because I wasn’t being on purpose with my business. I wasn’t actually working on it, so I wasn’t making money.

The more consistent you are, the more your traffic will come up and it will be easier to present yourself as a business! This doesn’t mean that you have to post every day. Create a realistic goal for your own life. All of the other opportunities will come with consistency! My consistency mostly falls on my social media. I am always on top of my Instagram and building other relationships, but I am beginning to be more consistent with my writing and my goal is to continue to publish an article every Thursday morning for the rest of the year. To do this, I am actually scheduling out all of my posts a week in advance so I am always one week ahead of the game.

Suggest services that you love.

It took me a while to understand this concept and I definitely couldn’t have done it without Michelle’s Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing Course! Michelle breaks down Affiliate Marketing into a simple step by step process! Almost all of the money that I have made is because of her course!

Every step of my debt free journey is documented throughout this year which will be cool to look back on. I have been so blessed with the fun things that come with a blog, like talking with other bloggers, spending hours on Pinterest and editing photos. I always suggest Siteground as a hosting site because their customer service is so helpful and they almost always have prices slashed so it is super cheap to get started! Check out this tutorial on how to get your very own blog started!

I also absolutely LOVE Tailwind. Tailwind is a great site that allows you to schedule your Pinterest Pins for high traffic times. Since I have been working two jobs for the last 4 months, I have LOVED Tailwind. There are some questions to whether it creates the same traffic as manually pinning, but I figure that it is better than not pinning at all. Sign up with this link to get a free month of Tailwind and give it a try for yourself! It has seriously made my life a million times easier.

Survey Companies

Another company that I really love is Swagbucks. There are so many different ways to earn money through this site, but my main source is simply installing the search bar and letting my points add up for every search that I am already making. If you sign up here, there is a bonus waiting for you. If you shop online ever, you get cash back for every dollar you spend at Wal-Mart, Amazon, Target and so many other places. Not to mention money for surveys, games, polls. I don’t spend a ton of time on it, but it is definitely kind of fun every once in a while.

Most companies have some sort of affiliate program. If you create a link on your blog to that program, and someone makes a purchase from your link, you get a small percentage. This is absolutely NO extra cost to the person making the purchase, but instead a cost to the company as a thank you for suggesting their product over other products that are out there!

Create your own products

If you have created something that has made your life a million times better, offer it to others at a small cost. Show people how much it has helped you. Maybe offer a small portion of it for free and the rest of the information for a cost. You don’t have to make a huge profit on everything.

Maybe you love cooking, and you blog about your kitchen adventures. You could put together a cookbook PDF of all of your favorite recipes. I am currently working on writing an E-book to be published later this year. It will outline the steps I took during my debt free journey to raise my income, lower my expenses and eliminate my debt!

Teaching your own course

Maybe you have a skill that other people would LOVE to learn, there are programs out there where you can create a class. Teachable is a very popular one. People will pay to learn how to do things. My favorite course that I have taken for blogging is Start a Mom Blog course. While I am not a “mom” blogger, her course is affordable, very detailed and super helpful for beginning bloggers. I wish I would have taken this course much sooner in my blogging efforts. I suggest this course for all new bloggers, moms or not. You do not have to be an expert on anything to create a course. Even if you aren’t an expert at blogging, you can always teach a course on finance, cooking, or even knitting if that is what you are into!’

Sponsored posts

I haven’t ventured too far into this one so I am not an expert. There are companies and products that will pay you for certain products. I know many travel bloggers will get free accommodations for writing a post about places. These are usually for higher traffic blogs, but depending on the blog niche, it may be more common! I plan to look into this more when I get on my feet a little more, but not quite yet!

Sponsored posts are when a company pays you to review them or post on your social media. Pay for these are usually set based on the amount of followers/readers.

Make blogging fun and money will come.

The first seven months of my blog, I didn’t make any money. It was such a struggle to continuously pour time into my blog with no real proof of work. I almost gave up, but it has slowly started coming in. It is one of the greatest feelings ever.

My blog is not all about the money I make. It is more about showing people that debt isn’t the only way to live. Once I am debt free, I can’t wait to be able  to show that debt free can be a lifestyle. You don’t need to live in a over looming and uncontrollable debt. The whole purpose of blogging is to inspire people to take back control of their finances. It is also to show millennials what life can be like if you take control of your finances sooner rather than later!

If you have not started a blog, I totally suggest that you check out my guide on how to start a blog in 7 easy steps. I have laid it all out for you. If you have any questions you can count on me to get back to you! Also, send me your blog URL’s so I can read them once you get it started!

Ads

This is not one that I suggest a lot because too many ads can make your blog look like spam, truly believe that a few here and there are okay. I have a few throughout my blog and I use Chitika for my ads! This is just payout for a little bit of the work that I already do! This is the final one that I added to my blog because I was really turned off by blogs that had them all over their website, but they really can be a great source of income!

Disclosure

I love blogging, with or without the money. I do not want anyone to think that the only reason I promote things is to make money. Everything I promote has helped my life, whether it be through my blog or in my debt free journey. I would never promote something that I don’t actually use myself. The Federal Trade Commission tells me that I have to disclose to my readers that I do may make some money on some of the links that are throughout my blog. This is at no extra costs to my readers, but “Thank you” from the outside companies that I fell in love with and suggested to my readers. If your goal is to make money off your blog, you need to make sure that you have a disclosure page like this one. It does not have to be complicated or long, but making sure that you aren’t tricking your readers is important!

I wish everyone luck as they embark on their journey through blogging. Even if you don’t aim to make money at first, blogging is extremely satisfying. Good luck to everyone who is going to start their blog right now! If you already have a blog, check out my 8 Blogging Resources That You Can’t Blog Without! (That Won’t Waste Your Money!