How I make thousands of dollars through my blog

Around this time last year, Ben and I finally got around to starting our Facebook group. A group specifically designed around one simple concept: helping bloggers learn how to make money

So far it’s been amazing. We’ve had the opportunity to “meet” thousands of other bloggers, and we’ve been able to share some pretty helpful tips and tricks along the way.

A little while back I posed a question in the group that really opened my eyes:

Needless to say, some of the ensuing answers we got really surprised me. I came away learning two important things:

We have really ambitious people in this group, and I love everything about that.
Most members either,
1. Haven’t yet started their blogs but are excited about the possibility of doing so, or
2. Have started, but are struggling to generate their first $1,000 blogging.

I then realized that when I write income reports like this, it doesn’t do much for people at $0 besides maybe inspire them. And while it feels great to motivate people and show them what’s possible, I want to truly help our readers.

Which is why I’m writing this monster of an article today.

Consider it your one-stop shop on how to set up your blog, and how to make money blogging.

In this guide, we’re going to cover everything. From how to monetize your blog, to the technical aspects of getting your website up and running, we’re going to show you exactly how to make your first $1000 blogging.

Note: This is a long, action-packed article. I suggest you bookmark it so you can come back whenever you need to.

Our Blogging Story

First off, we didn’t get into blogging intentionally. Rather, we sort of fell into blogging on accident.

My business partner, Ben, and I started our business in 2014. Originally, it began as an investment membership site: people would pay us for detailed stock market analysis and specific insight as to where they should invest their money.

Needless to say (since you’re reading this article) that idea failed miserably. In fact, in our first 18 months of existence we made $0.29.

Obviously, our original idea wasn’t working, so we needed a plan B.

That’s when we stumbled onto blogging. We quickly realized that other people were making thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars per month from their blogs. Our first idea failed, and I wasn’t about to go crawling back to the full-time job I had just quit a year earlier, so we gave it a go.

Blogging was slow moving for us at first, but we kept reading, learning from others, and testing strategy after strategy until, finally we figured it out

That first little hint of success was all the motivation we needed to keep going. From there, we were able to grow our income each month (well, most months).

Now, we have two websites (this one and a personal finance site), and another in the works. Together, they bring in over $25k per month and growing.

If we’d had a guide like this when we first started our business, we probably could have skipped the first year and a half of pure stress, confusion, and turmoil and gotten where we are now in a fraction of the time.

Which brings me to another question we see a lot.

How Much Money Can You Make Blogging?

That, and how long does it take to make money blogging. These are some of the first two questions we hear from every new blogger.

The truth is, it depends on 1) how hard you’re willing to work, and 2) the monetization methods you choose.

Our websites bring in over $25k per month, but it took us a lot of work to get to that point. Granted, it would have taken a lot less work and time if we had been willing to learn from others a bit earlier on (like what you’re doing) rather than trying to figure everything out ourselves.

There are bloggers who make less than us and plenty of bloggers who make a great deal more.

The thing about blogging is that there are no limitations — there are a thousand ways to make money blogging. That’s both incredibly liberating and extremely terrifying at the same time.

If you just want to make a thousand dollars extra per month on top of your full-time job, that’s totally doable.

Want to build a seven-figure digital media empire all while traveling the world? Also doable.

That’s why so many people are drawn to the world of blogging and online business.

Blogging provides freedom.

The freedom to travel, work from anywhere, be your own boss, and not have to stress about money. But that doesn’t mean it’s all rainbows and puppy cuddles. There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes of a blog.

The Truth About Blogging as a Career

I’m not trying to get your hopes up, but I also don’t want you to get discouraged before you even begin. I want you to go into this with a level head and the mindset for success.

There are a lot of misconceptions out there when it comes to blogging and how bloggers make money, so allow me to drop some real truth bombs about what blogging is actually like as a career.

Truth Bomb #1: You don’t have to be a great writer.

It doesn’t matter whether you went to college or if you majored in journalism or underwater basket weaving. No one cares.

Your blog readers (depending on your topic and who you’re writing for) are most likely going to be average, everyday people who also aren’t professional writers. So they’re not going to know that you should have used a semicolon there or that your blog post is chock full of comma splices.

Writing for the web is far different from academic writing. I have seen some terrible grammar in the blogging world from very successful bloggers. That’s because no one cares about your grammar, they care about your ideas and how you’re able to communicate those.

So you don’t have to be a great writer. However, you do need to be a good conversationalist.

Write like you’re having a conversation with your reader or, in other words, write using your natural voice. Readers will see you as more authentic, you’ll attract the right kind of people, and those people are more likely to turn into paying customers.

Truth Bomb #2: You don’t have to be an “expert” on your topic.

“I can’t write about that topic because I don’t know everything in the world there is to know about it.”

Yes, you can. Just because you’re a CPA by day doesn’t mean you need to start an accounting blog. No one wants to be lectured at by a so-called “expert” anyway.

Some of the most successful bloggers out there didn’t start out as experts in their niche. They started documenting their journey or writing about something they were interested in learning.

People love stories. If you’re going through a change in your life, or you’re interested in learning more about a topic (interior design, minimalism, paying off debt, traveling, etc.), that’s the perfect place to start.

Truth Bomb #3: It (usually) takes some time to make money blogging.

This isn’t a hard and fast rule — there are definitely exceptions. However, most people who are able to take their blog from 0 to $5,000+ (per month) in only a few months’ time have some sort of advantage. Either they have more time on their hands, money to invest, have done a significant amount of research beforehand, or have past experience.

Like I said, that’s not always the case. But for most people, building a successful blog takes time.

The Top 4 Ways to Make Money Blogging

Some ways to make money blogging are simply easier and faster, while other revenue streams take more time and effort to build.

As a blogger, you have many monetization options to choose from, and you don’t have to choose just one. In fact, it’s wise to have multiple revenue streams. That way if something happens and one revenue stream drops, you still have other monetization methods in place.

However, we recommend choosing no more than two or three in the beginning. Focus on building those up before moving on to the next thing.

There’s no one “right” way to make money blogging. The revenue streams you choose will depend on your audience and blog topic. Now let’s take a look at some of the best/most common ways to make money blogging.

1. Advertising

When most people think of starting a blog, this is the first revenue stream that comes to mind. Oftentimes it’s not the most lucrative, but it is one of the easiest ways to get started. There are multiple ways to make money with advertising on your blog.

Display Ads

You know when you visit a site and see ads for cars or clothes or something you were just looking at on Amazon?

Those are display ads. Each time you click one of those ads, the company earns a little bit of money, which is why they call it pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

The easiest PPC method to get started with is Google AdSense However, in order to make any kind of decent money with display ads, you’ll need quite a bit of traffic. And by the time you get that much traffic, you’ll make more money going with an ad management company like mediavine or adthrive (minimum of 100,000 monthly pageviews).

We currently use display advertising on our sites but plan to move away from it in the near future. Why?

It makes for a poorer user experience.How many times have you been to a site and thought, “Good god, get these ads out of my FACE!”
It is totally dependent on your traffic.Not everyone who comes to your site is going to click on an ad, so the more traffic you have, the more money you’re likely to make, and vice versa.
It takes users away from your site. Yay, you got $0.80 for someone clicking on your ad! But now they’re on someone else’s site buying their things and making them money.

All in all, display ads aren’t the best way to make money with a blog. There are much better ways to make money blogging than sending people away from your site.

However, it’s also not the only form of advertising.

Reviews and Giveaways

Another form of advertising on your blog is to do product or service reviews or run a giveaway.

Oftentimes, companies will ask bloggers to write a review on their website about one of their products. In exchange, the blogger gets to keep the product for free. Or for a giveaway, maybe you get a product and you get another to give to the winning reader.

This can be nice if all you’re looking for is free stuff. But if you’re looking for cash, there are better ways to make money blogging.

2. Affiliate Marketing have many products and services for you to promote all in one place. Alternatively, you may be able to earn higher commissions by working directly with the company you want to promote if they have a system for that.

Affiliate marketing can be done in a really spammy, deceitful sort of way, or it can be done in a very legitimate, thoughtful way that actually provides value to the reader.

The former is sleazy and won’t get you very far. We prefer the latter.

Many of the articles on both of our sites contain text links that lead to another website where our reader can buy or just sign up for something. In return, we get a commission of the sale or lead (if it’s a free sign-up).

The size of the commission varies depending on the cost of the product. For example, a sign-up for a free credit app might net us a few dollars, but a purchase of $100 could result in a $30-$40 commission.

The goal with affiliate marketing, and with blogging in general, is to always provide value to the reader. In this case, that means including links to products or services that you 1) have personally vetted and/or can attest to, and 2) believe would genuinely benefit the reader.

3. Digital Products

Digital products are another awesome way to make money with your blog. Rather than selling someone else’s product or service, you’re creating something of your own and selling it directly to your tribe. There are many options to choose from when it comes to digital products, but we’re going to look at what we’ve seen and consider to be the top three.

Ebooks and Workbooks

The first product we ever created was an ebook. At the time, we were still trying to sell investment advice online (before we figured out the whole blogging thing), so needless to say that was a failed venture.

However, there are many bloggers out there who make great money from their workbooks and ebooks.

One who comes to mind is Rosemarie Groner of The Busy Budgeter. She sells her Budget boot camp work book for $27, along with various other workbooks and worksheets.

The difference between a workbook and ebook is the amount of involvement or activity on the reader’s end. An ebook is mostly text, with maybe an exercise or two thrown in. A workbook helps your reader do or accomplish something by leading them through the process.

In Rosemarie’s budgeting workbook, for example, she leads her reader through the process of organizing their finances and creating a budget. Workbooks and ebooks are a great place to start with digital products since they’re decently quick to make, unlike our next digital product.

Online Courses

This monetization method has become incredibly popular over the last few years. As a result, there are many bloggers out there making a ton of money sharing their knowledge online.

Dollar minds

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