How to make money blogging

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Few years ago I had no clue you can make money blogging. I thought people write blogs just for fun. Until I realized how lucrative business it can be.

I first found out about blogs via Facebook. I was following Mohito brand and I saw a blogger showing how to style for 200, 300 and 400PLN to get a full outfit in Mohito. They run a promotion at that time- 30%. It was interesting so I went to see what else this blogger- Eliza does. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this wasn’t just a blog for fun. Eliza was making a good profit out of it. She had a lot of people who liked her channel and interacted with her on a blog or other social media platforms. So companies contacted her to make collaborate on campaigns.

After some time I started researching other popular blogs and checked out blogs which Eliza mentioned on her channel. One of the blogs that made me really impressed was jakoszczedzacpieniadze.pl I found this blog whilst researching best savings accounts.

Michal has found a great deal with one of the Polish banks where you could get a 4% return on a 3-month investment. It was a standard rate at this time, but for new clients of this bank, they were giving 80PLN additional bonus which ended up giving you much higher return (over 35% if invested only 1000 PLN).

As he had used an affiliate link when people were clicking to see the offer on his blog to get this deal from bank website, he was making 60 PLN per each new client he referred. Anyone could have done it. Those who didn’t have a blog could only share it with their friends and family, but still, they would get the same amount per new client as Michal did. The only difference was since Michal had a lot of readers, he made over 69k PLN within 8 days of this promotion.

1153 people opened the savings account from his referral. Without a blog, you could probably refer this deal to 5 people and make 300 PLN. It is a good amount of money for referral, but with blog, you can simply reach much more people.  That was really impressive. He shared all the details so you can verify all amounts yourself.

Recently I was researching how much money bloggers make. I looked at Pinterest and found an article. It pointed to salaries of 10 blogs. At the very top was Michelle’s blog, makingsenseofcents.com

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Michelle is currently earning over $100 000 per month. She is posting her monthly income reports on her blog so you can check out how she does it. When I saw that number and noticed that $50 000 was earned only through affiliate links I decided to give it a try.

How to start a blog

Starting a blog is very simple and does not cost you much. I paid around $80 to start my blog and this is once yearly cost. $80 per year is not a fortune and if you will be consistent as Michelle or others you can make a decent side or full-time income. All you need to do is believe in yourself, write content, be active on other social media platforms and promote promote promote.

As you probably noticed I mentioned Pinterest couple of times on my blog as I recently started using this tool for various purposes. Whatever information I am looking for I usually start with Pinterest than YouTube and if I won’t find the answer I am looking for, I search on Google. Yes, that is correct Google is not my first choice.

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PINTEREST

Pinterest is a great way to promote your blog. There is 250 mln monthly active users of Pinterest who look for ideas or inspirations. People who have food blogs can create an eye-catching pin, that can reach millions of viewers. People with travel blogs share their travel tips, and it helps others who plan their holidays. If you prepare a nice looking Pin you can count on getting new visitors on your blog.

Additionally, sign up to group people boards. This will give you much bigger exposure. Best way to find out boards that accept contributors is to look through the boards of people you follow. If they are contributing to other boards you will notice a Follow button, which you don’t see on their own boards (as you already are following those boards).

Follow me on Pinterst

INSTAGRAM

Another way to promote your blog, which I use is Instagram. I literally never knew why people use hashtags before I started my blog. Adding related hashtags under your photos can give you additional exposure. When I went for a weekend trip to Washington and wanted to find out which museums should I go to I used #dcmuseums hashtag and was quickly heading to exhibitions that I found most interesting. It really saves you a lot of time searching for anything.  Anytime I post any picture with hashtag I always get likes and follows from people I do not know, I often open their accounts as they are usually interested in similar things. I found a lot of great profiles this way that I really enjoy watching.

So once you decided you want to start a blog. There are a few things you need to know.

Decide what are you going to blog about

You need to figure out what is your blog going to be about. Are you going to have one theme, or you will write about anything that interests you? When I was deciding on that I was thinking, I am regularly checking Eliza’s blog as she has Travel, Interiors, Healthy Recipes and other content that I enjoy watching/reading. I also wouldn’t be able to write on one topic only. That is why I decided to call my blog all the stuff I care about and that is what I write about: Bunnies, Travel, Food, Interiors, Money and there will be more.

Decide on blog name (domain) and blog hosting

Once you have a name you need to check if this is available for sale and decide on hosting. First year I picked Bluehost as they gave me around $200 in bonuses. You can spend $200 on adverts in Google and Bing.I already used some amount and I could see an increase in page views.

Second year I switched to Siteground and was really happy because their support is the best. You can chat with support in minutes live and they always help with everything.

Third year I decided to switch to Hostpapa and bought a 5 year plan for $70 -which is less than $15/year!!! and I got a free domain transfer – additional $30 saving! I can already say after using them for less than a month than the support is far from what I had with Siteground but if you don’t need support than it is very cheap solution.

You can also read my other blogpost where I reviewed 10 hosting providers here.

 

Blogging tools

It is worth to have some plugins that help you monitor who accesses your page, what region, which posts ect. Having Google Analytics and wordpress app helps as well. I would recommend getting a business Pinterest account as then you can see statistics as well and add links to your Pins to direct to your blog.

You can also use a premium theme which will be mobile responsive. I use theme from Pipdig, a slightly cheaper option with very simmilar designs available at KotrynaBass.

 

Ebates Coupons and Cash Back

Ways to make money blogging

Affiliate links

easiest to start, once person purchases using your link you will get a small percentage from each sale. How to start you can simply google any company you would like to promote, as you are their satisfied customer and look for affiliate program eg. “ebates affiliate program“. You will quickly find a page that will tell you, step by step how to open an account and how to create links that company would know you referred new customers to them. All you need to do is add this links in your post. A blogger I follow is making over 50k/month just from affiliate sales.

Ads

creating ads with Google Adsense or MediaVine costs you nothing, but once you have traffic on your blog people would very often click on those ads as based on their cookies would show whatever they would have been searching for recently. This will not give you a lot of money at first but still, every $ count. It is passive, you only create a space where the ad is going to appear and that is it. No need to maintain it. I found a blogger who makes $52k/month just from ads. This can happen when you have 4M page views per month.

Sponsored Posts

for this you probably need to wait till you hit 2k followers, on all your platforms combined. Companies may pay you to post a review or create a campaign, but they need to be sure you are reaching their targeted audience. If you don’t have a following there are small chances you would be contacted. Here is also some trick. If you are following a blogger and every week she/he is promoting different cream or mask, it makes you wonder whether they just do it for money or all cosmetics works great for them. When I am planning to start a new skincare routine I am searching a lot on YouTube, and want to see as many before and after photos, of real users. Often times you can see stock photos shared on IG but never can see any contact to this person, not even IG name. It seems weird and hard to believe in. If a product that was recommended to me is totally different than a blogger described am I going to continue watching their blog- I don’t think so. You lose trust once. A great example worth mentioning is Lydia Elise Millen. She is doing loads of campaigns but they are all in good taste and you want to watch more and more.

Products

usually you can see bloggers who are selling their e-books, courses. If you feel like you are an expert in some area go for it.

Have you already decided? Are you willing to start a blog? If you are still not sure HERE you can get hosting with 30-day money back guarantee.  Good luck!

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Joanna
Joanna

Hi, my name is Joanna, I started this blog in Jan 2017. I created posts about beauty, fashion, travel, rabbits, money blogging ect. Simply put: all the stuff I care about. After 10 months I realized my blog is not getting enough traffic so I dived into research. Till Oct 2017 I only had around 700 visitors on my blog per month. Then I implemented my Pinterest strategy and automated my pinning with my own build tool – PinMeApp. In Nov 2017 I got 3300 page views and then in Dec 2017 8500. That is how my app was born: PinMeApp. I wanted to help others grow traffic to their sites as well. Today I offer subscription for my app, but I also teach people my Pinterest strategy, step by step what I did to grow the traffic so fast, so this blog is now getting around 20k page views each month. I also offer Pinterest Management and implement my strategy for brands who want to reach their audience on Pinterest as well. My Pinterest account reaches over 5m people monthly. If you want such results feel free to contact me. Cheers, Joanna

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