How To Start Blogging For Money In The New Year
Learning how to start blogging for money does not have to be complicated. Actually, it can be pretty simple if you follow the proper steps and try not to stray too far from tried and true methods.
When it comes to my blog, Miss Millennia Magazine, I strayed away too far before I got to a path of making consistent income. I wanted to try all the new things I had heard about before finishing the projects I was already working on.
I followed one blogging guru after another without asking myself if my blog was at a level to implement the strategies they were teaching, leading to me learning things that did not help my blog’s problems. And honestly, I just got plain old distracted. Bouncing from one topic to the next, I forgot to write blog posts consistently, and I was NOT doing that.
It took me a long time to get my blog to a point where I regularly made between $4,000 – $10,000 a month. And after I looked through the steps I took to get my blog to this point, I didn’t have to! All I had to do was have a plan and follow it, and I failed at that.
And now, I want to show you how to start blogging for money in 2022.
Set a Money Goal
Before we get too far in the weeds, I want you to take a minute to set a money goal. We all say we want to make money with our blogs, but how much do we want to make? And by when do we want to make it?
Having a specific goal will help guide you on your blogging path. Is your goal to make $500 monthly with your blog by June this year? Okay, now we know how much runway you have to stick this landing.
But one of the most important reasons to have a goal is so when it gets tricky (and believe me, it will), you need that reminder of why you are doing this in the first place. I’ve been blogging for almost nine years now, and I cannot tell you how many blogging friends I’ve seen come and go because they just did not have the stamina to do it.
If they had set blogging goals, put them somewhere they could see those numbers and visualize them daily, some of them would still be blogging.
At some point, you will have a bad day at work, or your kids will destroy the house, and then you will still have to work on your blog. At this point, you may say, “F it! It’s too much work!” However, having that goal, whether it’s on a vision board, a whiteboard in your office, or just a sticky note, will be the reminder you need to see to keep going.
Need help coming up with your blog goal? Use my Blog Goal Worksheet to help you brainstorm! You get it free when you join my blogging email list below.
Optimize Your Blog
Now that you have your blog goal, it is time to optimize your blog. I know it can seem like a huge task to take your blog as it is now and completely overhaul it. But, lucky for you, I am not asking you to do that.
However, I will ask you to look at some elements of your blog that need to be optimized. For example, do you have social media share buttons on your site? If not, you may be missing out on valuable traffic to your blog. If people can’t share the posts they like, they may just go elsewhere.
Another thing that I find very important when you start blogging for money is having a media kit. A media kit is your way to show brands what your blog is all about and why they should work with you. If you do not have this vital tool, you can’t let brands know you are ready to start working with them.
If you don’t have one already, I suggest you get a media kit set up ASAP. However, if you are unsure where to start, Canva has many free media kit templates to choose from. Click this link to Canva, then search for “Media Kit Templates” and be amazed!
You can customize your new media kit by adding your logo, graphics, font, and colors. The best part is that Canva is free to use, so make sure to create a free account.
Implement Different Monetization Strategies
There are so many ways to monetize your blog. And because of this, I will give you all the various income streams you can have with your blog and then lead you towards your first steps of getting there. Successful bloggers use more than one of these methods below, so keep this in mind when considering your options.
Advertising
Advertising was the first monetization method I incorporated into my blog. All you have to do is sign up with an ad network like Google Adsense, AdThrive, or Monumetric. Which one accepts your application depends on your traffic. Speaking of traffic, you need to get a lot of it to your blog if you want significant payouts from advertising programs.
I signed up for Google Adsense when I started blogging and did not earn enough money for my first payment ($100) for two years. Yeah, I was slow to build traffic to my blog.
I think it makes sense to sign up for one of these accounts and just start blogging. The ad money will eventually come. Just mind your expectations about them.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to start blogging for money in the new year. You find an affiliate program for a brand you like, sign up, and write about the product on your site. Then, if one of your readers buys this product after they click on your affiliate link, you get a commission.
For example, the product is $100, and the commission is 30% of the sale. That means if someone buys using your link, you get paid $30.
Easy enough, right?
If you do an excellent job on the blog post you write, you can earn continuous passive income with this strategy. You work once by writing the blog post with the affiliate links and get paid long after.
There is a science to this, and you must be a persuasive writer to get people to click and buy. But it’s a great way to make money, even if you do not get a bunch of traffic to your blog. But you must know what steps to take here to be successful because there are many ways affiliate marketing can be done incorrectly.
I took Michelle Schroeder-Gardner’s Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing course to up my affiliate game. The class teaches you how she went from a blogging novice to a six-figure blogger through affiliate marketing. Check it out here.
Work Directly With Brands
Okay, this is one of my favorite ways to make money blogging. The way it works is a brand asks you to mention them on your blog in exchange for a negotiated fee. Compensation can range anywhere from $50-$10,000. (And for some bloggers, even more than that!)
Unlike affiliate marketing, you are paid a certain amount whether your readers buy from you or not.
See why I love working with brands so much?
But there is a catch to this method of blogging for money. A lot of work goes into each brand partnership, both before the brand partnership is made and after.
The first hurdle involves finding brands that want to work with bloggers. They can be found on various influencer networks with exact details of what they are looking for in a blog partnership and how much they are willing to pay.
But there are hundreds of these sites. If you want to know what websites you should sign up for, you should sign up for my free list of 150 Influencer Networks with Paid Sponsorships. They are all free to join!
The next hurdle comes after you’ve signed up for all these channels. Now you have to log in to all of them to find the best opportunities to apply for! At the top of my sponsored post-game, I spent two to four hours a day logging in and applying for opportunities.
Now don’t get me wrong; it all worked out. I got to a point where I had to start turning brands down because I didn’t have enough time to write. But I also knew that spending multiple hours a day looking for opportunities was not a good long-term plan.
So I created a product to solve this problem: Blogging Money Update.
Blogging Money Update is an email subscription that sends you 10-15 sponsored opportunities 3 times a week. Paid opportunities range in value from $65-$5,000 each. With our newsletter, you no longer have to log in to multiple channels and sort through hundreds of posts to see what’s available. Just check your email 3 times per week to see the only best opportunities in your blogging niche.
Want to learn more? Check it out below.
Create a product
Successful bloggers—the ones making the most money—have products of their very own. Now, if you started your blog last month, you may not want to consider this as a monetization strategy just yet. First, it’s essential to know your audience a bit more. But—eventually—creating a product of your very own is where it is at.
Let’s return to the scenario we discussed in the affiliate marketing section. The brand had a product for $100, and you got a 30% commission when someone buys it through your site. But if the product is yours, you get a 100% commission. Sounds a lot better, right?
And depending on the type of product you create—like a digital product, online course, workbook, or physical product—you can make passive income, just like you do with affiliate marketing. It’s honestly one of the best ways to start blogging for money in 2023.
But there is a lot of work to create a product or service that sells. And it all starts with having an active email list. So even if you are a new blogger, one of the most important things you can do is collect emails.
Email marketing is hands down the best way to build community, drive traffic, and earn money. So starting to build your email list right away is so important.
Be Consistent
I know consistency is not as sexy as monetization, but this probably has to be THE MOST IMPORTANT lesson to start blogging for money.
Pick a day of the week when you will publish a new blog post and stick to it. The same goes for writing a weekly newsletter.
You may not see a lot of traction initially, but this consistency will improve every element of your business. It will improve your traffic, engagement, and your skill level.
You’ll get better at these things from doing them so often. And since you’ll get better, you’ll also get faster. The next thing you know, those items will be on a pattern that almost feels like they are on autopilot.
It all starts with creating a blog schedule and sticking to it.
There are no overnight success stories when you start blogging for money. If you hear any stories from bloggers, they have all had times when they failed or struggled to figure things out. So accept that will happen to you, and keep it moving. If you follow these steps, I am confident you will start seeing more money from your blog in 2022.
Have questions you want to ask me about blogging for money? Then, ask them in the comments! I am happy to answer them.
Want to get to me sooner or get the opinion of other bloggers? Join over 40,000 bloggers in my Bloggers Supporting Bloggers Facebook Group as well! We will have an answer to all your burning questions there too. Thanks for reading!
