How to Start A Blog And Make Money

If you’re a brand new blogger then you’ve got a long way to go. I’d love to tell you that you can easily start monetizing your blog right out of the gate.

Yes, it’s true that you can start monetizing your blog as soon as you hit publish. However, don’t be surprised if you don’t make a penny.

It’s going to take you a while before you start making consistent money with your blog.

Before I can share some tips that you need to keep in the back of your mind before you can start making money on your blog.

I first need to tell you about some mistakes that I’ve made in the past when it comes to monetizing a blog.

How to Start A Blog And Make Money

Almost all bloggers if you ask them will tell you that they want to monetize and make money off their blog. After all, it takes money to run a self-hosted blog.

What most people won’t tell you though is how to monetize a blog and make money.

This isn’t my first rodeo, in fact, I’ve had several blogs in the past that I’ve monetized using several different methods.

What I’ve learned is that it really doesn’t matter which method you use, the important thing is that you first have to focus on growing your blog.

The Truth About Making Money

Almost all new bloggers start a blog and as soon as they can they’ll apply to Google Adsense. Some of us will even put banner ads on our sidebar hoping that a reader will click over and buy something that we recommend.

Wouldn’t it be great if it was that easy? I know we all want to believe that it’s easy to make money online. There are so many income reports online that share how this blogger was able to make thousands just months after starting their blog.

Well, it doesn’t work that way, at least not for me.

I’m not saying that you can’t make money online, you’re just going to have to give your blog time to grow.

Not everyone is going to share the same experience when it comes to monetizing. Some people are going to have success a lot faster and some of us it’s going to take a little longer.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t make money off your blog. This just means that you’re going to have to find the drive to keep going when you’re not seeing any monetary results.

The only thing that I can do is share what I’m doing to learn how to start a blog and make money. You can take my own personal experience and do what you wish with it.

I’m just sharing what I’ve learned from monetizing my blog. This doesn’t mean that you won’t make money from your blog faster than I do.

What’s the Best Way to Monetize?

Everyone’s opinion will vary when it comes to the best way to monetize a blog. I personally think that offering services are the best way to start monetizing.

I know what you’re thinking, you don’t have any type of service you can offer people. That’s not necessarily true, you if you stop and think about your own skills right now, you’re going to see that you have a lot to offer people.

You started your own blog, chances are you can offer services such as:

• Blog organization tips
• Content writing
• Blog setup services

 
It may take time to come up with a service you can provide readers. But the truth is that you do have the skills to offer some type of service to your readers.

If you can’t think of anything at all, why not offer your services as a freelance writer. Chances are you’re already writing content on daily basis for your blog.

Imagine being able to offer that service and get paid for it. I started off offering my limited WordPress services on my blog. At the time of this writing, I no longer offer these types of services on my blog.

The great thing about offering services on your blog is that you can do away with them whenever you want.

Affiliate Marketing vs Ads

About 8 months into blogging I started using Google Adsense on my blog. However, I quickly removed those ads when I noticed that I was losing visitors for pennies.

My traffic wasn’t high enough to earn good money with Ads. I’ve read so many bloggers say that they make great money with ads, however, what I’ve learned is that you have to have a lot of traffic to see the good money.

This is what my Adsense earnings looked like when I removed my ads.

I wasn’t willing to continue losing people just to earn a few clicks. I know that it takes time to for Google to optimize your ads, I’m just an impatient person.

Plus, I’d rather have someone subscribe to my email list or buy my Kindle eBooks than lose them for a few pennies from Adsense.

Start Affiliate Marketing

In my opinion affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money from your blog. As a blogger, you’re going to invest in tools, courses, and products that help you grow your blog.

Why not promote those products through your blog?

That’s what I do on this blog and I can tell you that affiliate marketing has been much more lucrative for me than ads.

I’d much rather get an email saying that I made a $50 SiteGround Affiliate sale, than just pennies from Adsense.

I’ve Monetized But I’m Not Making Money

I’m not going to sugarcoat anything and tell you that you’re going to make money right away. Heck, I didn’t make any money from my blog for probably the first 6 months.

Hopefully, it won’t take you as long as it took me. If you want to do better than I did, I suggest that you focus hardcore on Pinterest to help you get traffic.

That’s what I’m doing now, in fact, you can read my Pinterest case study and what I’m doing to grow this blog.

It takes time to make money from a blog. You can’t expect to monetize your blog and start making money right out of the gate.

Trust me, I’ve tried. There’s no shortcut to success.

You’re going to have to get busy and work your *ss off to make some money from your blog.

The great thing is that it’s not rocket science. If you’re new to affiliate marketing, I recommend investing in this course to help you get a better understanding of what it takes to grow a successful blog.

My Blog’s Still New Should I Monetize It?

I personally don’t see anything wrong with monetizing a brand new blog. As long as your whole focus doesn’t become about the money.

Your job is to provide amazing content that helps your readers.

You can’t and shouldn’t focus on the money from the start. If your blog is brand new, it’s going to take time to see any money at all.

Sure you might get lucky and make a few sales here and there. But in order to see any real consistent income, you’re going to have to focus on growing your blog.

If you’ve been blogging for a while and still haven’t made a lot of money, listen to this this course which is teaching me how to take my blog from hobby to profitable.

Don’t be afraid to invest in a course that will teach you everything you need to now to build a profitable business.

What Should A New Blogger Focus On?

I’ve read some blogs say that you shouldn’t even consider monetizing until you’re making at least 5,000-10,000 page views per month. Here’s a great article that will help you understand when to monetize and here’s another one.

Then I’ve heard some people say that you should start monetizing right away.

The truth is that it’s your blog and you can do whatever you want. Just be sure that you set realistic expectations.

If you’re brand new then your main goal should be to grow your blog. Get off your blog and start networking with other blogs.

Start using Pinterest to grow your blog. I also recommend using getting started with guest posting on blogs that are bigger than yours.

Related: How to Grow a Blog What I’m Focusing On My Second Year

Find a promotional system that works for you to grow your blog. There are so many different ways to grow a blog, you need to find what works for you.

Work that system and keep working it. Eventually, before you know it, you’ll have learned how to start a blog and make money.

Track Your Blog Growth

If you are serious about growing your blog, you’re going to need to install Google Analytics on your blog. Pay attention to which blogging tasks are actually working to grow your blog.

Don’t stress too much about the Analytics if your blog is brand new. Use the Analytics to find your most popular blog posts to see if you can write more posts that are already proven to be popular.

You should also find out which social media sites are sending you the most traffic. This will help you create a plan to help you improve your social media strategy.

Remember, you don’t have all day to try to do everything. You need to find out what’s actually working to help you grow your blog. Once you find out what’s working, you can spend your time on those tasks.

Don’t be afraid to drop those tasks that aren’t working to grow your blog. That’s what I did this year. I’ve made it a point to STOP doing what wasn’t working to help me grow.

I’m focusing on what’s actually working and running with that. I figure that’s the only way that I’ll be able to walk away from my freelancing business. Is if I focus on what’s working to grow my blog.

Just because something works for someone else, doesn’t mean it’s going to work on your blog. Don’t be afraid to test things out on your blog. I recently ran an 11-day blog series on my blog to see if it would help me grow my blog.

It was a lot of work, but it helped me learn a lot about my blog visitors.

You can’t learn everything just by reading what works for others. You’re going to have to just have to put your head down and experiment with yourself. After all, do you really think bloggers are going to tell you what’s really working to grow their blog?

Nope, they might tell you some of the stuff they are doing. The rest of the stuff they are going to package up and sell it.

You can’t blame them. After all, they worked hard to test things out and struggle to get the results they got. You can’t expect them to spoon feed you everything.

Final Take Away

There are so many opportunities to monetize a blog. If you have the persistence that it takes to stick with it and keep working towards your goals, I have no doubt that you will be able to create a profitable blog.

Just remember, there’s no shortcut to success. You have to be willing to work on your blog every day and treat it like a business.

Get off your blog and network with other bloggers. It’s tough at the beginning, especially, when you’re not making any money.

But just hang in there and keep blogging. Before you know it, you’ll look back and be happy with the online empire you created.

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I know that we all choose to monetize our blogs differently. What methods are you using to monetize your blog?