Are you looking for a way to make money from home? Have you considered starting a blog? Blogging can be a great way to make money, and it’s a lot of fun too. In this post, I’ll talk about how to start a blog and some of the ways you can make money from it.
A few years ago, I was selling fashion jewellery on eBay, Amazon and my own website. I had boxes of jewellery, packaging material, and display models all over the house. It was overwhelming, so I decided to change my business. I wanted to do something that was simpler, that needed less space. My mind was telling me to search for how to make money online, from home. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I came across lots of YouTube videos and blog posts from people talking about blogging and how much money they were making. Some of those stories sounded too good to be true. But then I came across a site called Start A Mom Blog, run by a nice lady called Suzie Whitford. She made the whole process sound fun and achievable. So I decided to give it a go!
How I started
I started my gardening blog and the rest is history! I loved blogging and it opened new doors to other income streams online.
The mistake many people make is that they choose to blog about a subject they care about but then they don’t quite know how to monetize their blog. How does a blog make money? If you’re just blogging for fun, as a hobby, then you can choose any subject and get started. But if you ultimately want to monetize your blog, then it’s a good idea to know as much about it as possible before you start, so that you can work out a strategy. Making money through blogging is like running any other type of business, you have to have a plan.
How can you earn money blogging?
There are different ways to earn money from blogging. The most popular one is through adding ad banners or selling ad space to advertisers.You can also create an income by selling products or services, you can teach through your blog, sell digital products or earn through affiliate sales. Let’s look at them in more detail.
Make money through ads
The most common way to make money from a blog is through advertising. You can sign up for an ad network like Google AdSense or Media.net and place ads on your blog. When someone clicks on one of the ads, you’ll earn money.
You can also offer advertising space to brands. They will place their banner ads on your blog and agree a payment.
When it comes to selling advertising space on your blog, there are a few things to consider. First, you need to make sure that your blog has enough traffic to attract advertisers. Second, you need to determine what type of advertising you want to sell and what the pricing will be. And finally, you need to be prepared to manage and monitor the ads on your blog.
I also think that a blog with lots of advertising can look messy and confusing and puts a lot of visitors off. So be careful to not place too many ads on your blog.
Sell products or services
If you have a product or service that you can sell, you can use your blog as a platform to sell it. You can set up a simple shopping cart on your blog using a service like Shopify, or use a more sophisticated e-commerce platform like BigCommerce. Your blog can be more than just a blog, it can also be your website. If you have a small business that makes things like candles or soaps, for example, you can also set up a shop on your blog/website. Your blogposts can then drive traffic to your shop. Or if you provide a service, you can also set this up on your website and use your blog to drive traffic to it.
Teach and sell courses through your blog
Use your blog to teach others. If you’re passionate about a particular topic, you can use your blog to teach others about it. You can create video tutorials, write articles, or even create an online course.
Sell digital products
You can make money with your blog by selling digital products. For example, you can sell e-books, photos, music, printables and software. You could also sell Canva templates or any templates for other software.
The great thing about digital products is that they’re easy to make and easy to sell. And, since there are no shipping costs, you can keep all of the profits for yourself. If you look on sites like Etsy, selling digital products has become a very lucrative business. You can do all this on your own blog website.
Make money through affiliate sales
Use your blog to make money from affiliate marketing. If you’re not familiar with affiliate marketing, it’s a way for you to earn commissions by promoting other people’s products or services on your blog. When someone clicks on one of your affiliate links and makes a purchase, you earn a commission. You can join affiliate programs for specific niches, so if you have a gardening blog, you can promote gardening products with affiliate links.
How do you start a blog?
There are a few things you need to do before you can start blogging and making money. First, you need to decide what your blog will be about. You can blog about anything you want, but it’s a good idea to choose a topic that you’re passionate about. This way, you’ll be more likely to stick with it and your blog will be more successful.
Once you’ve chosen a topic, you need to choose a platform. There are many different blogging platforms out there, but we recommend WordPress. It’s easy to use and there are tons of resources available if you need help. It’s recommended that you own your blogging platform so WordPress.org is best together with a hosting site.
The next step is to set up your blog. This can seem daunting, but it’s not as difficult as it seems. Once you’ve chosen your platform and set up your blog, you’re ready to start writing!
There is a lot of information out there on how to get started. I wholeheartedly recommend Suzie Whitfords site Startamomblog, it’s how I started my blogging journey. She teaches you everything you need to know about blogging and it’s not just for people wanting to start a mom blog, this method works for any type of blog.
Read her post about niches that make the most money to find some inspiration. She also has a free course on how to start a blog!
My advice for anybody starting a blog
Blogging is a real business, so it will take time for you to see a return. The good thing is that it’s almost free to start, all you have to invest in is a domain name (can be around $15 per year) and a host for your blog (I recommend Siteground). I have written posts about all of this if you want to check it out here., so this would be a good place to start.
The biggest piece of advice I can give you is to be consistent. Be consistent. That is the key to a succesful blog. It takes time to build an audience and by posting consistently you will increase your chances of success. It doesn’t matter whether you post once a week or once a month but you should aim to post regularly.
Learn all you can about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Finding the right keywords is one of the most important things for any online business. All of this can be learned though.
I have more plans for my gardening blog and I’m even thinking of reviving my other old blogs to create more income streams. I will keep you all updated!
Blogging is a great way to make money, and it’s also a lot of fun. I hope this post has inspired you and given you some ideas.
Thanks for reading, and good luck!
*This post may contain affiliate links.