How Do You Make Money With Blogging?: 5 Simple Steps to Making Income From Home

March 9, 2018 Jordan Meola 18 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read My Disclosure for more info.

 

Have you ever wondered if there are more ways to making income than just having a 9-5 job?

 

 

The reality is, getting a stable 9-5 job that will pay all the bills, and leave you with some extra breathing room, is a lot easier said than done. It’s nice once you have one, at least for the stability, but even then… most of us are giving up so much of our precious day-time in exchange for an amount of money that is just enough to get by. Not enough to make plans, save, or get any closer to freedom.

 

 

It can be a really hopeless feeling.

 

 

Fortunately the internet, with it’s 3.75 billion users, is a frontier that gives you an opportunity to boost your income, and eventually to regain control over your time!

 

 

One of the most effective ways of accomplishing this, believe it or not, is blogging.

 

 

So here are some answers to the question: How do you make money with blogging?

 

making money with blogging

 

The idea of making money online seems pretty abstract, right? At least to most of us.

 

 

Sure, maybe you’ve tried some of those survey sites promising to pay your bills, but none of them really pay you anything equal to the time you have to put into them.

 

 

There are plenty of awesome apps that will save you money, like Ibotta, and Ebates, but of course these are just for saving you money, not making it.

 

 

It wasn’t until I really dove into the process of making money with blogging, and reading up on it, that I discovered how it really works.

 

 

So I’ve broken it down into 5 simple steps to help you get started.

 

Step # 1: Do You Have A Hobby?

 

If you have any interest in ANYTHING in the world, you can write a blog about it.

 

 

Do you have an affinity for riding a motorcycle while partially dressed up as Batman? You can write about it. I would read that.

 

 

making money with your hobbies

 

 

 

Maybe you’re a huge fan of dressing up as stormtroopers with your best friend and going on hikes. I can relate to that.

 

 

 

can you make money off of any hobby?

 

 

 

Your hobbies may be a lot more conventional than these, but the point is, if you have a passion, or something that you are enthusiastic about, and you can write about/teach others about it, than you can make money with a blog.

 

 

I know my examples seem crazy, but I know a guy making a substantial full-time income off of a blog about football helmet snack bowls. Seriously. Don’t believe me? Check it out. Football Snack Helmets (.com). It’s real.

 

 

If you like skiing, you can blog about that. Wood carving. Make-up tutorials. Quilting. Role-playing video games. Chess. Cross Fit.

 

 

It doesn’t even have to be a hobby. You can write a blog designed to help others that are struggling with something. Living with anxiety. Coping with the loss of a loved one. Helping a parent/grandparent with alzheimer’s disease.

 

 

Maybe you just love coffee brewing, and you want to blog about starting up a coffee shop, or being the best barista in the world.

 

 

 

 


 

 

Whatever it is, all you really need to make a blog is something that you’re enthusiastic about.

 

Step # 2: Build a Website (Stick With Me – It’s Easier Than It Sounds)

 

 

I know, if you don’t have experience with this it probably sounds like it’s going to require a ton of tech knowledge.

 

 

It doesn’t!

 

 

In fact, starting up a website or blog can be broken down into just these 3 things:

 

 

  • Choose a hosting service for your site. Here is a post on how to do that. When you’re just starting out this can be cheap, or even free!
  • Buy a domain (usually $15 or less, and you can usually buy through your host) OR start out with a free domain
  • Build a website for FREE, with simple guided steps

 

Don’t be intimidated about choosing a host. Take a look at the options HERE, and you’ll see that getting a website hosted when your blog is young can cost practically nothing, or even be free.

 

 

Buying a domain is like buying your own piece of online real-estate. You can build an entire business on that .com. Unlike real-estate or starting a business out in the world, annual rent costs less than a DVD.

 

 

Building a website sounds really tough. But there are actually services out there that will make it SUPER easy, and some will even do most of the legwork FOR you.

 

 

The 3 best that I could point you to are these:

 

 

WordPress:

 

 

Over 27% of the websites in existence use WordPress. And it’s not hard to see why. Not only does it provide you with an incredible range of tools to get the job done, but the whole process is unbelievably simple.

 

 

And your blog will still look like it was designed by an expert, web-designing specialist.

 

 

You’ve probably heard of many of the companies using WordPress, like a little film distributor called The Walt Disney Company, among many others.

 

 


 

 

 

You can use WordPress to have your site looking that good.

 

 


 

Wix

 

 

Wix is a company you may not have heard of yet. But it’s another website builder that will build your website for free.

 

 

And it will look this pro.

 

 


 


 

 

Perhaps the best of the 3 is SiteRubix.

 

 

I say SiteRubix may be the best because SiteRubix USES WordPress, but then does a lot of the work for you.

 

 

It is, in some senses, a perfect completion or consolidation of your website building plan. And again, it’s free.

 

Step # 3: Give People The Goods

 

 

help people with your blog

 

Basically what I mean by this is consistently writing posts that are going to help people.

 

 

Write things that are interesting, that you care about, and that you have some knowledge about that you can give other people lists, guides, and help towards.

 

 

The quality of your content is really one of the most essential parts of making a blog business that succeeds.

 

 

Don’t cut corners. Do your research! And make sure that you’re staying consistent with the theme of your website or blog. This will eventually lead to income for you, and I’ll explain this next.

 

Step # 4: Affiliate Marketing, SEO, and How You Make Money

 

 

making money with a blog

 

So the big question is, how does running a blog like this make you money.

 

 

Well, if you start getting some traffic to your website, or what you might call a “readership”, you can make money.

 

 

This works because of something called affiliate marketing. Essentially, there are thousands and thousands of companies that will pay you for putting a link on one of your posts that leads to their webstore, if the click through results in a purchase.

 

 

For example, if I wrote a detailed review about a Black & Decker chainsaw, and then I included a few links like THIS ONE, if you clicked through the link, which takes you to Amazon, and purchased the chainsaw, Amazon would pay me for that.

 

 

If you are on the first page of Google, or your blog is getting attention, you may be getting hundreds and hundreds of people reading your review, and purchasing chainsaws (or whatever product) through your link.

 

 

You would be getting paid for all of them.

 

 

Think about it. Like I said before, there are 3.75 billion people using the internet. The amount of money spent online every year is over a trillion dollars.

 

 

Statistics are that now over 40% of online buyers will look to reviews by consumers before making a purchase, and that number is going up! This is because there is more trust built in a product when it’s endorsed by a consumer.

 

 

And this is why companies will pay you!

 

 

It may sound like a small way of making money, but with time and an ever increasing readership many people make well over $100,000 per year off of people clicking through their posts.

 

 

But how do you there? For more details on how affiliate marketing is check out THIS ARTICLE!

 

 

 

 


 

SEO

 

 

It’s all well and good to think of making money off of a blog, but the first big hurdle is getting traffic to the site!

 

 

If you don’t really understand the point of some of those phrases in the image above, don’t panic. The first main point is just to understand SEO.

 

 

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. If you understand this, and all of the techniques involved, you will know how to get your blog onto the first page of Google. You’ll know how to get traffic. You’ll be equipped to build a business.

 

 

Everything matters, when you’re trying to optimize a blog. The quality of your content. The depth. The readability. The good spelling. The security and speed of your site. The amount of posting on your site. Responsiveness to contents. The list goes on.

 

 

Don’t be intimidated by that! But know that learning SEO is the integral factor in really launching a blog. The income will follow.

 

 

This leads me to the last step.

 

 

 

Step # 5: Get Education… And Learn

 

the power of the internet to earn income
 

 

There are some days when I really can’t stand the internet.

 

 

Days when I find it a drag to be in front of a computer, and I just want to go outside. There are days when I’m just pooped out (if you’re not familiar with this term, it means very tired).

 

 


 

 

But then again, that freedom is precisely what I strive for, and I’m getting closer and closer to the completion of that goal all the time. It’s mostly a matter of staying motivated!

 

 

The power of the internet to create income, to completely eclipse your regular job, or to bring you out of financial burden, is all there. If you have access to a computer, and an internet connection, you can make money with a blog.

 

 

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned before anything else, it’s that to truly succeed in your business ventures you need to find two extremely important things:

 

 

  • Like minded people
  • And a mentor

 

 

Those who are like minded will encourage you on your path, and share all kinds of advice that will help you immensely. They will understand where you’re getting stuck, and will often be able to motivate you through them.

 

 

Sometimes, the community is even just there to let you vent.

 

 

Having a mentor is even more essential. And that’s where I landed on something called Wealthy Affiliate, that provided BOTH of these things for me.

 

 

It’s a program that provides you with both a constantly accessible community (of over 1,000,000 people) to support you constantly, and a number of mentors with a ton of experience and success in making money from blogs, who will teach you.

 

 

It takes some studying to understand how Search Engine Optimization works, but with the right tools and guidance, you will set yourself up for a path to success. Knowledge is power with blogging, just as it is with every other kind of business opportunity.

 

 

For a more in-depth review of Wealthy Affiliate, and how it works, you can read about it in THIS POST.

 

 

 

So What’s The Last Thing To Do?

 

The biggest difference between things improving, and things staying the same, is going to be in how you TAKE ACTION!

 

 

It’s one thing to read and consider these things. But it’s another thing entirely to make the leap across that road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep in touch with me! This is a very beginner level discussion, but I will be happy to help you along the way as you seek powerful opportunities to build residual income, and to change your financial situation.

 

 

Remember, that money is not a good motivator. Freedom is a good motivator. Independence is a good motivator. But money itself is empty.

 

 

Set your path. Set your goals. And you CAN accomplish this.

 

 

 

~Jordan

 

 

 

 

18 People reacted on this

  1. Thank you Jordan, this post is very helpful to people like me, to whom, as you say the idea of making money on the internet is very abstract. Breaking it down into five steps, clarifies the process well. I agree that freedom and independance are motivators, not money. With strong content, regular publishing and good SEO, what is a reasonable period of time to wait to see some financial results? Thanks again.

    1. Hello Brad! Thanks for commenting, and I’m glad that you found it to be readable and clear. Affiliate marketing can be very confusing in the beginning – I know I found that out more than a few times! 

      With enough consistency, SEO, regular publishing, and social media presence your site has a good chance of seeing its first income around 6 months in. Time is definitely a factor in Google trusting a site. It really depends on many more factors though, like your niche and your audience. 

  2. hey Jordan, great article man!!
    the things I liked about it…
    1.Great funny random niche ideas and images
    2.I like how the text is spaced out so it allows time for each point to sink in/register with the reader. Great way to present info in bite size pieces
    3.The link to Jays site was awesome. That in itself is a great site and a great illustration of how blogging, niches work etc.
    Well layed out and very informative in everyday speak.Well done man. 🙂

    1. Hello Billy and thank you so much for your encouragement! You’re very insightful. 

      My hope was to make the post as easy to read and as straightforward as possible. I had a lot of trouble when I first started out, just getting my mind around how blogging and affiliate marketing really worked. So I was trying to make this helpful.

      I look forward to seeing your site one day as well, man! 🙂

  3. I appreciate the affiliate marketing and SEO service to earn money. But I think everyone firstly must know him/ herself. He or she must know what can they do, what are their interest, how long they can do the job, how confident he or she is etc. Then anyone can go for a decision. This article will help most to the younger to find the best match to their efficiency. Great work!

    Find your best chainsaw

  4. Amazing when i am searching on google about make money online then i am reached on your site. Such a nice article very helpful thanks for share this info with us keep it up.

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