I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked in person or by email
how one can make money online. I’m no expert and still have much to
learn but after lots of reading, learning, and trial and error over the
past few years, I have found many ways to make a very decent income
online.
Since one of my passions is helping moms come home so they
can be there for their children, I’m always happy to share what I’ve
learned in hopes that it will encourage those of you considering
"making the plunge" from two incomes to one or that it will help those
of you who are struggling to make it on one income.
Despite what some of the ads might portray, making money online doesn’t just happen; it takes work–lots of work. But if you stick with it, the work eventually can really pay off.
Over
the next few days, I want to share about one of my
favorite ways to make money online–blogging. I believe that blogging
is something anyone can do and anyone can also make money off of it.
As
I said, though, it takes time. You cannot just put up a blog, write a
couple of posts, and expect the money to start rolling in. No, it takes
time, effort, and consistency.
So, my first piece of advice for anyone who would like to make money blogging is to be prepared to be in it for the long-haul. This might seem like a no-brainer but I think sometimes people miss the big picture when it comes to making money online.
Tomorrow, we’ll talk about choosing a blog topic and the actual writing of
the blog. These are important facets that you must have in place before
just jumping ahead to making money blogging. Because, as we all know,
if you don’t have traffic, you can blog all day, but you’ll never make
a penny.
Have you made money
through blogging? If so, how? Share with us, we’d love to hear! Once I
lay the foundation here, I’ll be sharing some of my favorite blogging
money-makers and those which haven’t worked for me.
Related: Darren Rowse, the ProBlogger, tackles a related issue on his video post here. It’s worth watching.
Originally published October 2007.
Thanks for the articles on how to make money! I started blogging in the beginning of July when I discovered GPT sites. They are not everyone’s cup of tea, essentially you get paid to submit offers which are nothing more than pop up ads that you answer no , submit, and the GPT site pays you anywhere from 15cents to 1 dollar. I have made $125 in the month of July alone from these sites, really for a few minutes worth of word each day. They have fun promos each day also. I have since stumbled upon affiliate work. With the money I made in July, I took this month and bought my own domain names,and now I am hosting on them hostgator. Setting them up is hard! I just startd to dabble in affiliate work and got offered to promote Clinique which is cool. I think the affiliate work takes time, the GPT sites bring me instant money which I like, it gives me more $$ to put into the other areas of blogging for money.
Remember, for most, making money online will take time that is why I named my new blog TheMilkMoneyBlog.com because if I can just make some “milk money” during the month, well, I am quite o.k. with that!
Happy money making!
Donna
http://www.donnasdailymoneymakers.blogspot.com
Thank you for this informative article, I will be reading the rest of them later on tonight. I have just posted my first blog at Blogger last Weds. and so far it seems no one has ventured over. Right now I hade no advertisings on, but plan to do so after a few more posts and I have learned a bit more about search engines, etc. If all the Moms could do a blogsharing/reading of each other’s blogs, maybe that would be helpful to both the new ones as well as the seasoned bloggers. The ladies who have posted comments here will be getting a visit from me at their blogs. Can we all encourage each other this way and leave a comment? God bless you all
Thanks for this post. I just started a blog yesterday at http://www.colbielena.com , and am still trying to find my way with it. Thanks for the advice
I have a blog, but no ads yet. I’m on WordPress, and you have to host your own blog to have ads with them. So, I’m trying to figure out if I have enough readers to make it worth that. My highest visitor count has been 320, but most days it’s between 100-200. I’ve only been up for a month, though, so maybe that will still go up. Anyways, I’m wondering how many readers you need in order to make enough money to pay for a host(it’s $10 a month or less on dreamhost).
oh and Crystal, your my favorite affiliate site also!
blessings, Penny Raine
http://www.pennyraine.com/blog
Thanks so much! I just started my blog – I’m a counselor who is at home with kids now. I started blogging as an outlet for counseling – great to know there’s financial opportunties out there, too!
http://[email protected]
Thanks Crystal,
I was shocked to first hear you could make money by blogging. This is a great way for stay at home moms to earn a little extra money. I just started a blog and I am excited with the endless possibilities.God Bless you and your family.
We have been full time ministry for 10 years, jail, prison, radio, community and very small church, we don’t get a salary, but folks always seem to give when we need it. Until about the last year. we don’t believe the Lord wants us to give up the ministry and go back into business. I write, and write, and would write even if no one ever read. I have been blooging for a couple of years and it has brought in some money. I don’t blog for the purpose o income but at this point it is needed. So whatever I can do, while still being a momma and a wife and a minister to the hurting, AND bring in some income will work. Problem is, it needs to be stepped up and quickly, I am really hoping to find some more answers here. goodness I have written a novel here 🙂 , told you I write.
blessings, Penny Raine
http://www.pennyraine.com/blog
I just started a blog about a month ago about mentoring mothers who want to leave the workplace and come home with their children. I was really shocked when I had over 200 visits in my first week. For some reason I lost my vision for a couple of weeks and have not been as faithful to updating posts. I think after reading these comments I need to follow what the Lord has been leading me to do and continue with this blog. I may start adding some things to make a little money. I don’t want money to be the only reason I blog, but as a SAHM I need to help out in any way that I can. Crystal, thanks for helping me to see that I can do this.
I am looking forward to reading this series. I just started this blog, http://www.findingpenniesinthesand.blogspot.com a few days ago. I did it in the hopes to help moms find deals. I would love to be able to make money at this. Thanks for taking the time to write about it.
While writing a preschool curriculum for our children, my husband encouraged me to take it a step further but allowing others to use the curriculum through the web. Thus http://www.abcjesuslovesme.com was created. It is a free Preschool Bible Curriculum website for busy moms and active 3 and 4 year olds. Links to Amazon for all of the curriculum supplements that I recommend, as well as google ads are in the site.
Quality content is key, as is getting a wide readership. I make a little money with my blog, but am activly working to make it pay off more without compromising the quality and integrity of my blog. I’m eager to see this series. Here’s what I currently do:
Adsense- It took 6 months to make the payout, but that’s something!
Amazon Sales- I don’t push it too much, but I do link the books I read and reccomend.
Affilate sales- Actually Crystal, so far you’re my only affiliate! I’m very picky about what I’ll sell on my site, and you have such high quality, useful E-books that I’m willing to sell yours. I’ve lost money doing this though. Clickbank has a $10 payout and sometimes I don’t make it before they start deducting.
PayPerPost/Blogvertise- I no longer do this, but it did pay for a bit. I just did not find many topics I was comfortable posting about. If my blog had a different focus this may have been an excellent way.
Associated Content- I submit my better blog posts (non-exclusive) and often have them accepted. They’re not as good as they used to be, but I still use them sometimes.
Cash4Books- Love, love, love.
I keep thinking of writing my own e-book to post on my site, but I have not taken the plunge yet.
It does take *time*. I’ve been blogging for over two years and I’ve just now started to see any *small* income from it. I could not live on it, but every bit counts.
I have just recently started to make some profit from blogging. BlogHer ads are awesome and my biggest money maker. Google ads aren’t as profitable, but it is still possible to make a little cash through them as well. I also have the coupons.com bars installed on my site and am making a little bit of money from those as well. I’m looking forward to reading this series as I know that I still have so much to learn! Ultimately, I try to look at the money as icing on the cake…I really do love blogging and helping out others if I can.
Blogging is something that I have been thinking about for a while since I think I would really enjoy it. What’s holding me back? Well, I don’t want another excuse to waste time on the internet. But if it’s something enjoyable that could actually be a help to our family in the long run . . . that would be just great! I am really looking forward to what you have to share with us in parts 2 and following. Thanks for tackling this topic!
I started blogging for a way to simply get my thoughts out of my head at the end of the day. I have a blog called One Particular Harbor. It is about combining motherhood with adventure. I also blog a lot about adoption as we are an adoptive family. I make a small profit on my blog in three ways. First, through advertising.
More creatively though I added a “Like what you read” button where people can donate a dollar towards a cup of coffee. It is amazing how many people donate a dollar here and there. We also sell Fair Trade Bolga Baskets through a link on our blog. These baskets are an adoption fundraiser for us (as is the coffee link).
As I narrow down my focus on the aspects of adventure in motherhood (travel with kids, hiking/camping with a toddler, exploring your community, etc) my hits have gone up.
When I send out emails to anyone, including my participation in yahoo groups I always add my signature which has a link to the blog. This really helps to bring in new readers who may not have found my little site before hand.
Best wishes fellow Mommy bloggers!
I am also very excited to learn how to do this. My blog is now in it’s third month of opperation and I am very excited to reach over 100 views=) I hope I am able to help other mom’s spiritially and financially.
We’ve got a new poll up at BlogCoach.org: How much money do you make from blogging?
Pretty interesting results so far, with more than half of the respondents saying they make $0 – $10 a month.
I never knew you could blog and make money blogging…that would be to cool! I actually blog to help me with my weight loss journey and a healthier lifestyle…kinda helps me stay accountable (www.chubbiechica.blogspot.com). I will be very interested in reading your posts on this.
Wow a great post. I love it when we can help each other with things like this.
I just recently posted how I’ve been making money blogging on my blog! Come check it out!
Crystal, I’ve found several favorites too! I have them all listed in these posts:
http://mommysnacks.blogspot.com/search/label/Affiliate
I’m interested to see which others you are using that may be different than my current affiliates!
You can link to my blog by clicking my name. I can promise what MSM says about blogging is true. It is NOT easy money. My blog has been live for over a year and has made less than $50 in adsense and nothing from Amazon sales. What this means is that I have gotten no money because you have to hit $100 to get a payout on AdSense. You get this when people click on ads on your site or do a Google search from your site and click on an ad. I do it because I enjoy it really. I have made some money but it has all been from Cash4Books from referrals.
Yep, I’ve made money through blogher with my ad on the side. 🙂
I have made some decent money ($150 in two months) by placing some logical media advertisments related to my blog topics on my blog.
Even though I have a small number of bloggers, people like my mom and sister always sign up for this stuff. I also get some other people to sign up because the deals are good 🙂
Learn more about logical media at my blog post (also how to get ten boxes of rice krispie treats and poptarts for .90 at cvs this week).
http://onlyonsale.blogspot.com/2008/08/my-big-check-i-found-out-how-to-make.html
How much income is typical?
Hello!
I am really looking forward to reading your series.
I started to blog at http://farmhomelife.blogspot.com/ just for fun and was actually quite suprised to find out I could make a nice part time income from it! Amazing.
The #1 focus of my blog is still homemaking and sharing personal tidbits. Income generation is way down there on the list of reasons why I blog. That said, it is still nice to have checks coming in every month.
A couple of tips I would offer people that are interested in blogging for profit are:
#1 Produce quality content and produce it fairly often
#2. Do not go about blogging for income to sucker your readers. We have all visited blogs that are about nothing but making the blog owner money. These types of blogs do not get many repeat visitors.
Take Care,
Trixie
Publix
BOGO Pop Tarts $2.19
BOGO Eggo Waffles $2.19
Coupons Used
3-Poptarts $1/2 boxes final cost $1.19 for 2 boxes
2-Eggo Waffles $1/2 boxes final cost $1.19 for 2 boxes
Cost $5.95
Kellogs Rebate $10.00
Profit $4.05