I find that I am increasingly fixated about blogging and the main reason behind this is that it is now starting to earn me some head turning money each month. No doubt for many a mere £1,000 a month by part time work will not appeal as they are earning plenty more than that, but millions will be interested this I am sure of.
Many people, especially today as our lives involve more and more additional costs from that Netflix subscription to games on our mobiles, will always be able to use that bit extra money each month and blogging is a great way to increase your monthly income.
To inspire readers I will share with you that I started from the beginning when it comes to blogging, buying a domain name to building a website and choosing a theme and getting myself underway with writing. I started with one website, saw progress and built another then another and today I am planning on releasing two more blogs. Last year my total income from my blogging websites was £33,000 (£2,750 monthly).
So how about you? Can you start earning money from blogging?
The simple answers is Yes! Though please note that you will not succeed unless you have time to dedicate to blogging and patience.
So what are the steps to making yourself that first £1,000 a month from blogging?
If you are starting out then:
- What do you want to focus on? If you have a subject that you know a great deal about, ie a hobby, or if you are working currently then try and select a topic within it as you will have contacts that you can already tell about your blog and gain target readers for what you will be writing.
- Choose yourself a great name for your website. Research available domain names for sale (this can take some time as nearly everything you will think of will already be taken) and choose one that suits what you are going to write about – Examples of domain names I own are:
Marketme.co.uk – Small Business News, Advice and Reviews
GlassofBubbly.com – Champagne & Sparkling Wine News and Reviews
EstateAgentNetworking.co.uk – Estate Agency News and Marketing Advice
FineLocation.com – Luxury Property, Locations and Interior Design (Soon to launch)
Clerissa.com – (Soon to launch)
- Grab your social media accounts. Many great bloggers will extend their reach out via the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube and more. If you can, set yourself up an account on at least one of them with a username applicable to your new ‘blogging’ name.
- No need to go overboard with webdesign work. Many great bloggers have simple yet highly effective and automated websites, no flashy plugins, no commercial branding and no costly coding! Many cheap and sometimes free blogging website templates exist out there for you to adopt and use or a basic website from your local designer (WordPress is ideal) will also be great and I would suggest that this will cost you no more than £250.
- Let’s starting blogging! You now have your blog name, website and social media channel(s) so it is now time to start your very first blog! Start as you mean to go on and take your time over writing, it isn’t simply about churning out as much content as you can, it is about the quality of the blog you write. You will gather a following / subscription database because people enjoy reading your content and it offers them value.
So you are up and running with your very own blog and have your first few articles written and shared, so what about the money?? Successful bloggers rely on a number of revenue streams in order to make money from blogging such as:
- Google AdChoices
- Affiliate programmes
- Sponsored Blogs
- Banner Adverts
- Link Insertions
- Commissioned writing projects
- eBooks
- and more…
Each blogger will pick one or more of the above options in order to make their money (for myself it is link insertions, sponsored blogs, AdChoices and Commissioned writing) – Some will be what you can initially do and others you will have to wait until people come to you.
Adchoices you can sign up to and depending what website you have or the support from your website designer, you can start to add banners to your website that if clicked you can start to earn ad revenue for. I started off earning around £60 every 6 months to £60 a month and growing…
Affiliate Programmes. This is a great option if you have a target subject you write about with such options as Ebay Partners and Leadpages helping you to generate affiliate revenue. You can usually bespoke ads to be inline with the topic of your blog in most occasions.
Sponsored Blogs. For me this is one of my busiest income streams with usually around 10 fresh enquiries a day coming in from every corner of the world directly from businesses themselves looking for exposure to content marketing agencies looking for link building for their clients. The more you have relevant content going out on your website and the more you share updates on social media then the more likely it is you will be found by someone who’d like you to host their content. You need to decide on price you demand and what topics you will or will not receive as you will not only get requests to place sponsored blogs themed to what you write about, but also off topic ie crypto currency or Las Vegas casinos etc.
On average I will charge £35 to £49 to place sponsored blogs on my websites. I will generally convert 2 out of 10 enquiries I receive (I will keep the emails within a list and come back to them every so often if I ever run price promotions).
Banner Adverts. Companies relevant to the theme of which you write about may start to approach you to place banner adverts on your website (in-post adverts are popular). You can also increase the chances of such requests by researching such companies on social media and connecting with them and highlighting the writing you are doing – I usually contact them directly and state I am writing an article and would they like to be included / send samples which gets me great content and it also brings about awareness of my blog to them. Banner ads brings in money for me, it can be good one month and nothing the next, but I average around £300 a month.
Link Insertions. Just like sponsored blog posts, agencies and businesses will contact you looking to add a link within a blog post you have already written and usually hidden behind some key words. The more quality blogs you have on your website then the more chance they will be found via the keyword searches the agencies are doing. I usually still charge full sponsored blog price for this as I have already spent time writing up the existing post. 3 to 5 a week I will usually convert.
Commissioned Writing Projects. I used to do a lot of writing for other people in the early days both to increase my profile online and also to be paid. I have now resisted this option as I prefer to write content for my own websites and be under no pressure to produce content on time for others. This is me, but for you this could be a great income stream as your blog grows and your influence within your industry builds – you will get approached by other websites / businesses who will start to see you as an influencer and request you write for them with the odd article here and there. Depending who you write for, my minimum fee for 200-400 words is £75.
eBooks. Once you have built a busy blog with lots of content, subscribers, social media followers etc then you can look to write your own eBook that could be on any subject from ‘how to earn £1,000 a month blog writing’ to ‘1,000 weight loss tips over 6 weeks’ etc. The idea behind the eBook would be to sell it as you would any other product, the likes of Amazon will help you with this once you have your eBook ready to launch. I know people that are making £1,000’s each month by selling their own eBooks (you can also sell other peoples eBooks such as by affiliation).
How much time do I have to commit to blogging?
All of the above will rely on your patience and your dedication to your blog. As an example I spend around 25/30 hours a week dedicated to my blogs be it updates on social media to actual blog writing. The more time you spend writing quality content and sharing it to your audiences then the more chance you will have on making money. If you aim for one hour a week then do not be surprised that you may hit only £10 a month instead of £1,000!