Hey guys!
The other day I was talking with one of my friends and they asked me “can you actually make money blogging, what it actually takes?”
They were interested to start their own blog.
YES!
Yes, you can make money with blogging.
BUT!
It does not happen fast.
It took me about a year to start making any money.
Starting a blog, a profitable blog takes a lot of work and time.
I won’t lie that you need to educate yourself and find the right information among all the helpful tips and tricks.
As a beginner blogger, it can be hard to grow your blog traffic. You can read all the tips and tricks provided by other bloggers.
Just to find out that it did not work for you.
Why? Because there are so many different strategies and no one seems to tell you how to actually execute those tips and tricks.
These tips and tricks mostly tell you what you should do, but they do not tell you how you should do it.
If you’re ready to take your blog to the next level.
To work smarter, not harder.
Start making more money, grow your audience, and create a truly successful business.
These were the things that I did to start generating more income with my blog.
“This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you choose to click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. In some cases, you may receive a discount! I was also compensated to create this post, though all opinions are my own.”
WHAT YOU NEED?
First, you need a web address, you can get one by signing into a hosting service.
I use bluehost.
Inside a Bluehost, you can search for available domains and purchase a domain for yourself, then after the purchase, the process will guide you through setting up your blog with WordPress.
After this, you will need a theme, basically what your blog will look like.
If you are not sure what you want your blog to look like.
You might want to check 17th avenue designs, they have very beautiful themes.
Ok. now you have hosting, a domain, and a theme.
Then what.
Now it is time to start building your website.
How I build my website is by using an Elementor builder.
Elementor builder is a toolset that you can use as drag and drop to create the website and the builder is designed for making the process easier for us!
Some people prefer Divi to Elementor.
And you can find many comparison videos from Youtube about the two builders if you are interested!
I have also set up a woo commerce to my webpage for future products.
WooCommerce is an e-commerce plugin for WordPress. It is designed for small to large-sized online merchants.
I have been using woocart!
Later I will guide you through this process if it is relevant to you.
Setting up your own store is not a must!
Only do it if you have your own products that you are planning to sell!
HOW TO GET READERS
To grow a platform you need a platform.
It means you need to build your presence on another social media platform so that you can get noticed on the other platform.
One such platform is Pinterest.
Pinterest works especially well for bloggers!
What you need to know about Pinterest is that Pinterest is also a search engine like google.
People are there to search for things!
And if you have the answer to the question that the people are looking for, then you get chosen and drive traffic to your webpage!
There is also Tailwind that you can use to automate your Pinterest, so your account will post automatically and you will only need to create the pins and use tailwind to automate the pins for you.
Tailwind is a popular automation program that allows you to schedule posts for Pinterest. It also works for Instagram, but it is known better for its Pinterest automation.
You might have heard of Tailwind and that It is supposed to help increase your followers, improve your Pinterest account, and ultimately lead more people to your website.
But can this be possible, does it really work?
Pinning pins for Pinterest is nice. But what about when you have to do it every day and spend hours pinning so that you keep yourself in the game?
Tailwind saves you time so you don’t have to pin every day, not even check Pinterest every day.
That sounds great, right? But how can I be sure it actually works?
Looking analytics straight from my google analytics account: Tailwind works! In a month, my site traffic that came from Pinterest increased by 71%!
In reality, you can’t expect to schedule 20-30 pins a week and think that your traffic will grow. Because it will not.
You need to put in the time to schedule at least that same 25-30 pins a DAY! for it to work.
That is a lot!
But That is exactly why I love Tailwind!
In June 2021, Pinterest generated 1,1k sessions in my Pinterest account. This is an increase of 74% in sessions.
Just because of Tailwind!
So before you can start pinning, you need to design pins that get clicks!
How do you do that?
Create your Pins in Canva! It is by far the best FREE resource to create all your channel art to Pinterest, Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, basically anywhere.
MAKING YOUR CONTENT
You also need to create Photos and in some cases videos for your blog.
Nowadays, people are used to good-quality photos and videos.
So you need at least basic tools to appear more professional and make your blog, youtube and social media look good with good quality photos and videos.
If you decide to start with your phone camera I would at least invest in good lighting!
This makes wonders to the image and you might not even need to edit the photos or video at all, if your lighting is good!
I use these lamps for good photos and video!
If you decide to invest in a camera, I use Canon.
But I would recommend you to find a camera that has a screen that you can turn around.
Because it will make your life so much easier!
I edit my videos in Davinci resolve.
It is completely FREE!
Really the best software!
Then what about after you have created a good video, edited it and how do you make sure people see it?
And how is it relevant to your blog?
Video is like an extra boost for your blog! you can drive extra traffic from youtube to your blog, or people who find your webpage might want to watch a video instead of reading the post!
In my opinion, videos are definitely essential for bloggers!
How do people find your video on YouTube?
I love to use Tubebuddy! as my keyword research tool. Just type in your topic and it will give you different keyword strings that are often used by people on search engines like Google.
By searching these keywords you get to see what people are searching in the YouTube. When you know what people are searching for, then you can tailor the content you write/share to include those keywords. And in time, you’ll start to appear for those keywords and improve your visibility.
Definitely a must!
If you want to include music in your video, you might start thinking about copyright issues, or you should!
So that YouTube does not delete your account or you do not get contacted by the company, which demands you to pay for using their music.
For the music, I use the Epidemic sound.
They provide royalty-free soundtracks.
MAKING MONEY
I started with google ads.
Google AdSense is a program run by Google.
It places content to your website as text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience.
Starting with google ads can be good because you make the readers used to see ads on your website.
So later if you place advertisements on your website and your readers are not used to seeing those ads they might not like it.
Affiliate marketing is one of the biggest income streams for bloggers and worth reading about.
You can find some affiliate programs from my resources page to join.
You can also think about creating your own products like e-products, or you could make your own course, for example in Teachable.
Teachable is one good platform to build your own course.
You could also offer freelance services, you could check Fiverr.
You can find all these links from my resources page, where you can also find affiliate programs to join.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to offer people information and real value for what they are looking for.
One question you can ask yourself is: why someone would pay for the products I’ve created or my services?
If you would pay for the product or services you offer yourself, then you know you have something valuable to offer.
At first, people are NOT interested in you and what you do, but what you can offer to them.
Later when you grow, people also want to know who you are.
Talking about the HOW, I have decided to devote this part of the blog for that information specifically, to tell you exactly how you can execute the information that you find here!
See the next specific blog posts to get the exact information!
Can’t wait to share it with you!
WANT TO LEARN MORE?
If you have any other questions about blogging, let me know in the comments section below.
Or if you have a video idea that you would like me to create, you can send me a DM on Instagram @marika.anneli.kim
And don’t forget to subscribe to my channel!
I’ll see you back here for more helpful tips soon.
XO, Marika Kim
