3 Blogging Legal Pages You Don’t Want to Miss: Amira Law Podcast

In the spirit of full transparency, know that article on blogging legal pages contains affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

Do you ever feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything you need to do?

Sometimes it can just feel like you’re chasing your tail to keep up with everything. And oftentimes protecting your blog moves to the back burner on the growing list of things to do.

But using blogging legal pages shouldn’t be one of these things.

If you ever get caught in legal trouble in the future these will be the most important pages on your blog. And here’s the truth:

You NEVER know when you may face legal issues.

It may never happen…

It could happen in a few years…

Or it could happen tomorrow (yes even if you don’t earn a penny from your blog!)

The good news is that by using templates these pages can actually be very simple to create.

In this podcast with Amira Law we chat about:

• How one piece of paper could have saved her Dad thousands of dollars
• The 3 most important blogging legal pages you need as a blogger
• The difference between writing these blogging legal pages yourself and having a lawyer do it
• Amira’s secret for becoming a master at anything she puts her mind to

Listen on Apple Podcasts/ Google Podcasts

Why do you need blogging legal pages?

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If you’re like me this is probably the main question on your mind right now.

Why do something if it doesn’t need to be done, right?

There are many little reasons why you actually need blogging legal pages. But the main 3 that gave me a kick up the bum to sort this out were…

1. It’s the law!

So many beginner bloggers believe it is optional to have legal pages on their blog. Or if you have some generic policy you’d be fine.

I was one of them!

However, certain legal pages such as a Privacy Policy and disclaimer are actually a legal requirement in most states and countries.

There are different organisations around the world that are responsible for protecting the rights of consumers, such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States.

If you breach these consumer rights you could face a hefty lawsuit such as these previous ones.

If you are providing any advice or collecting any information (i.e. email addresses in the comment section at the bottom of each post) then you could be liable to these lawsuits.

Simple legal pages on your website can protect your blog legally!

2. Prevent people from stealing your hard work

You may be thinking…

Eh, I haven’t really got much stuff that people could steal yet, so this one doesn’t matter.

But the fact is, your hard work and efforts on your blog could be copied by someone else with no consequence. It can completely damage your website’s authority and credibility if someone else copies your work.

Having the appropriate legal pages on your website means you can take the appropriate action to remove copy-cats content.

This is called a Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) and you can go straight to their hosting provider to remove their content.

If you can show you have the correct legal page on your website to do this (the Terms and Conditions) it can be relatively painless and easy instead of needing to go through any court or use external legal help.

3. To shield yourself if you’re sued

This is another area that you may think…

Ah, I probably won’t get sued so I should be alright.

Amira actually explains the reason why she got into law. It was because this is exactly what happened to her Dad when he was only 1 year into his business.

It completely crippled the company and his ambitions.

All of this could have been prevented if he had one piece of paper laying out the expectations with the correct legal wording on it.

But that would have cost him around $150 and he didn’t see the point at the time!

The point is, you never know when someone is going to sue you.

And you may feel it’s completely unjust.

But luckily for you, you can put the correct measures in place before this happens to make sure you are not liable to unfair claims.

Is your blog legally protected?

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In the podcast, Amira talks us through some of the common mistakes bloggers make when trying to make sure their blog os legally protected.

But she also explains how every blog needs to have 3 pages:

1. Privacy policy (make sure you are GDPR compliant for any information collected on the website)
2. Disclaimer (disclaim the information you provide is not “personal coaching/ advice for everyone. Also disclaim any affiliate marketing that you do)
3. Terms and conditions (these are the rules for your website. How people should behave and act on the website etc.)

Getting these documents in place will help to make sure you are protected from most legal complications in the future.

Many bloggers don’t even know this.

And many bloggers try to do it themselves!

*Cough, cough… I was one of them*

Should you try to make blogging legal pages yourself?

If you want to have the peace of mind that your blog is protected…

No!

Seriously ask yourself if you will you know the technical jargon needed to make sure you are protecting yourself?

Amira even mentions a story about one of her clients in her day job as a lawyer…

Her client was being sued by one of their freelance workers. They had personally put together a contract with their freelancer at the start.

But because key terminology was missing from the document, there is nothing a lawyer or anyone could do to help.

By spending around $100 in advance on a piece of paper her client could have saved thousands of dollars and all of the time and hassle of the lawsuit.

Now, I can almost hear your mind wondering…

How to create legal pages for your blog

If you do not have any legal protection on your website then Amira recommends starting with the big three:

1. Privacy policy
2. Disclaimer
3. Terms and conditions

Once you have these set-up, your blog will be legally protected for the most common legal issues bloggers run into (being sued or having someone else steal your work).

But how do you actually do this?

Option 1: Hire a lawyer

You can probably guess this is not the most cost-effective method.

The good news about this method is you know you would have exactly the right wording and documents to protect your blog moving forward.

But, you would have to pay their hourly rate and as Amira explains in the podcast, this could be around $350 an hour. You would likely end up spending $700+ per legal document the lawyer writes for you.

Positives:

• Completely specific for your website
• Provides peace of mind that your website is protected and legal

Negatives:

• Most expensive option
• Time-consuming to find and hire a good lawyer

Option 2: Free legal templates

Yes, you can find free legal templates online.

Here’s a couple of places you can try:

• rocketlawyer.com 
• legaltemplates.net 

But here’s the truth… you have no idea if these templates apply to your blog and cover all the bases.

You will also need to spend a long time making them appropriate for your blog and checking them to see if they seem right.

But even then, you will likely be guessing (unless you are a lawyer!)

Amira has run a legal audit for a friend before who used these free templates. She found there were so many holes in them that leave them liable to legal action.

As Amira is a blogger and a lawyer, she understands the language that needs to be included in these legal documents.

Positives:

• It’s free!

Negatives:

• Time-consuming
• Never sure if you have everything covered or the correct terminology

Option 3: Paid legal templates

There is one simple reason that most bloggers use this option…

If you’re like me, you probably know that you could use a free template and adjust it to make it suit your blog.

But the truth is, you will have no idea whether you have covered all bases or even used the correct terminology to get you out of trouble. In the end, I accepted the law is just not an area to take a risk on!

Amira actually offers the 3 blogging legal templates in a bundle including:

• Terms and conditions template
• Disclaimer template
• Privacy policy template

I have personally used this bundle and I had it set up and published on my website with 20 minutes of work… most of that time was just reading the templates!

The best thing for me is that you can use these templates for any of your blogs.

So if you have multiple blogs these templates are pure gold! It saves so much time and covers all bases for blogs in different niches!

If you need anything additionally after, such as a freelancer contract or coaching agreement, then you can check out her legal store on her website.

Positives:

• Peace of mind you have the correct terminology to protect yourself
• Get this for a fraction of the price of hiring a lawyer
• Quick to add to your blog

Negatives:

• It’s not free

Get in contact with Amira

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If you want to reach out to Amira to you can contact her in two main ways:

1. Her website… A Self Guru
2. Her blogging Facebook group (it’s amazing for bloggers as there’s so much opportunity to share content and connect with other bloggers)

Amira Law Podcast Transcript

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Popular content:

• 25 Proven Ways to Make $1,000+ a Month Online
• Blog Income Reports Study- How the 7 Best Niches Make Money
• How to Use Pinterest for Bloggers: Ultimate Traffic Guide

Blogging legal pages summary

Now, I know it seems like there’s a lot of information in this podcast with Amira.

And there is no escaping the fact that it’s the law to have certain legal pages on your blog.

However, you don’t need to panic or get worked up if you haven’t set things up correctly so far. There are just 3 legal pages you need to protect your blog:

1. Privacy policy
2. Disclaimer
3. Terms and conditions

These 3 documents come with a 40% discount if you purchase them in Amira’s legal bundle here.

It honestly takes 20 minutes to update the templates to suit your blog and then you never need to think about it again! Plus if you have any other blog or want to create one in the future you can use these templates for them.

If you think you may know someone else who would benefit from this, be sure to pin this page to share the information!

Make Money Blogging Podcast Series Summary [October]

The best time to start a blog was 15 years ago… the second-best time is right now.

If you’ve followed Make Time Online for any length of time, you’ve probably heard me shout the benefits of starting a blog before…

• It’s possible to create passive income (do work once and get paid over and over again… there are loads of ways to monetise a blog)
• You can promote any business you currently have (see my chat with Riaz for more on this)
• It’s possible to create a business around something you enjoy doing
• Start making money in a way that suits the life you want to live, rather than the other way around
• There’s no limit to the income you can achieve (check out my chat with Jeff and Ben from Dollarsprout… they make $240k a month!)
• It’s fun!

This podcast sums up the “make money blogging” podcast series. Particularly, my chats with Alex from Create and Go (Part 1, Part 2) and Paul “Scrivs” Scrivens from Dare to Conquer (Part 1, Part 2).

In case you don’t know these guys, they make over $1 million a year from their blogs and help others learn how to make money blogging. #theyknowwhattheyaredoing

Listen on Apple Podcasts/ Google Podcasts

Make Money Blogging Podcast Series Summary

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You can get the nitty-gritty by clicking the links to the chats with these guys at the top of these show notes.

But to sum up the main 5 takeaways from this make money blogging podcast series:

1. Find what people are already searching for online (and write about that)
2. Solve one problem for your audience. Can you help take them on a transformation i.e. lose 10 pounds in 21 days
3. FOCUS! Learn one thing at a time and avoid those shiny objects.
4. Get traffic to your blog. Use one tool to help and do it better than others
5. Track key data once you have traffic (what do people look at most)

But remember, don’t overcomplicate things!

Get started & take small actions every day.

What Was Your Main Takeaway From the Make Money Blogging Podcast Series?

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Drop a comment below with your main takeaway from the chats with Alex or Scrivs. Was there something else you picked up on? Is there something you’d like to know more about? Have you started a blog?

Feel free to drop a link below and share your own blog!

Keep changing for the better

Mike

P.S. Check out the Blog Income Reports Study- How the 7 Best Niches Make Money. Some of the stats in there will blow your mind!

How to Make Money From a Blog Quickly: Blog Income Reports Study in 7 Niches

This Blog Income Reports Study on how to make money from a blog quickly has no affiliate links on it. It was made with the sole purpose of helping new bloggers go from 0 to 4 figures a month quickly by using the proven path already laid out for you.

You probably already know that it’s possible to make money blogging.

But for most people, it is hard to know how to monetise your blog at the start. Every “guru” you turn to tells you something different… you should do more freelancing, or use adverts, or affiliate marketing or write an ebook.

Here’s the truth…

Every niche has a slightly different trend in making money within the first year or so.

I’d like to tell you that hard work and dedication will make you money online in the end. But the fact is if you don’t see results quickly, you’re more likely to give up.

This blog income reports study will show you how to make money from a blog quickly in 7 different niches. It is a proven road map for you to take a blog from zero to 4 figures a month… and beyond!

Infographic

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Use Visual.ly if you would like to get the code to embed this infographic and link back to this page.

How is This Blog Income Report Study Different?

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Brandon Gaille produced a lot of amazing facts in his 2018 blog income report study.

However, one important thing was missing…

How does each niche make money?

More importantly, how does each blog niche make money in the early days?

The generic advice doesn’t work for every niche, as you are about to find out.

For example, if you have a food blog is there any point in looking for affiliate programs to promote? Or if you have a marketing blog, should you bother using adverts?

The more you read this study, the more you will see the proven path that is laid out for how to make money from a blog in your niche.

The 7 Niches in This Blog Income Reports Study

There are 7 niches researched in this blog income reports study:

1. Food
2. Health and Fitness
3. Lifestyle
4. Mommy
5. Marketing
6. Personal Finance
7. Travel

And if you look into the majority of successful blog niches they will normally fit under one of these categories.

The lifestyle niche includes blogs that write about a variety of interests but could have an emphasis on DIY crafts, home decor, journaling etc.

The health & fitness or Mommy niches are closely linked to lifestyle but there was a clear focus on these blogs.

The Blog Income Reports Study Criteria

This study had a few criteria that had to be met:

• At least 5 blog income reports in each niche
• All income reports also need to be over $1,700 per month (most reports below this amount are just “a bit of this and that”)
• All income reports are below 6 figures a month (51 out of 57 were under 5 figures per month with the highest at $19,889)
• Income reports must also have a break down of where the income was from

Why use these criteria?

We wanted to find blogs that are making money from their own niche. Not just making money “blogging about blogging”.

Just think about it… have you seen those headlines on how to make money blogging like this?…

How I Made $1.5 Million Blogging Last Year... With my Eyes Closed on a Beach

Disclaimer- the “eyes closed and beach” part is totally made up!

These are great for motivation but when you see a Mommy blog with these numbers it’s almost always because of one thing…

It has expanded into blogging about blogging.

Therefore, it’s not an accurate representation of how that niche makes money anymore…

It’s really just another marketing blog.

For this reason, many of the income reports used were not the blogger’s most recent income report.

The farther back you look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

Winston Churchill

By finding the income reports towards the start of the blogger’s journey we are able to see how to blog for money in the early stages.

Key Terms for the Study

So here are some key terms that you will need to be aware of for this study to make sense:

• Ads: The amount of income from ad networks.
• Affiliate: Affiliate marketing income (being paid a commission if someone buys something through a link on your website for someone else’s product).
• Own Products: Any products that the owner creates and sells. This includes ebooks, courses, physical products and apps.
• Other: Any other income. This includes freelance work, sponsored posts, sponsorship for their website or podcast, coaching or other services they provide.
• Start Year: The year the website was created.

Important Disclaimers

There are also some things to take into consideration with this study.

1. Some blogs overlap 2 or more different niches i.e. Fit Mom Journey is part Mommy and part Fitness.

However, the main niche that is written about is the one recorded in this study (hence, Fit Mom Journey is more about health and fitness).

2. Mommy bloggers often fall under the lifestyle niche but there were enough blogs that clearly had a focus on Moms and parenting.

3. It’s hard to find blog income reports from websites that are not blogging about blogging!!

And there is a big reason why people make income reports…

Most income reports promote more affiliate links.

Yes, they can be educational, motivating and helpful. I’m grateful for them just doing this- research! But, 99 times out of 100, they are used to recommend more affiliate products.

Part 1- How to Make Money From a Blog: The Income Distribution of 7 Niches

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You can find all of the blog income reports used in this study towards the bottom of this page.

But if you’re like me, you’ll be pretty excited to see the difference between each niche.

How to Make Money From a Food Blog- Income Distribution

There is a clear monetisation method for food bloggers.

Ads for food blogs are crucial.

This is why getting onto the best ad networks and understanding what the requirements are to do this is so important for them. You can learn more about this on The Best 5 Ad Networks for Blogs.

Food Blogs Focus on Ads

Well duh!

But let’s think about why and what this means…

The obvious reason for this is that food blogs tend to get a lot of traffic because everyone needs to cook.

When the typical “house chef” (AKA Mom… please don’t shoot me for the stereotype!) struggles for ideas they do one of two things, in 2019:

• Google recipe ideas
• Search Pinterest for recipes

This means that new blogs can get hundreds of thousands of page views from Pinterest alone if they use it right.

Pinterest still has a high majority of active users that are aged between 25-45 and female. Hootsuite shows there has been an increase in male sign-ups since 2018, but they are still not as active on the platform.

Therefore, Pinterest is crucial for how to make money blogging about food. If you have a new food blog, all of your efforts should be spent on Pinterest promotion at the start.

Check out “5 Pinterest Hacks to Explode Your Traffic” if you want to get more pinning traffic tips.

How to Make Money From a Health & Fitness Blog- Income Distribution

There is again a clear method that health and fitness blogs use…

Advertising networks.

However, it’s important to note this doesn’t have to be the case.

For example, Avocadu didn’t use any ads on the website at the start and focused much more on affiliate marketing and selling their own products quickly.

Health & Fitness Bloggers Get the Least Income from “Other” Means

Out of the 5 blogs in this study, Only Root and Revel started making any money from sponsored content.

None of these websites reported income from freelance or coaching work.

So how did health & fitness blogs make money from a blog?

Common Affiliate Opportunities for Health and Fitness Blogs

In a moment you’ll notice there are a range of products promoted on each website without any real common trends.

Here are the main money earners for health and fitness websites (excluding ads):

• Xukkhini- Weight loss products on Clickbank
• Avocadu- Yoga products on Amazon Associates (note they even admit you won’t be able to make much from here) plus Clickbank and their own products.
• Root and Revel- Affiliate for Butcher box (organic meat products)
• Fit Mom Journey- Affiliate for Perfect Keto
• Organize Yourself Skinny- Own products i.e. ebook and meal plans

Using Pinterest is again where the majority of your time should be spent if you have a new Health and Fitness blog.

Once you see what articles your readers are interested in, then you can look for appropriate affiliate products to promote.

How to Make Money From a Lifestyle Blog- Income Distribution

So how do lifestyle websites make money from a blog?

As you can see below, ads are also super important to lifestyle blogs when they first start to make money blogging.

However, due to the large range of topics lifestyle blogs cover there really is no right or wrong way to monetise these types of websites.

Lifestyle Blogs Use Different Income Streams

You can see from Chasing Foxes that it’s possible to get an insane amount of traffic quickly to your blog. Silas and Grace pumped out 50 posts before they even launched their website and had over 2 million page views in a single month… within their first year!

This is obviously going to bring in some great income from ads. They relied heavily on Pinterest for this again.

Whereas Let’s Reach Success focused on freelance work and sponsored posts in the early days.

Lifestyle Blog Formula

Despite there being many ways lifestyle blogs can earn money there is a general theme across the blogs in this study.

The main focus was on making money from a blog with ads and affiliate marketing:

1. Typically the websites built up traffic to monetise with some ads.
2. They used Amazon Associates to place links for products they were writing about.
3. This way they could test out what their audience was interested in.
4. Eventually, they could create their own product tailored to their readers wants.

To be honest this is not just a lifestyle blog formula.

It’s also really the trend across the majority of these successful blogs as you are about to find out.

How to Make Money From a Mommy Blog- Income Distribution

Mommy’s make money blogging in a very similar way to lifestyle blogs.

But again ads stand out as the main way to make money from a Mommy blog at the start.

There was an interesting finding from this study…

Mommy Blogs Quickly Blog About Blogging

Maybe this isn’t always the case.

But…

Every one of the Mommy blogs (with Easy Baby Life less so) in this study started “blogging about blogging” or promoting some of their favourite blogging tools.

This kind of makes sense as a lot of Mom’s will be interested in making some money from home so they can spend more time with their kids.

However, these income reports prove it is possible to make money without doing that as none of them had really monetised in this way… yet!

Common Mommy Blog Affiliate Ideas

There was one platform which dominated in all of these reports:

Amazon Associates.

That’s a bit vague, so here are some common ideas they promoted:

• Baby gifts
• Baby gear- buggies/ prams/ car seat etc.
• Breastfeeding stuff
• Nursery ideas- cribs/ lamps etc.

There tend to be lots of different items promoted. But the “comparisons”, “reviews” or “how to use” posts did well.

How to Make Money From a Marketing Blog- Income Distribution

This niche is where you see the biggest difference to every other niche!

This is why you need to take “blogging about blogging” websites with a. pinch of salt.

Have you noticed yet that the things that work for these blogs may not work in your niche?

There are 2 key findings from this blog income reports study….

#1 Marketing Blogs Rely Less on Pinterest- They Do Not Focus on Ads

Readers on marketing websites (i.e. blogging about blogging or podcasting or how to use affiliate marketing etc.) do not want to see a load of pop-ups or ads everywhere.

There are two main reasons for this:

1. They want readers to click on their products and affiliate links, not the ads!
2. It slows the website down.

Simply put:

• Ads are annoying and readers on marketing websites are more aware of them, unlike the typical readers in other niches.

Therefore, the last thing the readers on marketing websites want is to be interrupted every two seconds.

…Or struggle to scroll down without the website glitching.

#2 Marketing Blogs Make Money From Their Own Products Quickly

This was another interesting finding.

Even when I put in Pat Flynn, Melyssa Griffin and JLD’s super high incomes ($150,000 a month+) the income distribution hardly changes…

This just shows that it is possible to make money from your own products even with a new website.

The Best Marketing Blogs Have Less Traffic and a Smaller Audience… But Build Better Relationships

Just take Pete McPherson’s Do You Even Blog as an example.

With a relatively new website, Pete generates 60% of his income from his own courses. You can listen to my chat with Pete on the Make Time Online podcast about what he sees as the “Future of Digital Marketing“.

Also, Ana from The She Approach has already had a lot of success from her own ebooks and courses, with 47% of her income coming from them.

Common Affiliate Networks for Marketing Blogs

There are some common networks for marketing blogs:

• Shareasale (4,000 merchants)
• Awin (6,000 advertisers)
• Amazon Associates (everything you can think of)
• Ultimate Bundles (limited offers on different topics)
• Website themes (Bluehost dominates, but any work just fine)
• Autoresponder (Convertkit dominates)
• Tailwind (Pinterest automation)
• Marketing funnel (i.e. Clickfunnels or Thrive Themes or Leadpages)

Every marketing website promotes individual affiliate programs too.

Ranging from Pinterest ebooks to full-on 6 Figure Blogging courses.

Click here to see my personal favourite blogging tools and courses.

How to Make Money From a Personal Finance Blog- Income Distribution

Another different looking graph!

As you can see personal finance bloggers make a higher percentage of their income from affiliate marketing than any other monetisation method.

So if you’re a personal finance blogger, chances are you should be looking at affiliate programs to make money blogging.

Personal Finance Blogs Focus More on Affiliate Income Than Any Other Niche

Even in the early days, you can see personal finance websites focussing on affiliate marketing.

Affiliate programs such as survey sites (i.e. Survey Junkie) or reward sites (i.e. Ebates, now Rakuten) will make up a large portion of this income.

You can even see what Jeff and Ben from Dollarsprout recommend…

These type of affiliate links are easiest to convert (AKA low cost, free or even provide a sign-up bonus for people to join).

Are you beginning to see how getting someone to pay $10 to join is not as easy as paying someone $10 to join?

This is much easier to sell in the early days compared to $1,000+ courses that marketing websites may be offering, where trust is key.

Common Affiliate Programs for Personal Finance Blogs

Here are some of the common programs that personal finance bloggers use to make money from a blog at the start:

• Swagbucks (Awin- survey)
• Survey Junkie (survey site)
• Inbox Dollars (Svorn- survey)
• Rakuten (cashback)
• Ibotta (cashback)
• $5 Meal Plan
• Credit Sesame (personal credit manager)
• Flex offers (millions of products)
• iGain (market research)
• CJ Affiliate (millions of products)

There are also loads of different affiliates depending on your specific focus i.e. credit card sign-ups or stock trading programs etc.

Plus, here’s a little bonus look inside Jeff’s income-generating platforms (this is super useful if you’ve never seen the backend of affiliate programs before)…

This was from their October 2018 Income report at $61,915, after Dollarsprout was more established.

You can check out our chat on the podcast if you’d like to hear how these guys created a $240k/ month online business in 3 years.

How to Make Money From a Travel Blog- Income Distribution

Again another different looking graph.

This time you can see that travel blogs typically get their income in a variety of ways.

Some sites such as Once in a Lifetime Journey make money blogging mainly from consulting. Others, such as External Expat do quite a bit of freelance work.

The fact is, travel blogs will have to hustle more to find these opportunities.

Travel Blogs Make Money With Sponsors and Freelance Income

If you’re like me you may find this really helpful to know.

If you were starting a travel website the majority of them make money from other monetisation methods, such as sponsors and freelance writing.

In fact, 6 out of 8 of the travel websites in this study has some income from sponsored posts or freelance work.

So if you are trying to make money blogging with a travel blog by creating your own course, you may find it’s an uphill battle.

Remember, don’t reinvent the wheel!

Use the map that others have left you to copy their success.

Some Useful Marketplaces for Travel Blogs

Here are some of the places for how to make money from a travel blog:

• IZEA (lots of brands to partner with)
• Fiverr (freelance work)
• Upwork (freelance work)
• Flex offers (millions of products)
• iGain (market research)
• CJ Affiliate (millions of products)
• MaxBounty (millions of products)

Freelancing and sponsored income comes in such a variety.

However, the best opportunities tend to not actually come from sites like Fiverr and Upwork.

This makes it harder to set out a blueprint for the best ways to do it.

For example, Will from Travel Blog Breakthrough got a big chunk of his income from a Trekking company after they saw his work on the Inca Trail Guide.

He jumped on a skype call to make that happen.

Make sure you check out the income reports below to find other ways of how blogger’s make money from a travel blog.

Part 2- The Blueprint to Make $1,000+

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Now, I bet you’re looking at all of these pretty charts thinking…

So what?

Well, let’s summarise the key takeaways and more importantly…

Let’s work out an action plan moving forward.

#1 Every Blog Needs Traffic

First of all, let’s start with the obvious.

If you want to make money from your website you have to get traffic.

Period.

5 out of 7 niches have a large chunk of their initial income from using ad networks.

Yes, Google Adsense is easy enough to get onto and start the ball rolling.

But the majority of these bloggers were getting most joy by using Mediavine or AdThrive.

So it would be wise to aim for this.

Agreed?

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying…

But How do I Get This Traffic?

If you’re like me, this is THE question you want to be answered!

This short video will explain exactly how many of the bloggers in this study have made sure they are writing content that people are actively searching for.

AKA how they get more traffic…

So if you use these techniques rather than just guessing, you will notice your articles will start getting much more attention quickly.

Click these links to try it out right now:

1. Pinterest
2. Ubersuggest

#2 Aim for 25,000 Sessions a Month (Unless You Have a Marketing Blog)

I know what you’re thinking!

That sounds like a lot, right?

But there are 57 blog income reports that show you this is 100% possible for you to do.

Why 25,000 monthly sessions?

Simple because Mediavine requires 25,000 monthly sessions to allow a blog to use their network.

Therefore, aim for that!

AdThrive, which tends to pay a bit better on average requires 100,000 monthly page views.

This means to make some good money from ads on your blog, you need to focus on getting 25,000 monthly sessions…

Quickly!

Check out “The 5 Best Ad Networks for Blogs” to see more details about the ad networks.

Even the bloggers that did not focus on ads still needed the traffic to work out what affiliate programs or products their audience wants.

If you aren’t getting 5,000 monthly sessions yet then check out “How to Use Pinterest for Beginners“. As many of these income reports prove… Pinterest is still the fastest free way to get traffic to your website.

#3 Use Affiliate Products to Match Your Readers Interests

Once you get traffic from Pinterest (at least 5,000 page views a month) you can use Google Analytics to see what posts most of your readers are reading.

This proves exactly what the people reading your blog are most interested in. And are you beginning to notice you don’t need to guess?

Use the data!

Once you know this, you can start to recommend great products that fit with these articles.

Plus, you can write more posts on these topics to get even more traffic!

#4 Create Your Own Product (Optional)

If you really want to start making a big income then this is the next step to take.

As you can see from this study already, it is possible to make well over $1,000 per month blogging without even thinking about this stage. (*Cough cough Chasing Foxes with $15k/ month from ads alone!*)

But if you make a better version of the affiliate product that you are promoting, you will get to keep all the profit instead of a per cent of the sale.

Hence, instead of making $5 commission on a $30 ebook, you can make the full $30 (or whatever you choose to charge for it).

This is the proven path that has already been laid out for how to make money from a blog.

Part 3- The Key Findings

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There were some important and some unexpected findings from doing this blog income reports research.

#1 It is Possible to Make Money Blogging… Without Writing About Blogging

This could well be the biggest takeaway from this blog income reports study.

It is possible to make money in other niches than marketing.

All of the income reports below will show you how these blogs made money without talking about blogging.

You can tell that some of them (i.e. The Busy Budgeter) have clearly started to blog about blogging. But there was very little money made from “blogging about blogging” in these income reports.

#2 Some Niches Tend to Reach an Upper Limit

For example, Mommy & lifestyle blogs only have so many affiliates they can promote and only so many pageviews they can get in a month.

At this stage, it’s hard for them to create a specific “Mommy product” so many of these blogs tend to start “blogging about blogging”.

This opens up many more affiliate programs and provides an opportunity to create their own courses.

Just as I eluded (ooo posh word from me!) to earlier, most blog income reports will exist to provide motivation for others. But they also promote more affiliate links i.e. Bluehost hosting or an autoresponder or favourite theme to use etc.

Therefore, it is hard to find income reports that are based solely on a “non-blogging” niche. Many of the websites featured in this blog income reports study will eventually have affiliate links to blogging tools or courses.

#3 Income Distribution Changes Over Time

The graph below shows the average income distribution of 7 blogs, one from each niche.

The second graph is from the same 7 blogs. But they have since kicked on and made at least $40,000 a month.

As you can see there is a much heavier reliance from their own products and affiliate marketing.

All 7 of these websites now have a focus on blogging about blogging (Show Me The Yummy has a course on how to make videos for food bloggers, which is sort of related).

Simply put…

Once you start making good money from your blog, focus on automating with affiliate marketing and funnels selling your own products.

The most successful blogs tend to have affiliate opportunities for their own products meaning it becomes even more passive.

The 7 Blogs Used For This

Blog Name	Niche	First Income Report	Monthly Income	Second Income Report	Monthly Income
Just a Girl and her Blog	Lifestyle	Feb 2014	$2,446	Dec 2016	$41,700
Show me the Yummy	Food	Jun 2016	$4,781	Dec 2016	$46,366
The Realistic Mama	Mommy	Mar 2016	$5,891	Aug 2018	$48,162
Avocadu*	Health & Fitness	Apr 2016	$4,244	Aug 2019	$111,929
Making Sense of Cents	Personal Finance	Jan 2015	$15,396	May 2018	$136,808
It’s a Lovely Life	Travel	Mar 2017	$37,810	Dec 2018	$147,833
Melyssa Griffin	Marketing	Jul 2015	$9,226	Dec 2016	$283,680

The Most Important Finding of All

Every single blogger that has started making $2,000 per month or more has done this one thing.

There are ZERO exceptions.

I bet you want to know what it is, don’t you?

But you won’t like it…

Seriously though you won’t…

Hustle.

I told you, you weren’t going to like it.

There’s no magic sauce that made these blogs earn money.

They all hustled at the start.

They all found “other” ways to make money or put in an incredible amount of effort to make money through the more “passive” ads, affiliate marketing and own products.

As you can see… content creation is key!

But you don’t need to reinvent the wheel (in fact, it’s better that you don’t because if it hasn’t been written about before, there is probably a reason!)

Find what works for others and make better versions of them.

57 Blog Income Reports in 7 Different Niches

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So here are the blog income reports that were used in this study.

Feel free to click on the blog name and look into any of the reports in more detail.

Food Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Yup Its Vegan	Food	Feb 2017	2013	$1,708
Pinch of Yum	Food	May 2012	2010	$2,970
The Endless Meal	Food	Nov 2016	2011	$4,118
Pickled Plum	Food	Nov 2016	2013	$4,330
Show me the Yummy	Food	Jun 2016	2013	$4,781
Butternut Bakery	Food	May 2019	2018	$5,041
Piping Pot Curry	Food	Aug 2018	2017	$5,110
The Bewitchin Kitchen	Food	Jan 2017	2010	$5,362

Health & Fitness Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Xukkhini	Health & Fitness	Mar 2018	2017	$1,732
Avocadu*	Health & Fitness	Apr 2016	2015	$4,244
Root and Revel	Health & Fitness	Jan 2018	2015	$7,534
Organize Yourself Skinny	Health & Fitness	2015	2013	$8,726
Fit Mom Journey	Health & Fitness	Dec 2018	2016	$10,123

*Income report was taken from Alex and Lauren’s book “How to Make Money Blogging”. Their income on Create & Go is updated every month.

Lifestyle Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Vigor It Out	Lifestyle	May 2018	2017	$1,907
Anastasia Blogger	Lifestyle	Jan 2018	2017	$2,085
Just a Girl and her Blog	Lifestyle	Feb 2014	2013	$2,446
Jessicas Laughter	Lifestyle	Jul 2016	2016	$2,569
Gathering Dreams	Lifestyle	Jan 2018	2017	$3,836
Chasing a Better Life	Lifestyle	Jun 2018	2017	$4,274
Let’s Reach Success	Lifestyle	Jun 2019	2013	$4,305
Sewrella	Lifestyle	May 2018	2016	$10,180
Chasing Foxes	Lifestyle	Aug 2017	2016	$19,889

Mommy Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Moms Make Money	Mommy	Aug 2013	2011	$2,147
What Mommy Does	Mommy	Jul 2015	2012	$3,391
Single Moms Income	Mommy	Aug 2015	2012	$3,754
Mommy on Purpose	Mommy	Dec 2016	2010	$3,976
Easy Baby Life	Mommy	Apr 2017	2015	$4,310
Rose Atwater	Mommy	Mar 2016	2013	$4,886
The Intentional Mom	Mommy	Apr 2017	2008	$5,481
The Realistic Mama	Mommy	Mar 2016	2014	$5,891
Pulling Curls	Mommy	May 2017	2014	$6,621

Marketing Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Blogging Her Way	Marketing	May 2018	2017	$1,704
Moms Make Cents	Marketing	Oct 2016	2016	$2,127
Do You Even Blog	Marketing	Mar 2019	2017	$2,883
Inspired Blogger University***	Marketing	May 2016	2014	$3,738
The She Approach**	Marketing	Jan 2019	2016	$4,230
House of Brazen	Marketing	Mar 2017	2013	$5,219
Her Paper Route	Marketing	Mar 2018	2017	$8,426
Melyssa Griffin	Marketing	Jul 2015	2015	$9,226

**This is Ana’s first $50,000 income report. The total has been divided by 12 even though it took 2 and a half years to get there because the income has sped up more recently.

***Only the income from Inspired BU was used for this study (not the income from Meet Penny)

Personal Finance Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Millennial Boss	Personal Finance	Apr 2018	2016	$1,950
The Frugal Millionaire Blog	Personal Finance	Jan 2017	2014	$2,171
The Savvy Couple	Personal Finance	Jan 2018	2016	$2,412
Retired by 40	Personal Finance	Dec 2016	2013	$3,328
Fitnancials	Personal Finance	Nov 2018	2013	$4,612
Inspired Budget	Personal Finance	Jun 2018	2017	$7,296
Unconventional Prosperity	Personal Finance	Feb 2018	2017	$8,221
Dollarsprout	Personal Finance	Jan 2018	2016	$12,372
Busy Budgeter	Personal Finance	Mar 2016	2014	$12,484
Making Sense of Cents	Personal Finance	Jan 2015	2011	$15,396

Travel Blog Income Reports

Blog Name	Niche	Income Report Month	Start Year	Total Income
Wherever Writer*****	Travel	Feb 2018	2012	$1,973
External Expat	Travel	Jan 2018	2016	$2,502
Ali’s Adventures	Travel	Jun2017	2007	$2,868
Get Away Couple	Travel	Sep 2018	2017	$3,027
Travel Blog Breakthrough	Travel	Oct 2016	2014	$3,431
Practical Wanderlust	Travel	Apr 2018	2016	$5,882
Living the Dream RTW****	Travel	Aug 2019	2010	$8,113
Once in a Lifetime Journey	Travel	Nov 2018	2014	$9,682

***** Only travel related income was reported in this study- not the “blogging about blogging” income.

**** This income report gets updated every month but was used with the figures from August 2019

One Final Note on How to Make Money From a Blog

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Remember this…

It is possible to make money in any way in any niche.

Of course, it is possible for food bloggers to create their own course or “monthly meal plans” and sell them in the early days.

Of course, you can make money from ads in any niche.

But what you have above is a proven path that successful blogs have taken to start making good money in different niches.

Use what they have left behind to your advantage.

Once you get that regular income, it then becomes possible to put more time into automating things and generating passive income from affiliate marketing funnels and sales of your own products.

How to Make Money From a Blog Quickly Summary

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You can see a clear roadmap that successful blogs have taken to make money blogging in 7 different niches:

• Food, Lifestyle & Mommy blogs should focus on Pinterest. Ideally creating list posts that people want to read & aim to get on Mediavine or AdThrive ad networks.
• Health & Fitness blogs should do the same but quickly find affiliate products for their most popular articles.
• Personal finance should also use Pinterest, noting that budgeting does better on Pinterest closely followed by ways to make money (use low cost or free affiliate products such as survey or cashback sites).
• Marketing blogs should have an idea of a product they can create i.e. an eBook or Teachable course. The focus is on creating high-quality articles and really connect with the readers.
• Travel blogs should still use Pinterest to drive traffic. Hustle to find sponsorships and freelance work to make up the income initially.

It doesn’t mean that you have to stick to this, but it does give you an idea of the quickest and proven ways for your niche to start making money.

Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. Check out “The Most Profitable Niche” and “The 5 Best Ad Networks for Bloggers“.

19 Best Time-Saving Tools & Resources

In the spirit of full transparency, know that this time-saving tools and resources post contains affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. In fact, you may receive a discount or some money for free! Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

You probably know there are thousands of time-saving tools and resources. But knowing which ones to use can sometimes waste more time than anything.

Most people think that it’s super hard to do all the extra things they want each day. However, by using these time-saving tools and resources it’s possible to be way more efficient with your time and money.

This resource page is a list of the recommended services, products and companies that I use or have used that I KNOW are valuable. They can save you hours of time each week, which can make a huge difference in your productivity and sanity!

Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money but you cannot get more time. Jim Rohn 

Recommended Blogging Resources

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Hosting

Wealthy Affiliate

Are you interested in making money online to free up your time?

Maybe you’ve started a blog or maybe you have an existing business that isn’t being well promoted online. Or maybe you would just like to know where to start…

Wealthy Affiliate literally holds your hand into getting an online business set up and driving FREE traffic to your website.

This is my TOP recommended blogging resource!

The reason for this is because it’s not only a hosting platform for up to 50 websites. It also comes with:

• Affiliate marketing training (120 lessons with video and text, that is constantly updated, plus weekly live webinars)
• Keyword research tool (Jaaxy costs $49/ Month by itself)
• The support and community are second to none (there is always someone on live chat with over 1.5 million members)
• & too much more to put in this time-saving tools and resources post

It’s completely free to start and costs $359 a year for the pro membership (there are many courses that cost more than this alone and come with none of the added benefits or support groups). If you’d like to learn more, check out my review here. 

Bluehost

Maybe you already know what you’re doing with blogging and you just need to get your hosting (essential for monetising your blog and getting it ranked on search engines).

I used to use Bluehost as it’s super easy and affordable to use and you can start from $3.95 per month through this link. 

If you are new to blogging I’d recommend getting the one-year hosting plan which will cost you just under $72.

Build Email Lists

MailChimp

Autoresponders are crucial blogging resources. 

It’s how you build a real relationship with your readers.

If you’re just starting out and you have 0 email subscribers, you’ll likely want to join a FREE autoresponder such as MailChimp. 

ConvertKit

Wow, this is so much easier!

You can create as many sequences, automations and opt-in forms as you like.

Combine that with the awesome analytics to see what your readers open and click it becomes very easy to provide personalised and specific information that suits your readers.

It does cost $29 a month but if you’re serious about making money online an autoresponder cannot be overlooked. Try ConverKit out for 14 days for free here.

For Traffic

Tailwind

Pinterest is THE best way to get traffic for free quickly to a new blog.

Fact.

The main reason for this is because it acts in a similar way as Google (sending users to content). But it’s possible to create viral pins and get traffic much quicker than it takes for Google to recognise your website. Read more about this in “5 Secret Pinterest Hacks to Drive Traffic to Your Website“

Tailwind’s now the only legitimate partner to Pinterest and is a way that you can automate your pins (rather than sitting on Pinterest all day or waking up at silly O’Clock to pin at the best time for your audience).

You can give it a try with 100 pins for free here. It will cost $9.99 a month after that to continue but it’s one of the things I wish I purchased much sooner than I did as it saves soooo much time and brings in sooo much traffic!

Create Pins/ Design Logo’s

PowerPoint

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying… SERIOUSLY???

Well… yes

For 3 main reasons:

1. You probably already know how to use it (thank you ICT @ school!)
2. It’s easier to create designs that STAND OUT on Pinterest (everyone else uses Canva!)
3. You have more control over the details and design (i.e. using shadows to make words “pop” out)

I didn’t want to believe this either until I tried out BTOP’s $9 “Create the perfect pin” course. This was a HUGE game changer in seeing some awesome traffic from Pinterest and it walks you through how Jeff and Ben have designed their pins to help them grow their websites to over $240k/ month business.

Canva

An amazing FREE graphic designer website. You can design some amazing pins (for Pinterest) blog cover pics and logos here. 

Graphic designers are highly recommended for blogging resources but I’ve already mentioned how you can use programs such as Powerpoint to get the same if not better results.

I have also used Snappa in the past but I don’t recommend it as it costs around $10 a month… I would highly recommend using a free tool and getting Tailwind for this money.

For Writing

Grammarly

I’m not sure how I ever used to live without this one!

Grammarly fixes spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes online so you can write freely knowing a big red line will show up whenever you misspell something simple!

Another great free extension. It has a paid version but the free one is great for the basics.

A massive tip is to use a hypnotic writing cheatsheet and analogy book so you can go edit your writing with words that scientifically proven to increase reader engagement. Get yours for free here…

Podcast Resources

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Podbean

You also need hosting (somewhere to store it) to put a podcast out there into the world.

Podbean is user-friendly, has no limits to how much you can produce in a month (great for long formats/ interviews) whilst also the most friendly way to do this on your pocket ($9 a month)

Audacity

This is another free resource and is fricking awesome!

It’s easy enough to learn how to use with a couple of YouTube videos or just playing around and it can help to produce a professional-sounding podcast quickly. Did I mention Audacity it’s free?

Levelator

Have you ever listened to a podcast where someone is being interviewed and one voice is WAY louder than the other?

Problem solved with Levelator… another free resource!

Ecamm recorder

If you intend on interviewing people you will need a way to record your voice… and their voice!

Ecamm call recorder for Skype is so simple to use and only costs $39.95 for life.

Recommended Time Saving Resources

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For Learning

Audible

Easily one of the best apps EVER! 

If you find it hard to find the time to read, check out Audible. It’s an amazing use of time (check out the NETIME life hack). 

Listen to some of the best advice from the worlds most successful people on your phone, laptop, iPad, Alexa anywhere ANYTIME!

I pay £69.99 for 12 books over a year. There are alternative memberships such as 3 books a month for a free 30-day trial then $14.95 after. 

If you don’t know what books to start with check out the Best Self Development Books of all Time.

Podcasts

Fits in nicely with the above and you can find some amazing information for FREE using this app.

Overcast massively improves your podcast listening. It’s great for customising playlists and has a cool “smart speed” feature that speeds up in silences and plays at a comfortable listening speed. 

Apple Podcast works well for iPhone users too obviously!

Blinkist

Blinkist is NETime on crack!

Would you like to be able to read 4 books a day? With this app, you genuinely can get the best information from some of the world’s most productive people in 15 minutes. 

Honest!

There is written and audio format so if you have a spare 15 minutes on the way to work you can get some amazing little gems of information here. 

I pay $89.99 for an annual membership for unlimited summarised books. 

For Productivity

Trello

Don’t you hate it when you get interrupted? Isn’t it impossible to remember the things you had to do from the day before?

This is one of the top time-saving tools and resources.

This app how I plan my weeks, days and effectively my life… and Trello is FREE!

Asana

Like Trello but better if you like lists.

You can be as glamorous as you like with Asana, but I keep it simple. 

I have a project for each quarter of the year. I then have a “to do” list, a “to do this week” list, “started” and “done”.

It’s amazing because you can move the tasks along as you go and it helps to remember to do all those pesky things that you usually forget like pay a bill, do a tax return or call your Mum (jokes… I always remember that Mum!)

It’s a great tool to use if you are delegating tasks in a small team or to a VA and it’s again a free tool!

Evernote

Ahhhhh my digital brain.

If you don’t use this I literally do not understand how you can cope!! One of the best time-saving tools and resources around.

Have you ever been out and about for someone ask you what your date of birth is and you had a complete brain fart?! 

Evernote doesn’t EVER fart with its brain… EVER!

It remembers your passport details, your tax number, your companies address, that great article that you read on your phone when you were on the loo… it remembers everything and more.

Some awesome benefits… 

1. You can search for anything and it finds it (including handwritten notes!!) 
2. It works offline and then stores it when you get the Internet again
3. It’s FREE!

Recommended Money Saving/ Making Resources

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For Investing

Vanguard

If you live in Australia, the UK or the USA then investing in index funds through Vanguard is the best way to earn passive income. 

On average you will receive a conservative 7% a year on average (some years it may be much higher and some years it can be negative)

Saxo

If you are an expat or live somewhere else, then you can invest in index funds through ETF’s. Be sure to check out the 3 part podcast series to see why, how and the best strategy to invest in index funds here.

You can still invest in index funds through ETF’s from Saxo bank.

Bullion Vault

I’m not going to go in too much detail here about why to invest in gold and silver as I find people tend to fall asleep but if you want more information about this check out this post!

BullionVault stands out to other ways to invest in precious metals because:

• It has low storage fees (0.12% a year for gold and 0.48% for silver/ platinum)
• The best prices you’ll find to buy gold or silver (it’s peer to peer trading)
• You own contracts for physical metals

To Track Money

Toshl

Toshl is another FREE app to track your expenses. 

It’s such a pain trawling through bank statements to see what you’ve spent each month, which is a big reason why people don’t do it!

If you put in your expenses each time you spend money on something toshly will put all of them into categories and neatly organise it for you!

Surveys

Would you like to get paid for filling out surveys online?

Here are Make Time Online’s top 5 survey site recommendations:

• Paidviewpoint
• Swagbucks
• Inbox Dollars
• Prize Rebel
• Vindale Research

It’s the easiest and quickest way to make a bit of cash online and you can save loads of time by doing these 3 things:

1. Set up a separate email address for emails
2. Join as many good sites as possible
3. Cash-out as soon as possible

Find out more in the best 15 survey sites to get paid real money here.

Travel Resources

BA Amex Card

Would you like to receive a business class flight from London to New York each year?

By spending on this Amex and working with your partner you can easily get enough points to do this.

Click here to get a bonus 6,000 points when you spend £1,000 in your first 3 months!

Plus it’s a FREE card… an absolute no-brainer!

Uber 

Imagine how would you feel if you could take your own personal driver anywhere in the world?

Well with Uber you pretty much can!

Plus it’s cheaper than a normal taxi

Plus it’s often quicker than to call a taxi

And you can often get in a NICER taxi

If you don’t already have it get Uber now… plus get a FREE ride with this link!

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Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. Are you looking to get more traffic to your website? Find out the #1 way that new sites get thousands of views a month quickly by clicking here.

Who Else Wants More Traffic?

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5 Secret Pinterest Hacks to Make You Money Quickly

In the spirit of full transparency, know that this post on Pinterest hacks contains affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. In fact, you may receive a discount or some money for free! Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

You probably know the main challenge for new bloggers is to get traffic to their blog.

Now you may think all you need to do is pin more on Pinterest and you will start seeing traffic role in. In fact, by learning some expert pinner’s secrets you can become much smarter with your efforts and even completely automate the process with a few hours of work a month.

This article (with video) will show you the top 5 Pinterest hacks to start driving crazy traffic to your blog.

Why Use Pinterest?

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Now, I can almost hear your mind saying… I’ve already got an account with Facebook and Twitter, why should I bother with Pinterest?

This is the exact question I had been asking for about 2 years before taking the plunge!

I’m definitely not the Don on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. However, I do use all of them and have a bit of a following (over 2 thousand) on each.

All of them have taken time to grow and to be honest I had been putting off starting another social media platform because of that.

However…

Pinterest beats all of these for one simple fact…

All of the other social media platforms are designed to keep the users on their platform.

Simply put, the best traffic drivers are:

• Pinterest = user to content (awesome)
• Google = user to content (awesome)
• Facebook = user to user (good)
• Twitter = user to user (good)
• Instagram = user to user (average at best)

People literally use Pinterest to find valuable content. It is like using Google.

I HAD NO IDEA!!!!!

In 2018, after hearing this, I felt like I had been wasting all of my efforts on social media.

I thought Pinterest was for pretty wedding photos, flowers and basically… I thought it was for girls!

As it turns out, my stupid bias judgemental mind had been holding my website traffic back.

… Onwards and upwards…

So rather than dive into it full steam ahead, I went out of my way to find out some of the best Pinterest hacks to drive traffic to my blog.

Tip 1- Create Killer Content

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Well Duh!! This is more important than water is to a fish.

I thought you said these were gonna be top secret tips?!

Well actually it may not be top secret but this one is ALWAYS the top priority. If you can genuinely help to solve someone’s problems then this person is likely to become an avid fan and share, pin, tweet (whatever!) your content. Always ask yourself…

Am I actually helping to solve someone’s problems?

It’s so important that your content is easy to read.

Let’s face it people on the internet are in a hurry. Think about the last time you read an article. Chances are very high that you skimmed it and tried to take in something useful without wasting your time reading it!?

So a very valuable tip is to create content that is EASY to read.

Help people skim read it if they want.

Remember, the main focus should be providing the reader with valuable information that helps THEM.

Solving other people’s problems and helping them builds trust. This means they are more likely to read more of your stuff and come back.

Tips for making blogs easy to read:

• White Spaces –

Do not leave a wall of text. Use Line breaks and mix up your paragraph lengths… When writing ONLINE a paragraph should NEVER be more than 3 lines of writing.

• Images –

Use images to convey your message.

• Don’t use $10 words! –

Yes, you may think you sound clever. But these LOOOONG words make reading harder. If you can keep it simple people will keep reading.

• Get to the point –

Don’t use 20 words if it can be said in 4. After writing a post CUT it down!! I’ve heard as a good rule of thumb to delete the entire first & last paragraph and remove every 6th sentence! Seriously… cut it down, don’t get attached to your words, you will thank yourself in the future!

• Use Stories/ similies/ metaphors

People find it easy to remember a story. They often come to their own conclusion and form their own opinions from them. It is much more powerful when we learn something ourselves than when we are told something.

Tip 2- Create Awesome Images

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The way your pins look is IMPORTANT.

In fact, this is maybe the most important of the Pinterest hacks.

How can you make Pins that stand out?

Pins need to:

1. Stand out – BOLD and bright text
2. Grab attention – Eye grabbing picture
3. Entice people to click – A title that makes you want to know more

Here is one of the pins from the Pinterest kings Jeff and Ben at Dollarsprout.

What’s the perfect pin size?

People seem to recommend different sizes all the time. There is no perfect pin size.

Currently in November 2018, from what I have found many are using or recommend 600px wide by 900-1,250px tall.

This is something I was terrible at when I started. It wasn’t until I took Jeff and Ben’s $9 “Perfect Pin” course that I really saw traction from Pinterest.

Check it out here, it can save sooooo much wasted time! As you read on you will find out more about Jeff and Ben from Dollarsprout (spoiler alert they now make over $240k/ month)

Tip 3- Use descriptions wisely

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This can make a big difference in 2 ways:

1. People finding your pin
2. People clicking on the link

To help more people do both of these things your pin descriptions need to:

• Includes keywords (helps people find it)
• Have WIIFM (what’s in it for me?)
• 200-300 characters
• Has CTA (call to action – tell them what to do)

There’s not much more to it than that.

The aim of the description is to get people clicking on that link! Try out different descriptions for pins leading to the same post to make the most of these Pinterest hacks.

Tip 4- Make a Clean and Branded Profile

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Your business profile needs to come across well for your niche.

People just want to know what you do… So tell them

To get your Profile looking “Pinterest Pretty” you need to do the following things:

1. Use similar colours in your pins
2. Neat design (don’t make it too busy/ too many words!)
3. Ensure your description and your business name uses keywords
4. Your description gets to the point.
5. Tell people what you do.

To be honest with you… there is too much to explain in one blog post about how to set up your Pinterest account and explain how Pinterest works.

If you’re keen to see the same results as some of the most successful bloggers that make 6 figures a month then check out the best book I have found that explains everything you need to know about Pinterest. Including:

• How to set your profile up for best results (with checklist)
• The secret manual Pinning strategy to make pins go viral
• How to only spend 1-2 hours a month setting up your pins
• How to use Pinterest for affiliate marketing

All of this is great but there’s actually one last BIG tip to getting more engagement on Pinterest.

The answer lies in Group Boards…

Tip 5 + Bonus Tip- The Group Boards Secret

---

Driving traffic from Pinterest is a game of applying to as many group boards as you can, and pinning bright, bold, click-bait pins to them repeatedly!

However, something that I have found hard to find anywhere else is…

How do I apply for group boards?

You basically have to find other people’s boards that you would like to join. You need to message the owner and ask if you can become a “collaborator” of the board.

Type in a keyword into the search tab on Pinterest and look at the group boards for this.

Group Boards are amazing and different from any other social media platform because…

If you only have 50 followers and “collaborate” on a board with 10,000 followers, then all of these people can now see your pins. 

You could spend hours applying to loads of boards… However, some group boards are better to apply to. The BEST ones need to have the following:

• Less than 20 collaborators
• A very specific topic (not affiliate marketing… but affiliate marketing on Pinterest for beginners)

Realistically you won’t know what boards are good until you join them. SO you need to hustle here and ask around. Once you’re on the board you can check out what the best boards are by watching this short video…

Read the podcast chat show notes with Jeff and Ben from Dollarsprout.

You can message the owner of a board on a pin to ask to join a group board as a “collaborator”.

If you’d like a step by step 6-day guide to using Pinterest from setting up your account to finding group boards then get this sent to you for free right now…

Plus get your bonus email template to join the best group boards…

But I have nothing to offer!

You can’t name drop because you know nobody… you have no followers… you are just starting a blog…

So what can you do?

Comment and engage on their stuff!

Find where they hang out and contribute to their work regularly.

Is it easy to comment? Yes!

Can it be time-consuming? Yes!

Does everyone do this? Hell no!

There’s always a way for you to stand out. You just have to be willing to go the extra mile!

Last little nugget before you go…

Use tailwind to automate your pins like clockwork… simples.

I just spent 3 hours setting up my pins (30+ a day) for the next 3 months. That’s 3000 pins going out at THE best times of the day!!

Pinterest Hacks Summary

---

These Pinterest hacks really can drive more traffic to your website than rush hour on the M25 (that’s British humour… Google the M25 if you don’t know what I’m chatting about).

Use these 5 tips and find the best group boards to pin onto and you will have visitors pouring onto your site just like Jeff and Ben did in 2016. Check out how they went from not making any money from their blog for 13 months to now earn $240k per month.

Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. It’s so important to have your account set up the right way to get the best results from these Pinterest hacks. Make sure your account is set up right by getting the free course below…

Who Else Wants More Traffic?

Get the Pinterest Secrets to Skyrocket Your Traffic Today

I do!

We won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.

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Be sure to pin this page to come back to it later and share the secrets…

MTO5 w/ Pete McPherson – The Future of Digital Marketing is Going to be…

The future of digital marketing… Seriously?

Yep, it’s revealed in this podcast. And if you don’t believe me, decide for yourself.

About Pete

---

2 mins

Pete is a normal guy. 

Band Nerd. 

Majored in music… and then decided to quit before finishing. 

He did the odd job, then tried more college degrees. 

And finished in the most exciting career path known to man…

No not astronauting…

Accounting!

He found the American dream and jumped straight into the script, only to find he was miserable 🙁

And so he did what everyone else does (or do they?)… 

Blogged.

Why do Some Projects not Work? 

---

14 mins

 

Pete tried loads of blogs/ business ideas (around 50 in 10 years!) So he has a good idea of what does and more importantly for us… what does not work.

Main lesson:

He found that he didn’t give his blogs the time to grow. 

It takes more time than you think.

As a general rule, you should plan what you expect to happen and times it by 3!

Breaking the $10k per month barrier!

---

20 mins

14 months into Pete’s current website, Do You Even Blog, he made over $10K in one month (November 2018). Here is his $9,663 July 2018 report.

He’s now working on funnels to be more personalised and automated to create more passive income. This just so happens to be a sneak peek into what WILL help you stand out like Shaquille O’Neil at a midgets convention. 

Related Articles:

• Why Make Time Online? Financial Independence Retire Early Blog
• The Secret to Earn Passive Income
• How we Save £30,000 a Year and Travel as Teachers

Start Monetising Your Blog

---

23 mins

 

Pete is a big fan of creating his own products.

However, if you are just starting out then creating paid products is not the way to go.

With the right audience you can do anything

Your focus should be on growing your audience. 

To do this you need to tell the same story on everything!

To monetise a website early on you can use advertising (this is not recommended for some niches i.e. digital marketing can detract trust) and affiliate marketing.

But one of Pete’s regrets is focusing on monetising his website(s) too soon. 

Related articles:

• Why do People Create Blogs? These 28 Bloggers Explain Their Story
• How to Make Money Blogging
• 6 Blogging Tips for Newbies

How to Optimise Your Time!

---

31 mins

 

So let’s just reel these off:

1. Get fast internet
2. Turn the sensitivity on your trackpad/ mouse to the max! 100% DO THIS!!
3. Type faster- if your typing speed is under 75 then improve this (Pete’s is over 100… mine is 48 aka new challenge for me this week!) click here to test yourself
4. Make your content hyper personalised and timely (check out Brennan Dunn’s stuff doubleyourfreelancing.com)

Main takeaway:

The future of digital marketing is going to be HYPER personalised and timely.

You heard it here first! (well I did anyway)

Related article:

• Save Hours of Time with these Resources

Confronting Self Doubt

---

46 mins

There’s no easy answer here but I think Pete did a great job:

1. Receive real feedback- although you can’t plan for this!
2. A close group of people that are doing what you’re doing i.e. a mastermind group

Finding people that are doing what you are doing is SOOOO important. Because it’s unlikely that many people you know will be doing something exactly like you. 

It helps for motivation, accountability and sanity!

Find them, engage, stay in contact. 

ACTION & Links

---

60 mins

Do You Even Blog– Pete’s homepage is so well designed and so easy to navigate to a section that suits you! (Do you notice how it’s personalised?)

Twitter- @doyouevenblog

Podcast- Do You Even Blog

 

Make sure you do these 4 things, they can change your life!

Action!…

• Increase mouse sensitivity
• Get fast internet
• Type faster
• Start a blog

If you’re interested in learning tips for how to get traffic using Pinterest then sign up below for a free email course.

The Future of Digital Marketing Summary

---

There are so many little gems in this chat with Pete. I highly recommend listening to the section on optimising your time from 31-46 minutes if you’re looking for some game-changing results with your digital marketing. 

Here are my top 5 takeaways from this chat:

1. Optimise your job- you don’t have to quit straight away you can have a side hustle and security. 
2. Build a community- it doesn’t have to be massive even a few people that you really help!
3. Mastermind group- find like-minded people doing the SAME thing
4. Make content personalised and timely- This is the FUTURE!
5. Don’t do what everyone else is doing

And are you beginning to see that the future of digital marketing is going to be personalised and timely?

If you have any questions or thoughts drop a comment below.

Keep changing for the better,

Mike

P.S. If you are still doubting whether you should give blogging a try then I dare you to click this and not want to give it a shot… I believe in blogging

Seriously… I dare you!

Oh and don’t forget to pin this!

Who Else Wants More Traffic?

Get the Pinterest Secrets to Skyrocket Your Traffic Today

I do!

We won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.

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5 Top Ad Networks for Bloggers to Make Money Quickly

There may be affiliate links in this article on the best ad networks for bloggers, read the full disclaimer here.

So I heard an awesome podcast the other day with a really cool study.

It was so good in fact that I’ve linked to it right here:

How do Bloggers Make Money – The Blogging Millionaire

The biggest takeaway was that bloggers who earn $2,000-$7,500 per month make up their income with 35% of their income from Ads on average.

That is massive!! Over a third of their income comes from adverts… on average!

Once bloggers start earning more than $7,500 per month they are not so reliant on ads and spend more time focusing on affiliate marketing and creating courses.

But this made me realize… I’m almost 6 months in and I don’t have any ads!

And if you want to make more than $2,000 per month from your blog… you’re gonna need them!

Check this out…

With that, shall we?

 

How do Websites Make Money Using Adverts?

That is the right question amigo!

You generally get paid in one of 2 ways:

1. Revenue per thousand impressions (RPM) i.e. $4 for every 1,000 views
2. Pay per click (PPC)

Different networks will pay your website in different ways so it’s important to work out how much you will get paid i.e. Adsense will pay roughly $2 RPM. This means if you have 10,000 page views a month you will receive $20.

This begs the question…

Should You Even Bother With Adverts? 

---

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying…

“But adverts will make my website look tacky, is it really worth it for a few dollars?!”

You may have a point but here are 4 BIG reasons why you should use adverts ASAP:

1. Your readers will become used to seeing ads on your website… so it won’t be a big shock when you add them!
2. You could miss out on a post going viral.
3. Something is better than nothing, it can offset other costs such as automatically pinning on Pinterest with Tailwind
4. People are used to seeing ads everywhere, so it won’t look as strange as you may think (Youtube, TV, Podcasts, Newspaper etc.)

You can also help to connect people with a great product! As long as the ads you have are related to what you write about and useful.

The main thing to remember is that if you are providing quality content consistently your readers generally won’t mind having some ads on the page. In fact, a lot of them will be happy that you are getting paid if it means you can spend more time giving them quality content!

Related Articles:

• Why Make Time Online? Financial Independence Retire Early Blog
• Save Hours of Time with these Resources
• The Secret to Earn Passive Income
• Why do People Create Blogs? These 28 Bloggers Explain Their Story

Advertising Networks

---

We will look at the pros and cons of using different advertising networks in this article.

And since the majority of income from ads comes from 4 networks we will look at ONLY these 4 (note there are others):

• Google AdSense
• Media.net
• Monumetric
• MediaVine
• AdThrive

Adsense

---

Requirements

Content must comply with Adsense policies ideally a blog over 6 months old

 

Earnings range

$1-$4 RPM

Pros

• Most bloggers will be able to get approved on Adsense and
• The best option for bloggers that get less than 10,000 monthly page views.

 

Cons

• They do not allow ads in a sticky sidebar
• Don’t allow ads on mobile devices.
• Low earnings

Media.net

---

Requirements

No offensive or negative content

 

Earnings range

Not much!

 

Pros

• If you can’t get approved on Adsense then it’s worth giving this a shot.
• You can place ads on the sticky sidebar (increases the impressions aka views).

 

Cons

• Low earnings

Monumetric

---

Requirements

10,000 page views per month

 

Earnings range

$2-$5 RPM

 

Pros

• 10,000 page views per month is not as much as some other networks
• Monumetric will generally pay you more than Adsense.

 

Cons

• They require at least 6 ad slots per page, which is a lot if you don’t have posts over 2,000 words!
• Still quite a low RPM.

MediaVine

---

Requirements

25,000 page views per month

 

Earnings range

$6.67-$13.58 RPM

 

Pros

• They accept bloggers across all the major blogging niches.
• Can double or triple your income for ads compared to Adsense

 

Cons

• The reason they tend to pay more than Adsense is because their ads “stick” to the sidebar. This means when users scroll down the ad still stays on screen (could be seen as a pro depending on how you look at it)

AdThrive

---

Requirements

100,000 page views per month

Must have U.S. based majority

 

Earnings range

$8.77-$19.89 RPM

 

Pros

• The highest RPM ad network
• They are willing to pay a higher premium as their ads ONLY show up on high quality and specific websites.

 

Cons

• But it’s the most “picky”.
• It is estimated that 75% of applications are rejected, as they prefer specific niches:

1. Food

2. Parenting

3. Home-related

Create a Money Making Website in 9 days

Find out how you can design a website to make money. Use the step by step approach to set your website up for success

 

 

 

Lets Do This!

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So What Does This Mean? 

---

There’s a couple of charts that pretty much sums this all up…

As you can see, over 1 in 5 bloggers making over $2k+ per month use Adsense. But only 2% of the overall income from adverts is paid from Adsense.

The point is…

When you qualify to apply to other networks, do it!!

You will just be leaving money on the table otherwise and you can easily see a 2-3 times increase in your advertising income! Plus you will provide better quality adverts that may actually help your audience.

Best Ad Networks for Bloggers Summary

---

Are you beginning to see how important it is to monetise your website with adverts?

The 5 best ad networks for bloggers are:

• Google AdSense
• Media.net
• Monumetric
• MediaVine
• AdThrive

Bloggers starting out should use Adsense ASAP.

Once you hit the requirements of MediaVine you should change to this network as soon as possible.

If you are in the “food” or “mummy” niche you should focus on getting over 100,000 page views per month to really benefit from using AdThrive.

And do you begin to notice that content is ALWAYS king?

If you write posts that help your readers it will increase your page views per month and they will not mind putting up with a couple of ads at the side.

Keep changing for the better

Mike

P.S. If you are interested in making money online to free up your time, have a look at my #1 recommended program here, which I am currently using.

P.P.S. If you have any questions or thoughts please feel free to drop a comment below… or send me a message on WA here

---

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Pin this if you think this should be shared!

Discover the Best Niche to Make Money Online

There may be affiliate links in this article on the best niche to make money online, read the full disclaimer here.

 

Imagine what it would be like if you knew what was the best niche to make money online.

 

 

Now let me ask you this…

“What are you passionate about?”

If you’re like me then this is a question that you have often asked yourself.

But there is a slight issue to this question with making money online…

 

The playing field is not always equal depending on what niche you choose.

As you absorb this information, you’ll realise these differences and find out what the best niche to make money online is.

If you are wondering whether your niche is profitable, about to start a blog or thinking of starting within a new niche, then read on to see these findings…

 

But I’m Not Interested in Just Making Money I Want to Enjoy What I do!

---

Yes!!!

That’s the response I was hoping for!

 

So it’s important that I start with this disclaimer:

Any online niche can make money. And they have a much greater chance of succeeding if you are passionate about what you do! Passion will show in every blog post that you write and it will never feel like work. This will allow you to reach higher levels of income than you could in a niche that you weren’t interested in.

 

However, this article is using facts from a study by the Millionaire Blogger to help you see the best niche to make money online.

Read the Blog Income Report Research Study

 

What are the BIG 6 Niches? 

---

Brandon Gaille found that the most profitable blogs that he studied fell into 6 niches:

1. Food
2. Personal Finance
3. Mommy
4. Travel
5. Marketing
6. Lifestyle

The lifestyle niche included a variety of interests that made up their everyday lives such as fitness, fashion, journaling and sewing.

The Mommy blogs could have fallen into this niche. But he found there were enough that had a clear focus on motherhood and used the word “mommy” or “mom within the title.

If the blogger wrote about SEO, blogging, social media marketing and small business then they fell into the marketing niche.

Personal finance, food and travel are pretty self-explanatory!

 

This study uncovered 2 main findings:

1. Which niche had the most bloggers making $2k+ per month?
2. Which niche had the highest median monthly income?

 

This then resulted in the best niche to make money online. 

 

Related Articles:

• Why Make Time Online? Financial Independence Retire Early Blog
• Save Hours of Time with these Resources
• What I’ve Learnt from Reading Over 100 Books in the Last 3 Years
• The Secret to Earn Passive Income
• Why do People Create Blogs? These 28 Bloggers Explain Their Story
• How we Save £30,000 a Year and Travel as Teachers

 

#1 How Many Bloggers Make $2,000+ Per Month? 

---

There seems to be a pretty clear cut off point from blogging being a hobby to becoming a more serious business.

What is that cut off point?

When it starts earning more than $2,000 per month!

So Brandon worked out the percentage of bloggers earning more than $2k per month for each niche.

Here are his findings…

 

 

As you can see the top three niches make up 62% of the bloggers in this study who were making $2k+ each month:

1. Personal finance- 24%
2. Marketing- 21%
3. Food- 17%

 

#2 Which Niche had the Highest Median Monthly Income? 

---

Wow, these findings are eye-opening!

 

As you can see the personal finance and food niches stand out like Vince Vaughn at a midgets convention.

 

 

The BIG 3 Findings

---

Now, there are 3 huge takeaways from the study. 

 

#1 Personal finance is the best niche to make money online. The food niche is not too far behind.

Brandon even made an equation to leave him with a score out of 100 to answer this question…

What is the best niche to make money online?

The closer the score to 100, the easier it is to make money in this niche:

 

 

#2 The marketing niche has an easy path to reach $2k per month

Even though the marketing niche has the lowest median income out of the 6 niches it still ranked 3rd overall.

This is because it seems like it’s much easier to reach $2k per month.

It’s possible to sell online courses that people would pay a high price tag for (unlike in the food niche) and there are heaps of affiliate marketing opportunities.

However, the marketing niche is much more saturated than other niches such as personal finance. This competition makes it hard to really grow your traffic or build your email list.

 

 

As you can see there is over 3.5 times the number of marketing blogs that appear on a Google search compared to personal finance blogs. 

 

#3 The food blogging niche has a different income distribution to most. 42% of their income comes from ads!

Food blogs tend to get higher monthly engagement than other blogs… This is because people eat every day! So they will often click onto a recipe that they are looking for that night.

Look at it this way… It’s not every day you are looking for a new credit card of a budget sheet!

 

 

This means food blogs tend to make higher monthly impressions and AdThrive (the highest paying ad network) is specifically targeted for food bloggers. AdThrive provides great ads for food blogs, which means visitors will be more likely to click on an ad as it is relevant for why they are on that website anyway!

 

Related articles:

• The 5 Best Ad Networks to Make Money
• How does Blogging Make Money?

 

Further Questions That Need Answering

---

Now, there are some clear results from these findings but it does leave us needing some more information to determine how conclusive the research is.

 

Here are some questions that would be great if Brandon could answer:

1. How were these blogs selected for this study?
2. How many blogs were in each niche? (there are a lot more marketing blogs that exist compared to something like the personal finance niche)
3. Does this mean there are some biases to finding better know blogs in certain niches?
4. What are the personal finance and marketing distribution of income?

 

The Best Niche to Make Money Online Summary

---

Unlike most articles you may find about what the best niche to make money online say, this shows a clear winner!

 

So the personal finance and food niches stand out as the most lucrative of the blogging niches. However, do you remember reading the disclaimer earlier?…

Any online niche can make money. And they have a much greater chance of succeeding if you are passionate about what you do! Passion will show in every blog post that you write and it will never feel like work. This will allow you to reach higher levels of income than you could in a niche that you weren’t interested in.

STOP! 

Now read that again.

 

On the other hand, you may be interested in 2 niches i.e. Travel or food. Now you have a clear road map about which one will be more lucrative and it would be worth pursuing your interest in food if you were on the fence!

The more you keep reading this article, the more you will understand what the best niche to make money online is.

 

Keep changing for the better

 

Mike

 

P.S. If you are interested in making money online to free up your time, have a look at my #1 recommended program here, which I am currently using.

 

P.P.S. Remember to pin this post and if you have any questions or thoughts please feel free to drop a comment below… or send me a message on WA here

 

 

How does Blogging Make Money?

There may be affiliate links in this article about “how does blogging make money?” read the full disclaimer here.

 

After you read this article you will have learnt the answer to the question “how does blogging make money?” 

 

 

I don’t want to faff around so let’s get into it!

There are 3 main ways to monetise a blog.

1. Advertising
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Creating and selling your own products or courses

 

1. Adverts

---

You probably know there are 2 different ways to make money from advertising:

1. Advertising Networks
2. Direct advertising/ sponsored posts

 

Advertising networks

This is probably what most people will think of when they think of making money from adverts.

There are a few different networks that bloggers can use but here are the main ones:

 

• Google AdSense- Little requirements, I’ve heard it helps to have a website for 6 months
• Monumetric- need 10,000 page views a month
• Mediavine- need 25,000 page views a month
• Ad Thrive- need 100,000 page views per month

 

As you can see there are different requirements to work with each network but the ads generally pay more the harder the requirements are.

 

So how do you get paid from having adverts on your website?

That is the right question!

You generally get paid in one of 2 ways:

1. Cost per thousand (CPM) i.e. $4 for every 1,000 views 
2. Pay per click (PPC)

 

If you are a new blogger it’s best to start with Google AdSense even though the pay will be the lowest.

It will probably pay around $2 per thousand “impressions” (how many people see the ad i.e. view your website) i.e. 10,000 views in a month pays $20 (so it’s not much!)

 

Now, I can almost hear your mind saying…

“But that will make my website look tacky!” 

You may have a point but here are 4 BIG reasons why you should use adverts ASAP:

1. Your readers will be used to seeing ads… so it won’t be a big shock when you add them!
2. If you have a post that does go viral you will be thankful you had them on there.
3. Something is better than nothing, it can offset other costs such as automatically pinning on Pinterest with tailwind 
4. People are used to seeing ads everywhere (Youtube, TV, Podcasts, Newspaper etc.)

 

Not only that, you can actually help connect people with products that may help them if you choose good and relevant adverts to what you write about.

 

Starting with AdSense helps to learn the process.

It will make the future switches much easier to know where to place the ads and how to work with the network etc.

 

Related Article:

Bloggers! How to make money with Adverts

 

Direct Advertising/ Sponsored Posts

Now, this way is slightly less well known but it can be more lucrative for beginner bloggers.

Direct advertising is when a company reaches out to you to either publish a post on their behalf or ask you write a post for them. It may be a review of a product or simply a post about their industry.

The idea is that they would want a link to their product or their own website and your blog will send targeted traffic there!

The price of this can vary greatly but will typically be over $150 and can go into the $1,000’s depending on how relevant and big your website is.

 

So let’s move onto the next monetisation method…

 

Related Articles:

• Why Make Time Online? Financial Independence Retire Early Blog
• Save Hours of Time with these Resources
• What I’ve Learnt from Reading Over 100 Books in the Last 3 Years
• The Secret to Earn Passive Income
• Why do People Create Blogs? These 28 Bloggers Explain Their Story
• How we Save £30,000 a Year and Travel as Teachers

 

2. Affiliate Marketing

---

Affiliate marketing is the best thing for bloggers since sliced bacon!

A big reason some people never start (or quit too soon) is because they don’t know what product to create… YET!

The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you can start earning a decent income without even having your own product! It’s not uncommon for bloggers to earn $6,000+ per month from promoting other people’s products. 

 

Now, I used to get a bit funny about “selling” stuff to people. Especially when it isn’t even my own product!

However, let me ask you this…

Have you ever watched a film that you recommend a friend go and see at the cinema? Or have you ever told a friend about an amazing deal after you found one in H&M? 

Of course you have!

 

That’s why as long as you only recommend great products that will help other people, you’ll actually be providing a service. If they buy it and it helps them then they will thank you for it!

Affiliate marketing is all about connecting people that are already looking for a product.

The important thing is to be honest.

I mean think about it… If you’ve tried the product out you are much more likely to know some of the things that other people will be concerned about or looking for.

 

Related articles:

• 8 Ways to Avoid a Scam Online
• 6 Questions all Bloggers Need to Answer

 

There are loads of other programs or products you can become an affiliate of and a whole range of different “niches” (topics) you can choose to write about.

 

Examples:

• Amazon Associates– anything!
• Shareasale– almost anything!
• Clickbank– mainly digital products
• CJ Affiliate program– almost everything
• Shopify– eCommerce
• Rakuten– Online store

 

And here are some popular blogging affiliate links:

• Leadpages- Online marketing tool
• StudioPress- WordPress themes
• ConvertKit– Autoresponder
• Bluehost– Hosting service
• Tailwind– Pinterest scheduler
• Wealthy Affiliate– Affiliate marketing training, support and hosting service.

 

If you are interested in learning more about how you can monetise your website and particularly how you can get the most success from affiliate marketing then try out this free email course. 

Some of what it covers:

• What do you NEED to get started (that most people don’t know)
• How to write quality content
• Optimise the 2 most important pages on your website
• The secrets to email marketing 
• What is the future of digital marketing?
• Get traffic on tap

 

 

So this leads us onto the third and last way (or is it the last way?) of monetising a website…

 

3. Creating and selling your own products 

---

So this is where the big boys and girls make the BIG money!

 

Check out Brand Gaille’s Income Report Study. This shows how bloggers earning over $25k per month make 80% of their income from their own courses. 

 

However, you don’t have to be an experienced blogger to start creating some of your own products.

For example, you could create a free 7-day Pinterest course, that you’d send out with your autoresponder, and a $7 Workbook that compliments this course nicely so you can get the most out of it!

Try out this free course if you want to instantly get more eyes on your website (FYI there is not an upsell for a $7 workbook!!)

 

 

There is one thing to bear in mind though…

Make sure people actually want what you are offering.

 

This is a common mistake that some businesses make early on. They may create an amazing product but they have not tested to see who their target market is or IF anyone wants it!

The beauty of blogging (if you do offer good content) is that you will begin to have subscribers and people that are interested in what you are doing.

You can then just ask them what they want or what they find the most interesting and create products related to this!

So as I hinted earlier there is another way to make money online.

It’s great to get some income early on, and it’s great to learn more… 

 

BONUS- Consulting or Services 

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So this is not necessarily a way to make money from your blog. However, it is so closely linked that I think it should be included in this post on how does blogging make money.

You can write/ proofread/ advertise for other businesses or bloggers for an agreed upon rate.

Some people may start writing posts for less than $0.10 per word but some freelance writers will earn $1,000’s per post that they write for someone else.

It’s a great way to supplement your income when starting out in the blogging world.

This will require hustle to find people or companies willing to do this, and you may have to offer a lower price than what you are worth to get started and learn the ropes. 

Grant Sabatier speaks about how overdelivering early on can have huge benefits to create a system that other people want and are willing to pay more for.

Check out the podcast for more details:

How to make $50,000 in 4 days and Reach Financial Freedom with Grant Sabatier.

 

Feel free to contact me here if this is something you are looking for:

mike@maketimeonline.com

 

Related articles:

How to Make Money at Home

 

Another way some bloggers will make money is by consulting or coaching other bloggers.

This can really vary from specific feedback, goal setting, deciding on a niche etc.

 

Remember to pin this post on “how does blogging make money”…

 

How does Blogging Make Money Summary 

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As you get closer to the end of this article you begin to realise the answer to the question, how does blogging make money.

 

There are the main 3 ways to monetise a blog:

1. Advertising 
2. Affiliate marketing
3. Creating and selling your own products

But remember, consulting or offering services is the most common way for bloggers to start making money early on. It helps to learn and develop these skills, whilst making money from doing so. 

 

And do you begin to realise the importance of starting a website and continuing to learn? 

 

Keep changing for the better

 

Mike

 

6 Questions for Bloggers to Answer – Part 2

There may be affiliate links in this article of questions for bloggers to answer, read the full disclaimer here.

 

 

Part one includes:

1. Should I pay for hosting?
2. Will people care what I write about?
3. How do I get more traffic to my blog?

Click here to read part one

 

4. How do I make Money Blogging?

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Ah so you want to make more money than Donald Trump saves on his tax return each year?

 

Enter mini rant!

 

So I know some bloggers who claim to not be interested in monetizing their blog.

And that’s great!

However, I know A LOT of bloggers who are interested in monetising it “some day”.

But they are not prepared to learn how to do this or figure out it’s possible

The way I see it is if you can monetise your blog to replace your income you can spend more time on it and really add value to more people.

So why wouldn’t you be interested in monetising your blog?

Unless you’re not interested in really adding value to others and it is just a hobby?!

 

End rant… sorry I’ll climb down from my pedestal now!

 

Anyhoo… there are 3 main ways to monetise a website/ blog/ YouTube account etc.

1. Adverts/ Sponsors
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Creating and selling your own products

Let’s dive in a bit more eh?…

 

Related Articles:

• Why Make Time Online? Financial Independence Retire Early Blog
• Save Hours of Time with these Resources
• What I’ve Learnt from Reading Over 100 Books in the Last 3 Years
• The Secret to Earn Passive Income
• Why do People Create Blogs? These 28 Bloggers Explain Their Story

 

Adverts

Have you ever heard of Google Adsense?

 

This is the most common way of getting paid from having adverts on your website.

You know those ads at the start of a Youtube video? Yeah that’s Adsense.

The person who made the video will get around $0.04 per viewer (roughly!)

 

The same can be done on a website. You know those ads on at the side of a website?

Yep, you guessed it… same thing!

 

When you’re getting heaps of viewers every month this can be a great way to generate some cash.

If you’re like me then you probably get annoyed by these ads!

So if you are still pretty new, you may want to consider whether it’s worth putting them on your website to get a couple of dollars a month.

 

It’s personal preference and I know some people do it just to learn how it’s possible!

 

Affiliate marketing

Now, let me ask you this…

 

Are you interested in earning pennies or dollars?

 

Well, affiliate marketing is how you can start earning some dollars. This will be the main income for most people in the online world once they start to get established. 

 

What is Affiliate Marketing?

It’s connecting people to a product they are looking for online.

 

 

A lot of people will want to get going with an online business and won’t really have their own products to sell.

So it’s possible to get a commission for recommending other people’s services or products (a commission of anything from 4-75%).

 

Here are some affiliate websites that many people will use to find a whole variety of products:

• Amazon Associates– anything!
• Shareasale– almost anything!
• Clickbank– mainly digital products
  
• CJ Affiliate program– almost everything
• Shopify– eCommerce
• Rakuten– Online store

 

And here are some popular individual affiliate links:

• Leadpages- Online marketing tool
• StudioPress- WordPress themes
  
• ConvertKit– Autoresponder
• Bluehost– Hosting service
• Tailwind– Pinterest scheduler
• Wealthy Affiliate– Affiliate marketing training, support and hosting service.

 

And last but certainly not least…

 

Create your own products

This is often where people make the big bucks online!

It’s typical for online marketers to make a bit of income from adverts and affiliate marketing.

Once this becomes regular the natural path is to create their own product, get others to be an affiliate of this and start gaining more of the profits from their product (100% if bought through their own website or however much is left over after paying an affiliate)

 

This is often when $10,000 a month becomes $100,000+ per month.

Read Michelle Schroeder-Gardner’s income report here.

 

However, there are cases where someone has a product they know the market would really want and dive straight into selling their own product

 

Create a Money Making Website in 9 days

Find out how you can design a website to make money. Use the step by step approach to set your website up for success

 

 

 

Lets Do This!

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5. What Plugins Should I Use?

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I wish I had the foresight to even be aware of what a plugin was when I started out!

Some of these are literally lifesavers, and I don’t know how I used to live without them!!

 

Here are the MUST HAVES:

Yoast SEO

This is the FIRST MUST HAVE!!

Literally, get this and learn the basics of writing for SEO.

Just remember to use this as a template NOT gospel!

 

SumoMe

This is how you can really drive your traffic and increase your sign-ups to your email list.

 

An absolute must-have if you have any interest in monetising your website.

 

Pretty Links

If you have affiliate links coming out of your ears then this is a great way to not let Google get suspicious about your website.

General rule:

If you are linking to related content then DO NOT use a pretty link. Google likes to see that you do link to relevant other real websites

If it’s an affiliate link, use a pretty link (it makes it look like it is an internal link to your website)

 

Some VERY close behind must haves:

W3 Cache

It makes your website faster.

Faster = better user experience = better SEO = good for you

Period.

 

EWWW

This is a great way to compress images to make your website load faster.

Fdsa I still compress my images using a free png compressor but this plugin compresses them EVEN more!!

This gives my website scores of 90+ out of 100 on desktops and even some 100’s!… (yes I need to improve my mobile speed!!)

 

 

 

Google Analytics

This is a great way to see your stats without having to log in to Google Analytics all the time.

It can also give you some VERY useful extras to see where traffic is coming from and help you to improve your traffic strategies.

IMPORTANT NOTE- Try not to have too many Plugins (5 or less is IDEAL) as this affects your website speed and therefore SEO.

You need to decide what is important for you at what time (you can always uninstall a plugin and bring it back in later)

 

6. Do I NEED to pay for a Training Course?

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Let me ask you this question in another way.

Do you want to take your website as a serious online business?

The answer to that question will decide the answer to the first question.

 

You’re intelligent enough to know that the most successful people pay for courses or mentorships to fast track their learning.

If you want to be like them then you know what the answer is.

 

With all the scams and make money online courses you see out there it can be super hard to know whether to trust a course or not.

 

Related article:

• How to Tell an Online Scam

 

There are literally thousands of people that create a course like this so it makes it really hard to know whom to trust.

So I’m going to throw out a few names of people that I personally trust.

 

Examples

I haven’t personally taken courses by them but I have their books, blogs, emails and read reviews. I’ve only ever heard good things (note-there are no affiliate links here I just want you to have options):

Michelle-Schroeder Gardner- Affiliate marketing ($197)

Pete McPherson- Blogging courses (courses range from $57-$299+)

Anik Singal – Email marketing (I have only seen Inbox blueprint for $997 but I am very interested in this course as it does sound impressive!)

 

I would eat my hat if you try one of their courses out and are not happy with the content.

The reason I haven’t tried their courses (yet!) is because I am going ALL IN with the course I am currently using.

 

Why?

And here are a few reasons I chose this over the others:

• The cost is reasonable
• It’s an ongoing platform with an extremely active community (over 100,000 members at all stages of their online marketing careers)
• There is soooo much quality training (in different formats and always being updated) with live webinars every week (mainly SEO and affiliate marketing training in case you were wondering)
• You get amazing hosting (worth over $200 a year)
• It chucks in a keyword research tool (worth $19 a month)
• I have a personal mentor (the person I joined using his affiliate link- Just like MasterCard… this is priceless)
• You get the most out of a course if you complete it. I’m 6 months in and I am nowhere near completing the training!

 

There are a lot more reasons too but this is why I went with this training over the names I put above.

If this sounds like something you may be interested in then click below to try it out for FREE (stay as a free member as long as you like & no credit card details are needed… you literally have nothing to lose!)

 

Click here to try Wealthy Affiliate for Free.

 

I can almost hear your mind screaming…

But how much did YOU pay Mikey boy!?

I paid $299 for an annual membership.

Is it worth it?

You tell me after you try it out for absolutely free!

 

Related articles:

• Discover the Perfect Part Time Job Online
• Wealthy Affiliate Review

   

Questions for Bloggers to Answer Summary

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These are some of the questions for bloggers to answer as soon as possible.

 

If you can answer these 6 questions it will help you be a lot more successful and passionate about what you are writing about.

1. Should I pay for hosting?
2. Will people care what I write about?
3. How do I get more traffic to my blog?
4. How do I make money blogging?
5. What plugins should I use?
6. Do I need to pay for a training course?

 

This will help you to have more clarity and ultimately provide more quality value and content for your readers. 

 

Keep changing for the better

 

Mike

 

P.S. If you have any questions or thoughts please feel free to drop a comment below… or send me a message on WA here

 

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